Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 33

Tigsrs sign Sheridan: Pat Sheridan signs a one-year, $343,000 contract with the Tigers, avoiding an arbitration hearing. Around the horn, Page 4D. Sports Phone (scores): 1 -976-1 31 3 Elliott wins 1ECC: Bill Elliott, after a week of poor luck at Daytona, wins the International Race of Champions. He'll challenge Dale Earnhardt in Sunday's Daytona 500. Stories, Page 8D.

Saturday, Feb. 13, 1003 NBANHL 6 SCOREBOARD 9 PREPS 8 Call with tport news: 222-6660 DETROIT FREE PRESS ichigan Hall of Fame shamed Charlie Uinccnt Astonishing collection of honorees is tarnished, perhaps discredited George Puscas photo Undated file pnoto Kerbawy Johnson i 1 v. AW 1955 photo Undated file photo Commissioner, some directors dispute charges By Drew Sharp Free Press Sports Writer C-f (p fQ Michigan Sports Hall of Fame commissioner Nick Kerbawy and some members of the board of directors on Friday disputed published reports that this year's election was rigged to favor a candidate who didn't receive enough votes. The directors said Glenn Johnson, a five-time Michigan Amateur golf champion, was selected through a special provision in the Hall's constitution. Johnson reportedly finished seventh in the vote totals but will be inducted.

The reported fifth-place finisher, former pro golfer Chick Harbert, and sixth-place finisher, On the walls of the south corridor of Cobo Hall, stretching from one end of the building to the other and back again, is one of the great local sports shrines in America. It's called the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame. The men and women pictured there form a magnificent galaxy of athletic stars whose achievements brought them honor and lasting fame. Ty Cobb, Charlie Gehringer, Hank Greenberg, Joe Louis, Germany Schaefer, Dutch Clark, Marion Ladewig, Jean Hoxie, Bennie Oosterbaan, Tom Harmon, Ron Kramer, Gordie Howe and Ted Lindsay, Bobby Layne. The list goes on and on, an astonishing collection.

And now, all of it has been tarnished, tainted, perhaps even discredited in the minds of some. Nick Kerbawy, who has labored for 32 years to create this memorial, stands accused of manipulating this year's election of inductees. From all I gather, he's guilty, there seems no disputing what happened. Guilty, too, is the Hall of Fame's board of directors. Harbert Coleman I've been a member of that board since 1966.

Each year, Kerbawy invites board members to tabulate the ballots of about 200 sports writers and sportscasters around the state. The ballots remain sealed in their envelopes until the tabulating meeting is held. I was out of town and missed the recent meeting at the Detroit Press Club, but what happened there was shameful, an intolerable disgrace. Glenn Johnson, a noted amateur golfer, was elevated over Chick Harbert, the former Oakland Hills pro, into the Hall of Fame, even though Harbert received more votes. See GEORGE PUSCAS, Page 4D Bob Mann embodies sport's real lessons "TS ob Mann's name shows up only a few places Jj in the Green Bay Packers' media guide.

ri Time has dimmed the memory of the jj cold afternoons he stood in the huddle with Tobin Rote and Dick (The Bruiser) Afflis and Breezy Reid, and a new generation athletes has replaced his name in the record books. It has been 33 years since Mann last pulled on a set of shoulder pads. It has been more than 39 years since he played his first pro football game as a Detroit Lion. Forty-one years have passed since he lettered for the first time at the University of Michigan. He had been a walk-on transfer from Hampton Institute, who introduced himself to coach Fritz Crisler and asked whether he might, please, have a uniform.

It has been 47 years since he was graduated from the little, all-black high school in New Bern, N.C. Mann was a pioneer almost everywhere he went once he left that high school, a solitary black face in a huddle of white. He and Mel Groomes broke the color line with the Lions in 1948. And two years later he became the first black to play for the Packers. "There were," he recalls, "two other blacks in Green Bay in 1950 and they were males, too.

One was a porter and the other was a chef. When I wanted to go out socially, when I was ready to date, I'd go to Milwaukee or Chicago and find some black girls." When the Lions played in Baltimore, the black players stayed in a separate hotel. And when the Lions played an exhibition in New Orleans, coach Bo McMillin called in his two black players and told them he thought it would be best for everyone if they didn't suit up. Only Good Memories Matter Amateur golfer Glenn Johnson was apparently elevated over former Oakland Hills pro Chick Harbert and former Michigan State football All-America Don Coleman into the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame by its board and commissioner Nick Kerbawy. former Michigan State football All-America Don Coleman, were not elected.

"The only thing I feel sorry about is Glenn," Kerbawy said. "It's a shame. He's a certified candidate who was deserving of induction into the Hall." See HALL OF FAME, Page 4D Pistons o92 gel Hawks' lead down to IV2 BY CLIFTON BROWN Free Press Sports Writer Beating the Atlanta Hawks handily is difficult under any circumstances. Doing it without your leading scorer is even more improbable. But that's exactly what the Pistons did Friday night, whipping the Hawks, 108-92, at the Silverdome.

The Pistons won their third straight game without forward Adrian Dantley (sprained ankle), and they played well enough to beat anyone. They moved even with the first-place Hawks in the loss column, and IVi games behind them in the standings. "Maybe we're not in the doldrums people have said we are," Pistons coach Chuck Daly said. "We moved the ball almost to a fault tonight. I don't think Atlanta played at their top level, but we played very, very well, especially defensively.

