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Show v Newspaper- yl v-er: Page II Thursday, Oclober 16, 1980 " "Hji 0 I'" i --'' ' : Miners By David Hampshire They did it again. The Park City Miners, trailing 9-7 and on the verge of giving up another touchdown, touch-down, drove 99 yards in the closing moments Oct. 8 to defeat the visiting Wasatch Wasps 13-9. It was the second time in three days that the Miners had come back to win late in the fourth quarter. The hero of the hour was junior halfback Steve Toly, who rushed for 157 yards, scored both Park City touchdowns, touch-downs, and had a hand in 78 of the 99 yards in the winning drive. Nevertheless, it was not one of the Miners' finest performances. per-formances. They fumbled the ball six times, losing three and giving up big yardage on two of the others. Major penalties cost them good field position on several occasions and gave the Wasps a crucial first down during their third-period touchdown drive. "Mentally and physically, there were many more mistakes than normal," Miner coach Bob Burns agreed. He said it was more difficult than usual getting the team up for the game after the tense last-minute win over North Summit only by Jitti Murray The Ballad of Muhammad Las Vegas Okay, stop the music. Take off the paper hats. Take down those streamers from the ceiling. Tell the piano player to cool it. Hold the confetti. Close the bar. Nobody feels like a drink at a time like this. Cancel the parade. Dim the lights, muffle the drums. Get out the black suit. The party's over. Muhammad Ali is mortal. He turned back into a pumpkin well before midnight. The cazzling pretty boy who flashed out of the Lousiville ghetto 20 years ago to beguile the world with the most improbably career in the annals of fistiana was finally caught up with by the Gray Stranger. His appointment in Samarra was kept, his rendezvous with fate met. And Larry Holmes has shot Santa Claus. He has closed the circus. He couldn't do any worse if he burned Disneyland and poisoned Mickey Mouse. We're not going to have Muhammad Ali to kick us around any more. He belongs with Joe Louis, James J. Jeffried, Jack Johnson and Jack Dempsey how. He's yesterday's roses, he belongs to the scrapbooks. But what a lovely light when he burned his brightest, if Edna St Vincent Millay will pardon me. What a glow he lit in a sport grown moribund when he first burst on it. They'll talk into the night around the old gyms of the flashing footwork, the blazing combinations, the fights he 'fought that were more ballet than brutal. He did things in a ring Nureyev couldn't do at the Bolshoi. It was when boxing became an art not a murder. I'd like to spare you the details. I mean who cares what the train thinks when it rolls through a bus at a crossing? Who wants to interview a flood? Larry Holmes was just there, is all. He didn't beat Ali, he beat the ghost of Ali, a memory, is all. The real Ali, the Arabian Knight, the boy boxer from the bluegrass, would have beat Larry Holmes and knitted an Afghan in his days of glory. Holmes would have spent the night wondering where he kept disappearing to. He would have thought it was raining gloves. This 38-year-old replica of the real thing would have had trouble getting out of the way of a glacier. He was like a general who keeps sending messages down to an army that has defected, deserted him. You could see the brain saying, "There! Right there! Deliver a left jab!" But by the time the resty communications got the message down to the front line, the target was gone. Openings ' ere he would have rained five, six, seven punches in the old days, he couldn't deliver until too late. All systems were not go. All systems were gone. If you like to see people sticking pins in canaries, this would have been a fight for you. The fight wa. stopped after the 10th round but Ali had stopped fighting long before that. The great boxer was just a sodden punching bag. They should have hung him on chains. He stumbled about the ring on leaden legs, his arms hung down as if he had a bowling ball at the end of each of them. He never won a round. He got hit by two days before. The turning point against Wasatch was the Park City goal-line stand with about four minutes left in the game. The Wasps had driven from their own 33 to the Miners' nine-yard line where they faced a first-and-goal situation. The Wasps gained five yards on their first two tries, then called a sweep around their own left side. Wasatch halfback Paul Cook apparently