Winston-Salem Journal from Winston-Salem, North Carolina • 22

PAGE 22 WINSTON SALEM JOURNAL Monday May 29 1989 SPORTS Harper Provided Inspiration Guidance to His Players at Wake orest By Mary Garber JOURNAL REPORTER Tom Harper was a man of intense loyal ties If he was your friend he stood by you in any circumstance He had a quick wit and was an incurable tease He pushed his players hard but had an innate sense of knowing when to let up ootball was not just his profes sion it was his life Harper died after a heart attack last week while in Savannah Ga promoting Clemson foot ball He was an assistant coach at Wake orest 1969 71 and head coach in 1972 The Dea cons went 2 9 and Harper was fired after the eighth game though he finished the season He was the first coach hired when Cal Stoll came to Wake orest from Michigan State The first time I met him I asked him a routine question about one of his players have to talk with Coach Stoll about Harper said I was shocked Assistant coaches at Wake orest had always talked with me about their players I went to Stqll He told Harper that it was all right for him to TOM HARPER talk rom then on he talked quite freely We had frequent and long conversations not just about football but about a wide vari ety of subjects Once I faced a crisis in my career I was discouraged And though I say any thing about it to Harper when I dropped by his office he sensed it after his first kidding remark the he asked I told him He listened quietly and without comment Then he gave me some excellent advice He told me to cool it to keep on doing my job to the best of my ability He assured me that if I did that things would work out They did He came as an offensive line coach but switched to defensive coordinator know what a defensive coordina tor was when I got the he quipped He found out He built Wake de fense from last in the ACC to second in the two years he held the job He was a student of football always fasci nated by the game He knew how to get the best out of his players He would gather a group around go over the defensive plan for the next game they run this play what do you he would ask And before a player could answer Harper would point a finger at one of them when you take over and he would say He just tell his players what to do he did it with them the Deacons did calisthenics Har per was with them He set up awards for the of the and had a poster which recognized defensive players Although he emphasized hard work he said that football should be fun you get fun out of what doing missing He had a good understanding of sports writing We talked about the sportswriting profession often One night he dropped by the Journal office the first time any Wake orest head coach has ever paid the staff a visit always looking over my he told me come to look over yours He spent about an hour here watching us work and asking questions He loved to tease Beattie eathers the former Tennessee star was an assistant coach with the Deacons at the time eathers was often given awards by football groups and when he got one Harper was all over him gotten another he would kid Sometimes it seemed that Harper was carrying it too far But the razzing helped eathers know that he was part of the gang Harper did get carried away once After Tennessee had beaten the Deacons in 1972 one of the Vol players said he know that Wake orest would be that soft Angered Harper teed off on the Vols at the Wake orest Club saying that Tennessee had a good team but was made up of When he cooled off he called Coach Bill Battle of Tennessee to apol ogize When Stoll left to go to Minnesota Harper was named head coach It work out or one thing he tried to move too quickly He brought in junior college players who cut it either academically or athletical ly He found it hard to be a head man He was used to working closely with the players' He like theoff the field duties required of a head man We had always gotten along well and been honest with each other He reacted strongly to the negative things written about the Deacs Though we talked several times about his chances to survive the year he insisted that he was surprised when he was fired The players reacted by upsetting Duke He worked to get jobs for his coaches but he able to get one for himself He