The Roanoke Times from Roanoke, Virginia • 19

Roanoke limes World News SCOREBOARD B2 OUTDOORS B11 I SUNDAY MAY 27 1990 SPORTS SECTION JACK BOGACZYK COMMENTARY I I Much ado about nothing I DESTIN la The Metro Conference spring meetings that ended riday produced little 1 more than a couple of stale one liners: tell Another oft repeated quip from Metro athletic directors was borrowed from David Let late night TV madness: Dave as in Dave Braine Virginia AD and the outgoing chairman of the Metro athletic com mittee Braine spoke for his asso ciates at three days of news con ferences His words include much wisdom Given the chance to enter the 1 990s as a conference devel oping into one of the foremost alliances the Metro did just about what it has done on expansion and football in the last decade: 1 Nothing Given the best opportunity it has had in a 1 5 year history to reshape its destiny the Metro if you listen to its administrators took the advice of a sports marketing and consulting firm shook hands and left Gulf Coast all smiles or years the criticism of the Metro has been that basket ball power Louisville has been running the show Now it ap pears a marketing firm Raycom Sports and Entertainment is in charge The Metro ADs sat through 1 5 hours of meetings at this beach side resort and more than half of that time was spent dis cussing the major issues of ex pansion and football Commis sioner Ralph Mcillen had said those proposals would be ap proved only if they went hand in hand After raving for three weeks about the thoroughness of a commissioned study on the sub ject from Raycom Metro offi cials told the assembled and seemingly intimidating me dia that the league needed more numbers I or three weeks Metro ath letic directors and Mcillen spoke of how the Raycom study for which the Metro paid about $25000 would show th? potential invitees how seri ous the league was i At the start of these meet ings several athletic directors said they figured their group would leave lorida prepared to make a recommendation to the Metro presidents That happen Even the most anticipated guest Raycom executive vice president Ken Haines pass up the chance to parody the interest in the Metro moves I you heard about Maryland being put off live Haines said after arriving from the ACC meetings in Myrtle Beach SC Thursday evening moving Maryland into the Metro to play I Somebody asked Cincinnati athletic director Rick Taylor what he knew i the Shadow Taylor said the Shadow somebody wondered aloud Taylor said i Ifnot for a large dose of levi ty among the attendees the high light film of these meetings might have been titled Blanket PLEASE SEE NOTHINGB10 Jack Bogaczyk has covered the Metro Conference for this newspaper since 1979 'v Sfi I 1 I Hl i Sffri I 1 sAkbs! Ik i i i DON PETERSEN Staff Howard Augustine Wheeler president of Charlotte Motor Speedway learned the race track business from the dirt up Call him the Wheeler dealer By RANDY KING SPORTSWRITER CONCORD NC When Tom Cotter went to work in the Charlotte Motor Speedway publicity department in April 1985 he considered himself open minded was young I was eager and I desperately wanted to learn the ropes of the public relations Cotter says was a guy who came up with a lot of crazy ideas a guy who thought he had a vision of things a guy who felt he knew a Cotter stops He begins to laugh what I he says chuck ling again of course I met Like other professional sports NASCAR racing has a small cast of prime time characters who are identified by a single name Richard and Junior Cale and Dale And Lesser known as Howard Augustine Wheeler II Better known as Charlotte Motor Speedway presi dent race promoter extraordinaire the Bill Veeck and Charlie inley of stock car racing Cotter says PLEASE SEE HUMPYB8 Earnhardt enjoying merry May Coca Cola 600 win today would complete sweep By RANDY KING SPORTSWRITER CONCORD NC Contrary to popular belief Dale Earnhardt and his team won every thing this month me and the guys hit a one of those lorida lottery Coca Cola 600 Darrell Waltrip seeks his third straight and sixth overall victory in this race 12:30 pm TBS cable tickets the man gave us last Earnhardt said I thought as hot as been lately one