ap-parently was headed for the end zone when tiny (115-pound) (115-pound) Park City defensive back Trent Leavitt brought him down with an open-field tackle at the three-yard line. On fourth down and three, the Wasps tried a dive into the center of the line, and almost pulled it off. In fact, the play came so close that one of the officials threw his arms up to signal a touchdown, touch-down, then changed his mind. The Miners took over only inches outside their own goal line. An offside penalty against Wasatch gave Park City a little breathing room. But the Miners picked up only three yards on the next two plays and were confronted with a critical third down and two yards to go. But instead of going for the two yards, the Miners went for broke. What appeared to be a simple running play around the right side turned into a 31-yard halfback pass, as Toly pulled up and threw a strike to Roger Burns at the Park City 40. Suddenly the Miners had the momentum. Two plays later, Toly carried the ball into Wasatch territory on a 12-yard draw play. Troy punches that wouldn't have come within five inches of his person five years ago. It was like watching a great actor making a caricature of himself. Ali was a parody of himself. All the old shticks were trotted out, the mugging, the rope-a-dope, the taunts, the fake rubber-legging. rubber-legging. By the fifth round, he didn't have to fake. His legs must have felt like they were three inches long and made of ice cream. The hero is Dundee. The hero is not Larry Holmes. It's Angelo Dundee. In 1964, Muhammad Ali wanted to quit in his corner against Liston in Miami and Angie wouldn't let him. The liniment burning his eyes would go away. Thursday night, Ali didn't want to quit. The fight had a good game referee who probably likes disaster movies. "It's time," Angie told his battered husk of a fighter. Ali looked as if he had fallen off a truck on his face. If you like to think of Ali as a catcher, this would have been your night. But not even Holmes enjoyed the last three rounds. He looked disgustedly at the referee as he came to his corner at the end of the ninth, minute. He looked like Ernie (The Rock) Durando, Carmen Basilio by the seventh round, a guy who will take a falling safe to the jaw to land one punch. So, take the balloons down, strike the tent, put away the spangled costumes. Ali can't tame the lions any more. The heavyweight champion of the world is just a guy named Larry. He can't excite the mobs, make the pulse race, turn a simple fist fight into the lions vs. the Christians. He just stands there and hits people. Often. The Skills Were Gone. Ali didn't go out on his shield. He wouldn't go down. But the skills were gone, the bright hot light of his youth a dim bulb. He seemed trying to remember how he used to do it but even the memory was gone. He was doing an impression of Muhammad Ali, a Rich Little impersonation. He is a fighter who can take it, if that's your idea of a part for Muhammad Ali. He had no more offense than Mussolini's Navy by the end. So, at the end, he went out the way they all do. The way Dempsey did, stumbling around the ring in the rain at Philadelphia or pawing the ropes in Chicago, the way Louis did when his head hit the ring rope after a Marciano right. It was the first fight they built an arena especially for since Dempsey-Carpentier on Boyle's Thirty Acres in 1921. They won't need special arenas from now on. They can hold the future fights in the lobby. The magic is gone. Boxing's golden prince lay on his stool, eyes glazed, flace bruised and swollen. It had to end this way. The ballad of Muhammad Ali at the end was a sad song. But maybe they won't remember the leaden-legged defenseless defense-less fighter of 38 but the Ali of the magical combinations, the stunning style that was as pretty to watch as a sunset over the Grand Canyon or a Monet oil. (c) 1980, Los Angeles Times Above: Wasatch quar- "r v. .JXi4" V terback Blake Baird " ( 1 -) -'.'I finds himself in a v-vr I f . - ' crowd of Miners which . . 