was out of coaching for a year He spent the time watching football and drawing up football plays He got back into college coaching at Iowa State then went to Carolina Virginia Tech and Clemson By the time he had gotten to Clemson he could talk about the bad year at Wake orest He built a defensive program at Clemson with the same hird work and intense loyalty he had done at other schools should see this new guy he told me so big he could play middle guard and defensive tackle at the same It was William Perry Despite his ability to see the humor in things he was a man of intense feelings not concerned about how he said once will write my own evaluation I know when wrong And I will be a lot more critical of myself than other people will be because I see myself more feel it is important for me to look good in my own eyes because I have to live with myself I kid myself I must recognize my errors and do something about them only time I am going to worry is when I done my job or I know how to do INDY 500 Continued rom Page 17 drivers wanting the Indy 500 as bad as we did both going to go into the corner and only one man is going to come out This time it was Emmo that came ittipaldi said that he was going inside on Turn 3 because of the traf fic tried to come inside and we touched wheels and I guess he lost it I had more luck I won the he said The wild finish was set up when the 27 year old Unser whose father and four time winner Al Sr had dropped out afterpnly 68 laps passed ittipaldi with four laps remaining The stirring duel brought the crowd to its feet The bump was reminiscent of the incident at Long Beach Calif last month when it was Unser who knocked Mario Andretti out of the race in the waning laps It was also similar to the incident last July at the New Jersey Meadow lands when Unser hit ittipaldi from behind and knocked him out of the race in a late battle for the lead of you badmouth Al for Mar at Long Beach Al Sr told reporters who are you going to badmouth? it looked like was Emmo ran out of Tom Binford the chief steward at Indy said that no penalties were ex pected in incident think it was a racing he said look at it different ways as to who was at fault or not at He said that he saw no reason to consider a penalty Earlier it was 26 year old Michael Andretti who posed the challenge' but he succumbed to the same type of bad luck that his father Mario has become known for here Leading af ter 161 laps running so well that ittipaldi said couldn't hold Michael blew an engine on the main straightaway was going too smooth I Andretti said feeling pretty That left ittipaldi with a seven second lead over Unser Jr When Tero Palmroth of inland lost a tire on lap 181 the sixth cau tion flag of the day came out giving ittipaldi an opportunity to make one last pit stop It also set up the final showdown ittipaldi is the first foreign bom winner at Indy since Andretti 20 years ago INDIANAPOLIS 500 RESULTS NOTE: These are unofficial results The official results are scheduled to be posted at 9 am EDT today OTHER RACE INORMATION Average winning speed: 167581 mph Time of race: 2 hours 59 minutes 104 seconds Margin of victory: more than 1 lap in Start Driver Country Car Laps Reason Out 1 3 Emerson ittipaldi Brazil PC 18 Chevrolet 200 2 8 Al Unser Jr USA Lola Chevrolet 198 accident 3 9 Raul Boesel Brazil Lola Judd 194 4 5 Mario Andretti USA Lola Chevrolet 193 5 10 AJ oyt USA Loia Cosworth 193 6 6 Scott Brayton USA Lola Buick 193 7 31 Davy Jones USA Lola Cosworth 192 8 33 Rich Vogler USA March Cosworth 192 9 20 Bernard Jourdain Mexico Lola Cosworth 191 10 17 Scott Pruett USA Lola Judd 190 1 1 25 John Jones Canada Lola Cosworth 188 12 "30 Billy Vukovlch III USA Lola Judd 186 13 18 Ludwig Helmrath Jr USA Lola Judd 185 14 28 Rocky Moran USA March Cosworth 181 15 24 Derek Daly USA Lola Judd 167 16 16 Tero Palmroth inland March Porsche 165 broken spindle 17 21 Michael Andretti USA Lola Chevrolet 163 blown engine 18 29 Dominic Dobson USA Lola Cosworth 161 19 4 Jim Crawford Scotland Lola Buick 135 drive train 20 19 Didier Theys Belgium Loia Cosworth 131 engine 21 15 Arie Luyendyk Nthertnds Lola Cosworth 123 blown engine 22 32 Pancho Carter USA Lola Cosworth 112 electrical 23 1 Rick Mears USA PC 1 8 Chevrolet 113 blown engine 24 2 Al Unser USA