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Show by Jim Murray Mnmnraiy nim ppirtt dTXl Newspaper a A trivia test answer in his own time PageBl Thursday, November 12, 1981 Beaver bumps Park City out of the playoffs Leave it to Beaver. For the third year in a row, Park City's hopes of a state championship in 1A football have been trampled by Beaver High School. Two years ago, the Park City Miners, under second-year second-year coach Bob Burns, reached the state semifinals before their dreams were dashed, 31-6, by the Beaver Beavers.- Last year the Miners made it all the way to the championship champi-onship game at tKe University Univer-sity of Utah's Rice Stadium, but the Beavers did it again, walking away with a 19-7 victory. This year the scene was Juab High School in Nephi where the Miners were meeting the Beavers once again in the state semifinals. And it happened again. This time the score was 24-21. The Park City Miners went into the game with a 10-0 record, rated first in the state according to both Salt Lake City newspapers. Beaver, Bea-ver, on the other hand, had stumbled to a 6-4 record, losing once to Park City and twice to Region 12 rival Kanab. But the Beavers were not intimidated. Taking advantage advan-tage of crucial Park City mistakes, they scored 17 points in the second half then held on to take a three-point victory over the favored Miners. - The difference in the game was Park City's inability to .. Jiang onto the f oatbahY The -Miners gave up the ball four times in their own territory on three fumbles and a blocked punt. Those mistakes mis-takes led to all of Beaver's scoring in the second half. In the eyes of Coach Burns, tradition was also on the side of the Beavers. "You take a team like Beaver who is in the playoffs year after year, they rise to the occasion," he said. "We were a little bit anxious. Instead of going out and playing the game, we made some mistakes." In their first possession of the game, the Miners looked like state champions. Taking the kickoff at their own 40-yard line, they marched down the field with machinelike machine-like precision. Troy Packard was running with abandon, the offensive line was opening open-ing holes, and with only five minutes played, the Miners had a 7-0 lead. Packard went the final two yards on a fourth-down play, and Dar-rin Dar-rin Lawless nailed the conversion. con-version. But if the momentum belonged with Park City, the Beavers didn't seem to notice. After taking the kickoff at their own 30, they moved Quickly into Park City territory. After an exchange of kicks, they started with a first down on the Park City 39. ill o ' r V.. V.; . 'A V - it A' - V ' ? ' ' v : - 7 I ' Park City end John Howard reaches to pull down this swing pass from Flinders. Then Steve Hutchings, Beaver's lanky sophomore quarterback, dazzled the crowd by taking the ball around the left end on an option play and dashing 38 yards down the sidelines into the Park City end zone. The conversion tied the score at 7-7 with 2:53 to play in the first quarter. For the rest of the first half, neither Park City nor Beaver had any luck moving the ball. The Park City running backs were repeatedly re-peatedly cut down by the Beavers as they reached the line of scrimmage. "I'd go through the line and there would be a bunch of blue shirts waiting for me," Packard said later. Burns gave credit to Beaver Bea-ver Coach Al Marshall for changing his team's defensive defen-sive strategy since the loss to Park City Sept. 18. "They were playing a different defense," he said. "We didn't anticipate they would use it as much." , When the Miners did move into Beaver territory midway mid-way through the second quarter, they fell victim to their own mistakes. After picking up a first down on the Beaver 35, they fumbled three times in five plays when quarterback Tom Flinders Flin-ders was unable to handle the snap from center John Ott. Although they managed to maintain possession, the drive fizzled on the Beaver 26. Another Miner fumble, on their first play from scrimmage scrim-mage of the second half, gave Beaver the ball only 30 yards from pay dirt. Six plays later, fullback Donnie Roberts was in the end zone. The conversion game Beaver Bea-ver a 14-7 lead. For the first time since the South Summit game Sept. 18, the Miners were behind. But not for long. Like the Beavers had done in the first juarter,the Miners Mi-ners came charging back. Taking the ball on the kickoff on their own 19-yard line, they drove 81 yards to tie the score. Shawn Packard pick ed up 11 yards and one first down on a flanker reverse. Troy Packard had three big plays to keep the drive going, including one four-yard gain when Park City was confronted con-fronted with a fourth down and three at the Beaver 44. But the big story of the scoring drive was the Miner's Mi-ner's ability to throw the ball. Flinders completed one pass to Roger Burns on the Beaver 27, then threw a 10-yard touchdown strike to Chris Sloan with 2:53 left in the third quarter. The conversion con-version kick by Lawless tied the score again at 14-14. Following the kickoff, an aroused Miner defense stopped stop-ped the Beavers deep in their own zone, with tackle Don Putman and linebacker Tom Tebbs turning in big plays. A fourth-down kick gave Park City the ball and good field position at their own 41. Then it happened again. The Miners fumbled on the first play from scrimmage, and Beaver recovered at the 40. 