'X Vf-C '' - "X' includes John Ott (52). tzr Il( 0 I It . Packard picked up another 12 on the next play. Then it was Toly's turn again, but in another role. This time he was on the receiving end of a 36-yard touchdown pass from quarterback quar-terback Tom Flinders. Showing more confidence as a passer in each game, Flinders put the ball right on Toly's fingertips at about the 20-yard line. Toly raced the final yards to score the winning touchdown with 1:22 left in the game. In a desperate attempt to regain the lead, the Wasps went into a shotgun formation forma-tion after running the kickoff back to their own 34. But Wasatch quarterback Blake Baird could manage only one completion in four attempts, and the Miners regained possession at the Wasps' 38. With only 25 seconds left, Park City ran out the clock. Before the game, Burns had discussed the possibility of giving Flinders the chance to throw the ball more, since this was a "practice" game. "That was the basic concept," con-cept," he agreed. "But we ran quite successfully in the first half, so we stuck with it." The Miners (specifically Flinders and Toly) finished the day with three completions comple-tions in five attempts good for 74 yards. Two of those completions came in the final three minutes. With the exception of the winning drive, the Miners 1 viaqers The Restaurant Serving Luncheon Special 11:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Monday thru Friday Serving Breakfast Sat. 8 to 11 & Sun. 9 to 1 442 Main Street 649-7060 Steve played their best football in the first half. The defense limited the Wasps to only four first downs, of which two came early in the first quarter. The first Park City touchdown touch-down came on a 69-yard drive late in the first quarter. Fullback Troy Packard carried the ball into Wasatch territory with a 24-yard run from his own 31. Then, on third down from the Wasatch 43, the Miners called a draw play and gave the ball to Toly. The Miners' junior halfback eluded several seve-ral tackles, bowled over one Wasp defender at the 20-yard line, then raced into the left corner of the end zone. Darrin Lawless added the extra point, and Park City had a 7-0 lead. The Miners threatened again late in the half, taking the ball from their own 20 to the Wasatch 30 before they ran out of downs, and time. Packard and Toly again Toly (11) finds his progress provided the spark with key running plays. On fourth down with only three second left, Lawless attempted a 45-yard field goal into the wind. But the line-drive kick fell short of the mark, and the Miners had to settle for a 7-0 lead at the half. Burns said that the Park City offensive line played a strong first half, giving Packard and Toly the blocking block-ing they needed to pick up long yardage. But the third quarter was a different story. In spite of getting great field position on Toly's runback of the kickoff, the Miners made one mistake after another. They were called for clipping on the runback, then gave up the ball on a fumble on the first play from scrimmage. The Miner defense held the Wasps without a first down, and the offense got another chance. But again the fumbles fum-bles came. After Toly had Just Arrived 1980 NORDIC AS 20 DOWN WILL HOLD 'TIL NOV. 15 1240 PARK AVENUE slowed by a pesky Wasp picked up a first down at his own 46, the Miners bobbled the ball on two consecutive plays, losing 13 yards in the process and prompting Burns to call a quick kick on third down and 23. Punter Tom Tebbs baiied out his team with a 67-yard kick which bounced all the way into the Wasatch end zone. Then came the Wasatch touchdown drive. Led by the slashing runs of Paul Cook and aided by a penalty against the Miners, the visitors drove from their own 20 to score with 2:35 left in the third quarter. The touchdown touch-down came in spite of good defensive plays by Park City's Tebbs and Scott Erick-son. Erick-son. The big play in the Wasp drive was a 32-yard run by Cook, who dodged several would-be tacklers on his way to the Park City seven-yard line. Three plays later, fullback Ken Curfew ham Open PARK CITY, UTAH 84060 defender. mered over for the score. The extra point was no good. Another Park City fumble late in the third period led to the Wasps' second score. Wasatch recovered a bad pitchout at the Park City 25, setting the stage for a 40-yard field goal by Gary Braley on the second play of the fourth quarter. The Wasps then threatened threat-ened to add to their 9-7 lead late in the game until an inspired defensive performance perfor-mance by Park City turned the game around. This week's game will see Park City at Altamont, a team which is winless in league play. That game is set to begin at 4 p.m. Thursday. According to Burns, the Miners already are assured of at least a second place finish in Region 11. Looming on the horizon is the Oct. 24 showdown with South Summit, Sum-mit, a game which should decide the region championship. champion-ship. Mon.-Sat. 10:30-6:00 PHONE 801-649-9123 |