PC 1 8 Chevrolet 68 clutch 25 12 John Andretti USA Lola Buick 61 engine 26 7 Bobby Rahal USA Lola Cosworth 58 dropped valve 27 22 Tom Sneva USA Lola Buick 55 pit fire 28 26 Danny Sullivan USA PC 1 8 Chevrolet 41 clutch 29 11 Randy Lewis USA Lola Cosworth 24 wheel bearing 30 13 Teo abl Italy March Porsche 23 Ignition 31 23 Gordon Johncock USA Lola Buick 19 engine 32 27 Kevin Cogan USA March Cosworth 2 accident 33 14 Gary Bettenhausen USA Lota Buick 0 bent valve 34th career superspeedway victory Despite victory the race was all Alan up until the moment his engine died with 45 miles to go The performance was finest since joining the tour in 1986 was just getting ready to have a good run with Waltrip and the motor blew Kulwicki said looked to me like we were quicker all day than Darrell even though he had more horsepower on the straights He would have been hard to pass but we were Motor failure also doomed Wal lace who led only 22 laps but ran second to Kulwicki most of the day Wallace fell out on lap 306 of the 400 lapper Waltrip took the lead for good with 80 laps (120 miles) to go and he crossed the line a comfortable 10 car lengths ahead of runner up Sterling Marlin Kenny Schrader another nine seconds back was the only oth er car still on the lead lap at the finish been hard to restrain my emotions from what happened last said Waltrip referring his controversial tangle with Wallace that cost Waltrip the $240000 win share I gave Dick Beaty and Les Richter my word that it was Does Waltrip feel he earned a measure of revenge for last loss? learned not to become obsessed with just one he said let one car dictate the type of race you want to run When I woke up this morning I knew I had a good car and a good crew I knew if my car ran 600 miles be in victory Waltrip said that when Wallace dropped out he felt a little more re laxed took a little tension off it took a little pressure off to be he said want him to come up and take another little bite out of my bumper had a fast car all week Our car was faster almost every session We just want to make a mis take early This race is won partly by attrition and partly by being patient And a very patient fellow And probably why been able to win this race so many RIGHT front sway broke midway through the race making the car bounce wildly But his crew finally discovered the prob lem and fixed it And Waltrip broke away from the pack with 150 miles to go know what happened to the Waltrip said front end just flopped over on me I thought I was in trouble It took a few pit stops to determine what it was We kept working on the chassis be cause the sway bar usually Waltrip said that he discovered another problem with his car after the race: a leaking right front tire somebody a whole lot bigger than any one of us looking over WALTRIP Continued rom Page 17 RAWLINGS OTHER RACE INORMATION torrent of playful LAKERS COCA COLA 600 RESULTS plan worked again With 150 miles left Waltrip was Morgan engine and he slowed to a relative JE HAMMOND crew chief said I had my druth ers rather win the 600 than the race last weekend If I had to give up valve spring and broken valve springs also knocked us out of Atlan ta and Martinsville both times while we were leading a quality control problem with the guys who make these Marlin was only chal lenger down the stretch Ken Schrader developed an unexplained miles to go and he faded Marlin said think Darrell and I were pretty equal all day depending on the tires we had He was killing me on the straights But them Hen drick boys build good motors race got to pace your self I was hoping to beat Darrell but he was too stout Still we came here and ran good in front of 150000 or 160000 got a shot at that million And no not even thinking about that pressure the Southern 500 until September and a lot of road between now and then game plan was to wait and race the last 100 miles And what we did But sorry about whatever happened to Alan and Rusty because I wanted to beat both of them on the race Richard Petty said that he had to quit the race because his gas mask breathing system began choking him enough air com ing he said Son Kyle who has been in two savage crashes this week and who came in this morning in obvious pain played it tough and ran all day feel like aged 10 