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Show Thursday, November 20, 1980 Miiiers Chamo Four minutes. Park City's 1980 football season, spanning 12 games over three months, came down to four minutes Saturday Satur-day at the University of Utah's Rice Stadium. The Beaver Beavers broke a 7-7 deadlock with two touchdowns in the 4ast four minutes Saturday to win the state 1A championship 19-7 and shatter the dreams of the stubborn Park City Miners. The Miners, given little chance when the 1980 season opened in August, came back from a slow start to win eight straight games and qualify to meet defending champion Beaver for the state title. For a time it seemed as if Beaver might become number num-ber nine. The game was scoreless at the end of the first half, with the -Miner defense holding its own against the powerful Beaver running attack. But a costly mistake paved the way for Beaver's first touchdown midway through the third quarter. The Beavers had taken the kickoff at their own 23 and marched into Miner territory before being stopped stop-ped at the Park City 42. But a fourth-down kick was fumbled fum-bled by the Miners and Beaver recovered at the Park City 23. After gaining a first down ' at th6 11 and another al the" one-foot line, Beaver took the lead with tailback Jess Cox carrying for the final few inches. The conversion gave the defending champs a 7-0 lead with 6:55 to play in the third period. But Miner fans, who had watched the team stage last-minute last-minute comebacks all season long, were waiting for another miracle. And midway through the fourth quarter it happened. With a second down on his own 19-yard 19-yard line, Park City quarterback quar-terback Tom Flinders found flanker Roger Burns in the middle of the Beaver secondary secon-dary and put the ball right on the numbers. Burns caught the ball about midfield and raced to the Beaver 25i)efore he was pulled down. A pass interference call gave the Miners another first down at the 12-yard line. But a fumble, a penalty and two incomplete passes forced them into a fourth down at the 18. With defeat staring them in the face, the Miners came through again. Flinders hit halfback Steve Toly with a beautiful sideline pass, and Toly was pushed out of bounds at the two-yard line, having just reached the first-down first-down marker. Fullback Troy Packard slammed into the end zone on the next play. Darrin Lawless kicked the extra point, and the game was tied once more. Although the Miner fans didn't know it, that was Park City's last gasp. The Beavers took the kickoff at their own 32 and set their sights for the Miner goal line. They picked up a first down at their own 46, another at the Park City 41. and a third at the Park City 21 (thanks to a 20-yard run by Burton Myers). But on the next play Beaver tailback Jess Cox was dropped for a four-yard loss by Tom Tebbs and Doug Vincent, and Miner fans breathed a little easier until they saw Vincent rolling in agony on the ground. An ambulance was called, a stretcher brought onto the field, and Vincent taken off with an undetermined leg injury. in-jury. On the next play, Myers burst through the left side of the line and raced 25 yards for the winning touchdown. There was 3:31 left in the game. The Miners had one last chance after the kickoff but could make no headway against an aroused Beaver in The TxTnI Newspaper -a : JL defense. On fourth down Miner coach Bob Burns called for a lake punt, but the ploy backfired when Tebbs was dropped in the backl'ield. Beaver took over at the Park City 27. However, rather than simply running out the clock to preserve the victory, the Beavers wanted more. As a Miner crowd estimated at 1,500 to 2,000 booed angrily from the sideline, Beaver quarterback Steve Hutch-ings Hutch-ings completed a pass to wide receiver Brian Morgan at the Park City six-yard line. 1 With six seconds left in the game and his team at the Park City one-yard line. Beaver coach Al Marshall called for a time-out to stop the clock. With three seconds to go the Beavers bulled over for their third touchdown. Burns pointed out later that Marshall's eagerness to pile up the score might have backfired. "I've seen a team lose in that situation by going for the score." After playing 11 games with almost no injuries, the Miners saw their luck run out against Beaver. Fullback Troy Packard, the team's leading rusher, suffered suf-fered a sprained knee in the first quarter and finished with only 16 yards. His replacement, Tom Tebbs, had to be helped off the field early in the game. And halfback half-back Steve Toly played with a slight shoulder separation. Nevertheless, it was the tandem of Tebbs and Toly which kept Park City's offense of-fense going in the first half and almost led to a touchdown. touch-down. After stopping the Beavers al the Park City 18 early in the second quarter, the Miners drove 69 yards to the Beaver 13. Toly had runs of 19 and 12 yards, and Tebbs came through with 31 yards on three carries. Then, on first down at the 13, the Miners tried the option op-tion play. It misfired. Before the ball stopped bouncing it was all the way back to the 27-yard line with Beaver in possession. "We shouldn't have called it, because we haven't had consistency on that play all year," Burns said later. Toly finished the game as the team's top runner with 96 yards on 16 carries. Burns said most of his big gains came from off-tackle plays. "They were really jamming jam-ming up the middle and giving us the off-tackle hole," he said. "They put their defensive strength to our weak side so we just ran strong side." In the second half the Beavers made an adjustment, adjust-ment, moving their defensive defen-sive strength opposite the strong side of the Park City line. So Burns compensated by running plays through the weak side. The Beaver running attack was led by tailback Jess Cox (who gained 185 yards against Park City earlier in the season) and wingback Burton Myers. Cox, at 6'3" and 185 lbs., ran well up the middle, whife Myers was used effectively on the end of the option play. Beaver had limited success suc-cess through the air. completing com-pleting only three of 10 passes and having one intercepted inter-cepted (by John Ott . Park City quarterback Tom Flinders completed two of eight