Without Adrian, we knowwe have to stop people, and we did tonight." It may sound trite to say all the Pistons played well, but it's true. Five players reached double figures, led by Isiah Thomas, who scored 25 points. Vinnie Johnson made 10 assists. The Hawks have lost five of their last seven. Atlanta's normal intensity was there, but the results weren't.

Except for Dominique Wilkins, who scored 31 points, none of the Hawks played as he is capable. "We better get back on the right track real soon if we See PISTONS, Page 6D C-IVV VV ffY -i oyf i 1 'l- -villi, Bob Mann is 63 years old now, a criminal lawyer with an office overlooking the Detroit River and a practice that ensures his family will not want. And tonight, when he is inducted into the Green Bay Packers' Hall of Fame, he suspects his thoughts will drift back in time. But it will not be a game or a play that comes to mind, but the people and the lessons he learned from the sport. Unlike so many blacks who were among the first of their race to break the color line, Mann does not retell tales of bigotry and hate.

By his recounting, he lived in a world of caring and harmony in those years sandwiched around World War II. A white man coached his high school team. And the same white man refereed many of his games. "He wasn't officially our coach," Mann recalls. "He'd been fired by the white school and he came over to help us out.

I don't know how they paid him. "I remember one game he refereed when I scored a touchdown, him running behind me all the way, encouraging me, and when I scored his face lit up. He was a wonderful guy." Those are the memories Bob Mann has carried through the years. Always he was a man competing on his own merit. Always, though, there was someone looking for racial conflict where he saw none.

"Chuck Bednarik (of the Eagles) hit me in the mouth one time, and somebody tried to get me to say that was racially motivated, but it wasn't. He hit everybody. He told me he hit me 'cause I scored three touchdowns that day. "That's one of the things I guess I might remember Saturday night. But those things come and go.

Football's a team effort, that's what I really feel." Finding Fiber, Fairness And football's most important and most enduring lessons are not learned in the X's and O's, in the fly patterns and the buttonhooks. Gallant's trick is on the Devils Wings win, 4-3 BY KEITH GAVE Free Press Sports Writer "Must have been the new skates," Gerard Gallant concluded Friday night after his hat trick propelled the Red Wings to a 4-3 come-from-behind victory over New Jersey. "I felt like I couldn't even skate in the warmups." In fact, it looked as though all of his teammates were breaking in new skates. Coming off a five-day break for the NHL All-Star Game, the Wings overcame early troubles for their fourth straight victory and extended their unbeaten streak to six (4-0-2). Detroit also improved its Norris Division lead to nine points over second-place St.

Louis. The Wings play in St. Louis tonight, beginning a three-game trip. "We didn't play a real solid Red Wing game," coach Jacques Demers said. "But we have a good team now, and that's why we won.

For the first 30 minutes, they (the Devils) outplayed us. It was not an easy game. If they played a lot of other teams like that, they win." See RED WINGS, Page 8D "You get so much out of football some good coaches give you a situation that prepares you to confront a problem," Mann says. "At Michigan, coach Crisler used to say: 'These are the times that try the fiber of And I've found myself at times asking: 'What kind of fiber do I "That's the important thing about football. "A lot of women don't understand that.

A lot of them say they don't want their sons playing football because they might get hurt. Maybe the physical playing of it isn't important, but what it gives you is: The sense of fairness, of penalties. Ladies don't understand, if you do this, you get a penalty." That is what Mann took from football. And when you ask about the game itself and his contributions to it, he makes them sound insignificant. I had to go to the record books to find that he was Vt: 3 JOHN COLLIERDetrroit Hree Press Pistons center Bill Laimbeer fights for a rebound with three Hawks in the first quarter Friday night at the Silverdome.

U.S. hockey team will skip opening ceremony 1946 and 1947, that he was the Lions' leading receiver in 1949 and the Packers' leading receiver in 1951. As a Lion rookie he earned $7,500. And seven years later, in the season that was his last as a pro, he made $12,000. True to his nature, Mann does not fret about being born too soon, about being discriminated against, or about missing out on the riches of the game.

"A receiver has got only two things to do: Get open and catch the ball. That never sounded like such a hard job to me," he says. In fact, Bob Mann does not feel he missed out on the riches of football. He feels he received them. "I'm very fortunate," he says.

"I always have been." CALGARY BY JOE LAPOINTE Free Press Sports Writer CALGARY, Alberta The United States hockey team won't march in today's Olympic opening ceremony because the coach thinks it would conflict with preparation for tonight's game against Austria. Coach Dave Peterson said he regretted that 'his team would not appear with other athletes from around the world. His players say they will miss their moment in the spotlight, but they understand their coach's reasoning. The ceremonies are scheduled to begin at 3 p.m. and last two hours.

The hockey game begins at 8:30. "I feel very badly we can't take part," Peterson said Friday. "It's a very emotional affair. It isn't that we don't think the ceremonies are important." Mike Richter, named the starting goalie later Friday, called the decision "a bit of a shame, but we're going to have to make do." Reminded that the team can march in the closing ceremonies, Richter brightened and said, "Hopefully, then, we'll be happier than we are now." Hermi Kassler, aggistant chief of the Austrian See WINTER OLYMPICS, Page 7D OPEKKG DAY: MORE INSIDE Eddie Edwards, Britain's one-man ski-jumping team, is a fast learner. ABC-TV has a nightly studio wrap-up show that it hopes will move mountains.

The fickle forecast calls for minus-35 windchills today but mild weather Sunday. Complete report, Page 7D..