years this said the 28 year oId Petty country However when the political cli mate worsened in Beijing two weeks ago snags began to surface Concerns arose over insurance and protection for the participants other legal prob lems cropped up and the organizers ran into difficulties finding corpora tions willing to finance the event Hooks imposed a June 1 deadline for completing the deal so that Wake orest could proceed with its season ticket campaign and the printing of tickets Hooks said that he was still hope ful that the schools could work a deal' to play in China in the future if the opportunity arose Wake football team previ ously visited the ar East in 1982 when' it played Clemson in the Mi rage Bowl in Tokyo Clemson won that game 21 17 insistence of the Chinese govern ment both Wake and State officials were fairly confident that the game could be staged It would have been the first Ameri he said He means for us to be in Victory Lane be there And if He be in the truck Or in the Some drivers complained about NASCAR being too slow to throw the caution for some incidents and Waltrip agreed out there racing as hard as you can go and you see a car hit the wall hard for me to understand why the caution come out right away Maybe in another 17 years under Now Waltrip says that he hopes to keep his team rolling as the tour hits its brutal summer coast to coast border to border stretch just want my team to have a let down all pumped up And one of the hardest things in sports to keep the team fired up So the biggest thing we have to do is keep working hard and running The World 600 of course is not the only race on Memorial Day And Waltrip took a lighthearted swipe at the Indy 500 which bills itself as the great American race though its cars and engines are all designed and built in England you cross the Ohio River you go into a differ ent Waltrip said with a grin is the great American race I see how there could be anything more American than a Winston Cup stock car race on Me morial Day in Charlotte North Car olina These cars are American made by Americans in their own Kulwicki who had started from DARRELL WALTRIP if Wallace and would show up Mark Martin appeared to have things well in hand until Waltrip be gan his charge was ironic that both those ords had trouble there at the Waltrip said I take Sterling lightly I knew I had to put him away or be Waltrip said that he care for that final yellow that came out on lap 364 for Dick blown motor That set off a round of pit stops for fresh tires and a 50 mile dash to the finish had a two second lead and I had Alan and Sterling and Schrader racing each other and I was pulling away and then that yellow came Waltrip said it got tense there at the to run I felt if we could run the whole 600 miles we would win the WALTRIP STARTED in the fourth position He drove hard enough to stay in contention but soft enough to avoid the eventual me chanical problems that eliminated half the field He was able to delay a green flag pit stop until just after the midpoint and thus collected an extra $10000 Waltrip then settled into a groove using the formula that has produced five vic tories in the past 12 runnings of the 600 No other man has won this race more than three times The about fifth failed crawl car the result of a broken Average winning speed: 144077 mph Time of race: 4:09:52 Margin of victory: 99 seconds Caution flags: 7 for 36 laps Lead changes: 23 among 1 2 drivers Race Leaders: Kulwicki 1 5 Martin 6 58 Gant 59 Schader 60 Waltrip 61 63 Sacks 64 65 Gant 66 1 14 Wallace 1 Kulwicki 125 164 Wilson 165 179 Kulwicki 180 192 Elliott 193 194 Marlin 195 198 Wattrip 199 202 Wallace 203 214 Kulwicki 215 221 Earnhardt 222 223 Elliott 224 233 Kulwicki 234 257 Allison 258 Marlin 259 271 Kulwicki 272 320 Waltrip 321 400 Earnings 9 $126400 3 $61675 $44275 $30095 $32305 $29675 $15200 $16925 $9300 $12307 $11725 $7625 $9175 $9650 $6000 $5650 9 $6400 $5775 $4700 $5450 $58500 $6800 $3925 $3100 $6650 $5200 $4975 $4800 $13950 $10000 $10550 $1900 $6975 $2400 $1775 $10600 $1700 $2200 laps left in The Winston race the previous Sunday Wallace brazenly assaulted left bumper and sent the leader into a spin Wallace thus succeeded in enrag ing gang tilting all the un decided hearts in favor and adding a jolt of adrenalin