passes for 73 yards. The Miners finished the season with nine wins and three losses, their best record in many years. This time a year ago. after the Miners were knocked out in the semifinals by (who else but ) Beaver. Burns was trying to anticipate the graduation of his entire backl'ield, offensive and defensive, while consoling himself with the knowledge that his linemen would be returning. This year the problem is different: the entire offen iomsMo Hones Fade in Final JL sive backl'ield and most ot the defensive backl'ield will be back next year, but the line will be gone. "We lose our entire offensive offen-sive line, three of our front four ion defense), our safety and one cornerback," Burns pointed out. Graduating this year will be Kory O'Brien, Bret Wright, Tom Hunt, Jeff Smith, Scott Erickson, Glen Wright, John Newland, Glen Wright and Paul Dyer. All played an important part in the success of this year's team. In looking back over the season, Burns expressed his appreciation to the loyal Park City fans, and to the help provided by assistant coaches Bruce Reid, John Newland and Jesse Schaub. "We came an awful long way alter the first three weeks," Burns said. "We did a lot better than our original expectations." Just short : This diving si. ill li Miner .Ml Smith tri.nliti s mholied Park ('it)'s run lor (lie I A championship. Tehhs on Hie loose: Tom Telilis ( below ) helped Like up the slack alter the injury to liov Packard. So close: ( In is Sloan i iMitloin ) stretches m ain for this loui'tli-qual -ter pass. Photos by David Hampshire f A. X 4 -v . 'I i I . , , ' : . ; 7 T , ' J I in mwHI MB by Jim Murray Mqniriraiy qpna Spirit He Was a Quarterback Whiz But He'd Rather Be an Outlaw When the UCLA Bruins signed Kenneth Mason Easley to play football for them, they couldn't believe their good luck. They respected Easley as one of the great athletes of his generation, and, if necessary, they would have created a position for him to play. But Kenny had been a quarterback in high school and they expected a king-size fight to get the football away from him. Easley took the problem right out of their playbook. He didn't want to play quarterback ; he wanted to play defense. Safety, to be exact. The Bruins felt like ringing bells. Burning incense. Lighting candles. It was as if the word went ringing through a big movie studio: "Bette Davis says she'll play the maid!" or, "Picasso says he'll do the calendars!" Or "Easley says he'll do windows!" Defense is the French Foreign Legion of football. People disappear into it and are never heard from again. It's not a position, it's a hideout. Guys don't even have to give their right name. A defenseman has never won the Heisman Trophy. He's hardly ever won Player of the Week. Easley had a right to think he was the Galloping Ghost, not just a ghost, period. He was big, strong, fast. Even though he played at little Oscar Smith High School in a whistlestop called Chesapeake, Va., he attracted more college birddogs to his team's workouts than the opening of the quail season. UCLA needn't have worried about Easley deluding himself about his quarterback ambitions. Easley can read Easley as easily as he can a pass pattern. "I was an All-State quarterback and defensive back in Virginia. But I never projected myself as a quarterback," Easley says.' "In high school you only had simple three-deep coverages, or a 'red' coverage and a 'blue' coverage. Besides, whenever pressured, I'd just run with the ball. I knew I wasn't a quarterback. I could testify to that. My instincts were basically more outlaw." What Easley meant was that defensive players are more like Billy the Kid or Butch Cassidy. They have the soul of hit-and-run drivers. They're not part of gangs. They want to rob the stagecoach all by themselves. They're thrill seekers. And, usually, they enjoy what they do. They see themselves as fighter planes shooting down bombers. But only on the football field does Easley turn into something a psse might hunt down. MMutes Page 11 i n in in I "1 like to hit peopie. 1 like to cause fumbles, to cause dropped passes," he says "But 1 ai. like to outwit a guy running a pattern in v. zone and steal the football from him." On the field, Kenny is the two-gun kid Once, in a mere preseason scrimmage, he cracked three ribs on one of his ow'n men. en Tim Wrightman, who only weighs 234 ( KasU weighs 206). In Ohio State Stadium, no less l.i belted a sideline photographer who l.u.i pushed him roughly aside as he made a tackle on a Buckeye. He was ejected from the game. "I apologized to my team, my coaches, my school. I reacted in a manner I'm ashamed of. I'm very ashamed my temper overcame my composure. You may be sure it won't happen again." But does this mean that something comes over Ken Easley when the anthem dies down and he takes his free safety position Or. the Bruin defense? Do his teeth start to get pointy or hair grow out of his forehead? Does he begin to howl at the moon? "No," Easley says emphatically, "You have to remember defensive players are born, not made. But you can't be wild-eyed and fanatical out there. You have to be a little calculating. Not as laid back as offensive players, but I never projected myself as a renegade or guerrilla fighter either. It's not a 'take-no-prisoners' type of thing. "I look at football as a game, not as a life-and-death matter. It's not the gladiators in the Roman Colosseum. It's a sport, an entertainment, after all. There's enough violence intrinsic in it without injecting any further. I don't believe in inflicting pain verbally, either. I don't believe in verbal violence to add to the physical. And I don't throw my arms up over a tackled ballcarrier. I could never see standing over a player writhing or grimacing in pain on the ground while you stand and gloat, throwing your arms up to attest to the world that you did it. "I came to UCLA because Arthur Ashe ( the tennis player) was the only athlete I know ever to come out of Virginia to a great school like UCLA and I wanted to model myself after Arthur Ashe. I didn't want to disgrace Virginia." From what UCLA has seen so far, Virginia has no squawks coming. In fact, the PAC 10 and the NFL may open a permanent branch office in beautiful downtown Chesapeake. (c),1980, Los Angeles-Times |