of us was sure to Well the lottery tickets have been the only losing plays for Earn hardt and his team lately Heading into Coca Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway Richard Childress team has won two biggies in a row the Winston 500 on May 6 at Talladega Ala and The Winston last Sunday at Charlotte Now Earnhardt has the broom out He desperately wants a May sweep hot and on a Earnhardt said know what? We feel even better about the 600 been a good month for us Now we want to make it an even better A victory today would put Dale Earnhardt Win streak is two Earnhardt in the draft of what could be the greatest single season by a driver in NASCAR history If Earnhardt wins the 600 third of four 1990 ma jors he will have a shot at the Win ston Million bonus in the Sept 2 Heinz Southern 500 at Darlington SC The 1 million bonus to award ed to any driver who can win three of stock car crown jewels in a single season really hard for me to be lieve that someone could win four or five races a season the way the com petition is out there right now in the said Earnhardt who counting the all star victory in The PLEASE SEE6OOB9 Desire to win burns at Indy By MIKE HARRIS ASSOCIATED PRESS INDIANAPOLIS The speed is frightening the atmosphere elec tric the money phenomenal The Indianapolis 500 is all that and more The 74th running of the Indianapolis 500 Emerson ittipaldi will start at the front of the record setting field 11 am WSET Channel 13 oldest and richest race scheduled to take the green flag today at noon will be no less Add to that a burning any thing to win desire Just ask defending champion Emerson ittipaldi or Al Unser Jr the man who could have won last May Who could forget the 220 mph Emerson ittipaldi Tries to repeat A 22 I A 1 Mr battle that saw ittipaldi and Unser darting in and out of traffic desper ately trying to gain an edge as the? PLEASE SEE INDYB9 Slaughter wins NCAA golf title Staff report HILTON HEAD ISLAND SC As she contin ued to watch putts slide by the hole Susan Slaughter told herself that the only way she would make a birdie Saturday was to hit an approach shot 2 feet from the hole exactly what Slaughter did on the first hole of a playoff as she won the individual championship in the NCAA Division I golf tour nament at Arthur Hills Golf Course Slaughter a University of Arizo na sophomore from loyd Va shot a 3 over par 75 Saturday to finish with a 72 hole total of 297 which put her in a tie with University of Texas junior Michiko Hattori One shot back were Dina Amma Slaughter capane of San Jose State and Dana Arnold of Southern Cal Defending champion Pat Hurst was one of three players at 299 as the top 1 1 PLEASE SEE SLAUGHTERB10 Bulls Jordan bounce back Associated Press CHICAGO Michael Jordan broke his silence and the spell the Detroit Pistons had cast over his Chicago Bulls Jordan scored 47 points and Scottie Pippen had 29 points and 1 1 rebounds as the Bulls rallied for a 107 102 victory Saturday in Game 3 of the NBA Eastern Conference fi nals The Pistons hold a 2 1 lead in the best of seven series Jordan who shunned the media after Tuesday 102 93 loss at Detroit said his decision not to talk was not a tactic and that he had not criticized his teammates as had been widely reported say guys playing well I said playing Jordan said of his out burst after Game 2 talk because I wanted to give the other guys a chance to The Bulls fought back from a 1 4 point deficit in the third quarter Saturday did not lose Jordan said: did everything we had to do down the stretch to win the ball Jordan said all the Chicago players contributed as the Bulls snapped a six game losing streak against the Pistons in the playoffs and regular season always scored a lot of points it has always been a team Jordan said took advantage of my opportunities against the best defensive player in the league Joe DumarsJ Today the offensive player had the edge Pippen stepped in and Ed Nealy helped although not nec essarily by scoring a lot of points We were aggressive I tried to push PLEASE SEE BULLSB10 Bill Laimbeer feels defeat for the first time against Chicago in the NBA playoffs 1" I "1V IK Al Henderson ties American League record for stolen bases B5 RM.