to the Coca Cola 600 NASCAR or dered Wallace and Waltrip to sand down the rough edges in public but their statements of contrition lacked the ring of truth Waltrip a master psycholo gist offered to put up $200000 money for a rematch Wallace declined Waltrip zipped his lips as best he could given the circumstances and his personality want to say this was the most difficult week I ever spent at a race Waltrip reported was hard to restrain my emotions about last Sunday I gave Rusty and (NAS CAR official) Dick Beaty my word that it was a done deal still not hnnnv nbnnt it Nevertheless his tory Last Sunday was a bad deal but it lit a lire unaer guys wearing orange uniforms that no fire extinguisher going to put out It hurt their It certainly hurt chances A few minutes before the 600 he realized that he had won the war of suppressed words During driver introductions a crowd esti mated at 161000 greeted Wallace with a smattering of cheers and a rolling wave of boos Waltrip re ceived just the opposite welcome which amounted to an invitation for him to take Wallace out at the first opportunity Waltrip suppressed that urge too thing learned from my ex perience is not to become obsessed with one he said that car has beaten vou or driven that car in the past let Patience Waltrip said was his one car dictate the way going biggest virtue during the tour hour race were some cars during the race that beat me but they were aggravating Waltrip explained Jeff (Hammond his crew chief) kept saying want to toot a couple of other horns too: Kenny Bingham and Randy Dorton our engine men You might be able to put their motors in a boxcar and run pretty Track officials said that the crowd was around 160000 and that they sold every ticket for the first time ever They closed the infield at 10:30 pm Saturday The tire war may be over but teams are still having problems Goodyear sold 3600 tires here over the past 10 days and still teams ran short Some teams reported tire bills of more than $17000 before the 600 pole next to fellow ord driver even started POINT Waltrip' THE row 1 rpadilv concedes came the afternoon he resnonded to boos bv immediately I challenging those critics to meet him vibration in his right front tire after in the parking lot of a nearby store the final round of pit stops with 55 1 ve taught myseii to minx oeiore I talk now no matter how mad I I he said older I understand how it is When 30 years old just getting into the business got a blinders on All you see is straight ahead You see the fans and the media and the sponsors out there think changed and I think the fans have changed been out here a long time There is a comfort' zone there with the fans and the drivers Look at golf I think every body still likes Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer although there are a lot of great talents out there The audience that aged with Wai one give up that one Now trip has come to appreciate him tor the most part and many folks thought he was an innocent victim of a senseless driving act in The Win ston He owned this Charlotte crowd before the bidding began yesterday not trying to stroke any body" Waltrip said the fans made the difference I never ever in my wildest dreams thought have the fan support had this The right front tire of his Tide machine had gone flat but Waltrip was bubbling over After being hung out to drv in the early years he has Smoke streamed from under now gone through the whole fickle cycle valve spring saw it before they Waltrip said Wnllarp nromntlv drove his car Continued rom Page 17 down pit road and took a left turn ducking behind the retaining wall A large cheer dratted across Charlotte Motor Speedway and Waltrip smiled know if be my day or nnf knt Vnow mv inh was crpttinp he said knew that was a can football game to be played in the guy I may have had to race at the end I want him to come up there and get another piece of my bumper It took a little tension off a little pressure to be honest about Wallace sat in the car for a few minutes rubbing his face and await ing the diagnosis That mat ter His duel with Waltrip was over Meanwhile out on the track chal lenger Mark Martin was forced to make another pit stop Leader Alan Kulwicki followed Martin five laps later In an ironic twist stop coincided