4 A -m " i ( ' 1 it v . , . 1 . , , ' .-. J., , J. I Chris Sloan couldn't reach this one, but moments later he caught a touchdown pass to cap an 81-yard Miner drive. Aided by two penalties against Park City, the Beavers Bea-vers moved to the 10-yard line as the third quarter came to an end. Then the Miner defense stiffened, and Beaver had to settle for a field goal. With 11:47 to play, Park City trailed by three. After an exchange of punts, the Miners then found themselves pinned deep in their own zone. An illegal procedure penalty put them back on their own seven-yard seven-yard line with a third down and 18. In this type of situation, Burns has been known to call for a quick kick, with . Flinders taking the snap from center and pitching the ball to fullback punter Tom Tebbs. In the past, this play has been very successful. This time it was a disaster. A defensive lineman managed manag-ed to get a hand on Tebbs' punt, and the Beavers ended up with a first down on the Park City eight-yard line. Two plays later Hutchings passed to wide receiver Scott Yardley for the touchdown. With 5:09 left in the game, Beaver was ahead 24-14. It was desperation time for the Miners. They took the Beaver kickoff at their own 20 and immediately started throwing the ball. The first pass was intercepted by Beaver defensive back Alan Smith, but the play was called back on a penalty, and the Miners were given a reprieve and a first down on ,.lheir pwn 35. ; ' Lady Luck continued to favor the Miners. On the next play, Flinders threw a long pass in the direction of Roger Burns. The ball bounced off a Beaver defender and into Burns' hands. He reached the Beaver 16 before he was pulled down. Park City was stopped on its next three downs, but on fourth down Flinders threaded thread-ed a pass between two Beaver defenders and into the hands of Tebbs in the end zone. The conversion reduced reduc-ed the deficit to three points. There was 2:57 left in the game. The Miners had to regain possession to win. They didn't. Lawless tried an onside kick, but Beaver recovered at the 34, and slowly ran out the clock, in spite of the best efforts of the Park City defense. When time ran out, the Beavers were deep in Miner territory, threatening to score yet another touchdown. It was a dejected Park City team which left the Juab field Friday, its championship champion-ship dreams vanished, an undefeated season ended by the margin of a single field goal. "Three points!" said Tebbs, shaking his head. "Fumbles!" added Coach Burns. "Fumbles!" But Assistant Coach Bruce Reid summed it up best. "It was a hell of a season," he said. The Miner offense finished the game with 252 yards. Flinders completed six of 13 passes for 96 yards and two touchdowns. Steve Toly carried car-ried the ball 15 times for 38 yards, and Troy Packard had 19 carries for 107 yards. Flinders will be back in a Park City uniform next season. But Toly and Packard Pack-ard will not. Several other key members of the 1981 team are due to graduate, including linebacker Bob Blackbourn, defensive back Trent Leavitt, fullback linebacker Tom Tebbs, flanker flan-ker Shawn Packard, end Chris Sloan, center linebacker line-backer John Ott, tackle Don Putman, lineman kicker Darrin Lawless, and lineman line-man Chris Mueller. But Burns believes that the returning players will form the nucleus of another strong team. "We'll have a good ball-club ball-club next year," he said "How well we do we'll just have to wait and see." PALM SPRINGS The fear of ending up as the answer to a trivia question occasionally haunts all of us. I had a friend once who refused to go on a cross-country flight with Bing Crosby because, he said, if the plane crashed, the headlines would read "Bing Crosby And Two Friends Perish In Mid-Air. " People are always beguiled by the quizzes, "Who played third in the Tinkers-to-Evers-to-Chance infield?" (Harry Steinfeldt), or "Who was the other end to Don Hutson on the Alabama Rose Bowl team in 1935?" (Bear Bryant), or "Who replaced Babe Ruth in rightfield for the Yankees?" (Twinkletoes Selkirk). So. Norm Nixon of the Lakers was on shaky ground when he told an interviewer that the world would little note nor