with the moment Wallace climbed out of his car the moment Waltrip took the lead for' good Wallace retreated to the privacy of his tractor trailer and sent a messen ger out to read a prepared statement A few minutes later he smiled for the TV cameras and chatted briefly got my worth last week so go home and be he Well at least he went home new home is his locations at any given moment which comes: as something of a shock When Walv trip burst onto the scene in the early iy(US ne was cnaraccerizeu as a mouthy intrudet Cale Yarborough' in a fit of anger called Waltrip The nickname stuck but stop the torrent of playful sarcastic words flowing from Wai trip mouth RACING Continued rom Page 17 DEACONS Continued rom Page 17 CW in Start Driver Car Laps Reason Out 1 4 Darrell Waltrip Chevy 400 "9 2 18 Sterling Martin Olds 400 3 3 Ken Schrader Chevy 400 4 13 Geoff Bodine Chevy 399 5 15 Bill Elliott ord 399 6 2 Mark Martin ord 399 9 7 25 Neil Bonnett ord 399 8 10 Brett Bodine ord 398 9 27 Bobby Hillln Jr Buick 397 10 9 Ricky Rudd Buick 397 11 22 Derrick Cope Pontiac 396 12 41 Rick Mast Chevy 396 13 31 Phil Parsons Olds 395 14 26 Hut Stricklin Pontiac 395 9 9 15 36 Emie Irvan Pontiac 394 16 42 Dave Marcis Chevy 394 17 33 Kyle Petty Chevy 392 18 39 Chad Little Jr ord 392 19 11 Richard Petty Pontiac 391 20 30 Ben Hess Olds 388 21 35 Terry Byers' Chevy 379 22 21 Larry Pearson Buick 377 23 1 Alan Kulwicki ord 371 blown engine 24 20 Lake Speed Olds 9364 25 29 Tracy Leslie Olds 360 broken crankshaft 26 37 Jerry O'Neil Chevy 353 27 7 Michael Waltrip Pontiac 9 333 engine failure 28 24 Dale Jarrett Pontiac 331 engine failure 29 16 Dick Trickle Buick 330 engine failure 30 19 Greg Sacks Pontiac 320 crash 31 6 Rusty Wallace Pontiac 306 engine failure 32 23 Morgan Shepherd Pontiac 303 engine failure 33 17 Davey Allison ord 298 blown engine 9 34 32 Allan Grice Pontiac 294 mechanical failure 35 5 Rick Wilson Olds 292 36 40 Eddie Bierschwale Olds 242 crash 37 38 Jim Sauter Pontiac 236 engine failure 38 14 Dale Earnhardt Chevy 233 engine failure 39 12 Terry Labonte ord 186 engine failure 40 8 Harry Gant Olds 148 engine bearing 41 34 Jimmy Means Pontiac 113 burned piston 42 28 Butch Miller Chevy 1 24 wheel bearing Continued rom Page 17 22 seconds left to put Los Angeles up 120 114 A 3 pointer by Eddie Johnson cut the deficit to 120 117 with 14 seconds left but free throws two seconds later sealed the win Chambers said way they played in the playoffs was an educa tion for us We still think we can beat them love to meet them again next year too But never seen a team play better than they played today never They deserve to make the finals They really A LAKERS (122) Green 4 8 5 6 1 3 Wor thy 1019 0 0 20 Abdul Jabbar 1 6 0 0 2 Ea Johnson 6 11 8 8 21 Scott 13 18 6 7 35 Thompson 4 8 1 1 9 Cooper 2 4 2 2 8 Woolridge 6 10 2 2 14 Totals 46 84 24 26 122 PHOENIX (117) Chambers 17 28 7 8 41 Corbin 2 5 3 4 7 West 1 10 0 2 Homacek 3 1 1 0 0 6 KJohnson 7 1 4 7 7 22 Gilliam 4 8 4 4 1 2 Ed Johnson 6 14 2 2 15 Majerte 5 13 1 2 12 Totals 45 94 24 27 117 Los Angeles 31 29 27 Phoenix 26 23 25 3 Point Scott 3 Cooper 2 EaJohnson KJohnson Ed Johnson Majerte ouled None Rebounds Los Angeles 5 1 (Green 1 1 Phoenix 4 1 (Chambers 1 3) Los Angeles 34 (Ea Johnson 20) Phoenix 28 (KJohnson 10) Total Los Angeles 22 Phoenix 24 Techni Los Angeles coach Riley Cooper Cham bers A 14471 EARNHARDT HAD little to say looked really strong but we were just biding our time and I think we had something for Schrader ran a strong race and then gave credit to Jake Elder who has been hired to give his team a boost think making some pro Schrader said "We were be hind the 8 ball half the day because of that flat tire But we made up that lap and got back in contention that last pit stop (on lap 365) I thought we had a wheel cracked or something so I had to back off and nurse the car home I knew I run with Darrell he had us covered But we might have been able to run with Dennis Connor crew chief also praised Elder ex tremely happy because we had a very good run Kenny showed his talent in making up that lap on the last pit stop we had a lug nut off so we had to come in again just before the restart And then we had that vibration and Ken ny know what it was So we just rode it out and tried to salvage whaUwe.