long remember the guy who played guard in the NBA 15 years before and the writer sternly reminded re-minded Norm that the world would ALWAYS be bringing up the name of the "other" guard to Magic Johnson. Norman, he suggested, sug-gested, was permanently trivialized. Norm Nixon sighed and let it go at that. Norm's life has been that way ever since Earvin "Magic" Johnson signed his multi-year multi-year contract with the Los Angeles Lakers. It has been one major misunderstanding after another, he reveals. Take the afternoon before the Houston Rockets playoff last spring. An interviewer was idly wondering what the return of the injured Magic Johnson to the lineup would mean to Nixon. It would mean a great deal, Norm told him. For one thing, he would have to return to being the "other" guard, in this case, the "off" guard. That was to say, it was the way the Lakers were set up. Magic would be the "point" guard, the playmaker Norm had been for most of his career. "Do you think you can ever be All-Pro playing the 'off guard position?" the writer asked. "No," Norm told him honestly, "I think, to be effective, I have to be the 'point guard myself, to set up the plays, bring the ball upcoart, quarterback the game." Added Nixon : "I don't play my best with my back to the basket or running along the baseline under the basket around all those seven-foot forwards." And, it was another case where a Nixon should have destroyed the tapes. The headlines over the interview screamed "Controversy!" There was dissension in the Lakers' backcourt it hinted darkly. "Can't Play With Magic, Says Nixon, Give Me The Ball Or Trade Me!" A regular basketball Watergate. When the Rockets startled the world and upset the Lakers, the wise guys were sure they knew the reason: There weren't enough basketballs for the Laker backcourt. Nixon was jealous of Magic. Nixon didn't want to be Johnson's "caddy." Nixon resented Magic's publicity. And so forth. Nixon was horrified. "Here I was answering a highly-technical question as honestly as I could, and they make me sound like Benedict Arnold. I went to Earvin (Magic) as soon as I read the papers and said 'Look, don't let this article make you change your style of play. I want to win first of all.'" Nixon then thought a dose of pure reason could douse the uproar. He would explain what he meant. Lots of people make that mistake. Instead of oil on troubled waters, it was oil on a well fire. "People in New York who didn't know either one of us were writing knowingly about our feud,'" he sighed. Even as recently as the Leonard-Hearns prize fight, a TV commentator was heard to observe, "Norm Nixon and Magic Johnson of the Lakers are here tonight, but, naturally, they're seated on opposite sides of the ring from each other." That's when Norm Nixon tried a different tact. "I told this writer, 'Listen! Basketball is a very short career. Fifteen years from now people will forget who played in the NBA back in 1980.' So the guy writes, 'Well, maybe they'll forget YOU, Norm Nixon, but they'll never forget Magic Johnson. And you'd better get used to that fact! So, you can see how this thing snowballed and how I couldn't stop it." Of course, it had an unexpected opposite effect. All of a sudden, the trivia answer was becoming the household word. People knew Nixon as the squeaky wheel now, the one guy in Los Angeles who didn't seem to think Magic Johnson was found in the bullrushes and glowed in the dark. A year ago it wouldn't matter where Nixon sat at a fight. The "other" guard became a celebrity. Norm Nixon may have done something Harry Steinfeldt, George Selkirk and the passengers in Bing Crosby's airplane could never do. And, around the hot stoves in basketball country someday in the future, he may achieve the ultimate when a guy clears his throat and says "I have one for you for 20 points: Who was the 'other' guard in the backcourt the years Norm Nixon played for the Lakers?" (c) 1981, Los Angeles Times inn inn ... . Easy commute to Park City 2 bedroom home on 34 acre with Weber River frontage. Totally furnished. $52,500 with good terms. HAL TAYLOR ASSOCIATES 649-8181 SKI INSTRUCTOR TRAINING PROGRAM For Good Skiers who want to become Instructors, and for Good Skiers who want to become Great Skiers ! Conducted by Duane Vigos and the Supervisory Staff at the Park City Ski School. The Instructor Training Course is both for future Instructors and for better-than-average skiers who want the most exciting learning experience available anywhere. The Course includes four Seminars to be held at the Holiday Inn in Park City the first to be held on November 24th. And it also includes six On-the-Hill Training Sessions. Six Park City Lift Passes are included in the price. For Information Call 1-649-8111 Or Write: P.O. Box 39 Park City, UT 84060 M) iw school |