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Show t Put B6 Thursday, February 11, 1982 The Newspaper llsa Mnrray X3ori3oSQy niia Spqpirttg Newspaper y World-class runner or Radio City Rockette? You can tell right away Mary Decker Tabb isn't a world-class runner. A world-class chorus girl, perhaps. World-class model, maybe. Brooke Shields in cleats. Mary is 23 years old now, but, if you saw her in Disneyland looking lost, you would probably buy her a lollipop, and prop her up on the sergeant's desk and take her picture with a police cap on and page her mother. If you don't think this is unusual, you haven't been to any international women's track mets lately. To give you an idea, Mary went into the women's lockerroom in Hungary last year and rushed right out, blushing. "I thought I told you I wanted the 'women's' dressing room ! " she wailed to officials. of-ficials. "That is the women's dressing room," she was told. Mary recalls she was flabbergasted. From the muscular builds she had seen from the rear, she had thought she wandered into a touring troupe of the Green Bay packers by mistake. Women's international track and field stars are beginning to look like someone you might call "Bubba." At a time when 90 percent per-cent of the adult female world wants to look like Bo Derek, they're working more toward looking like Bo Schembechler. In a world of perfect 10s, they're minus threes. The kind they're turning out in the Iron Curtain meets, America's girl athletes are not even sure they're human, let alone female. They're about as "human" as a tractor, trac-tor, they feel. They're not born, they're assembled. If you listen closely, they believe, you can hear the hum. If they cough, a printout prin-tout may emerge. Or so their American counterparts believe. The world record holder in the 1,500 meters is Russia's Tatyana Kazankina. When Mary Decker Tabb ran her American record, 1,500 of 3 : 59.4 in Zurich, Tatyana beat her by a full seven seconds. "When I first ran against her as a young girl in Moscow years ago, I used to beat her in the 800. The girl I ran against now looks like her brother," shrugs Mary. A lot of people thought that Mary Decker had long since retired. That's because she was one of the most precocious athletes in American history. At the age of 14, running in teeth braces, she was beating the world's best in the half-mile and, in fact, set the American half-mile record. She ran the mile in 4:37, the half in 2:02.4. She set the indoor half-mile record and she did this as an "Amazon" of 89 pounds and four-feet, 11-inches 11-inches tall. "Wait'll she grows up!" boasted the track-and-field world. When she grew up she gained 25 pounds and seven inches by her 17th birthday Mary Decker could hardly walk, let alone run. She was the youngest person in the history of Orange County to need a cane. When she tried to run, it felt as if her shins had caught fire. What had happened was that the muscle sheath surrounding her shin bones had lost its elasticity and couldn't expand. Once filled with blood, it created such pressure, it was like having the gout along the entire leg. Mary could not only tell when it was going to rain, she could tell when it was going to be high tide. A New Zealand Olympian, Dick Quax, persuaded per-suaded Mary to have an operation that had proved successful with him. It was an operation on the sheath, or fascia, which had alleviated his suffering to the point where he won a silver medal in Montreal and broke the world record in the 5,000 in Europe later. It worked for Mary, too, who promptly returned to the track and became the first woman ever to break two minutes for the half mile, and to break the world record, indoors, in-doors, for the 1,000-yard race. Mary won the 1,500 at the Olympic trials in 1980 and would have been our best bet at the middle distance in Moscow that year if President Carter didn't decide to get the Russians out of Afghanistan by placing an embargo on foot-racers, which proved to be like telling a naughty kid he couldn't have his spinach if he didn't shape up. Mary would not have beaten the Soviet's wonder runner, Tatyana Kazankina (whom Mary calls "Ted" for what she feels are obvious ob-vious reasons), at Moscow, but she might certainly have medaled. She set out on her assaults on the 1984 Olympics Jan. 22 at the Sunkist Invitational track meet at the Los Angeles Sports Arena. She married the marathoner, Ron Tabb, last September, the legs are fine; in fact she looks more like a ballerina than a miler, and, if anyone wanders wan-ders into her dressing room by mistake, she will be quite sure it is not the Green Bay Packers', although it might well be the Radio City Music Hall Rockettes or Charlie's Angels. 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PATIO SET RATTAN FIBERGLASS 20 OFF yy :hM:: " Al h - ..ju. .mm ill - W"r ' ' 'i irtHWHiflrcinnfriiiirinniliiniiftlMwBlli rr 'fY'p'vci"yt " n"2.-x-i-&vxn,n-vtw,.-vi . r TERRY SPA ROBES CANNON SPA TOWELS BATHROOM RUGS Whirlpool Bathtubs Steam Showers Portable Spas Soaking Tubs Saunas Wallpaper Carpet Tile Oak Bath Fixtures SERVICE & MAINTENANCE V yk Universal Spa Systems ADULT If 6980 South 400 West jQy C Midvale, Utah 84047 oTODCC Jt onu ccc.7707 O UnCO lllllil mmm. I '1 ymrj ' "I"V ; ' WHH! "This one's on you, number 31." The referee seems to be pointing the finger at Roger Burns, on the floor, after this collision in the North Summit game. Basketball Miners stay with Braves through three quarters, only to lose in final moments of game i by John Sundquist . The last time Park City played the North Summit Braves, the Miners were behind 44-20 at the half, and went on to lose by 11 even though the Braves substituted substi-tuted freely throughout the second half. Last Friday, in the North Summit gymnasium, gymna-sium, Park City trailed by only two points at the half, and by a single point at end of the third quarter. Unfortunately, some artful shooting by North Summit's Brent Richins put an end to the Miners' dreams in the fourth quarter as the Braves pulled off the win, 64-57. The difference between the two games was like night and day," exclaimed Park City Coach Bruce Reid. They have worked hard at practice. prac-tice. It was not evident against Mt. Vernon or Manila, Ma-nila, but I knew they were ready to play tough against a tough team." . The Braves came into Friday night's game with a 4-2 record in the league, tied with South Summit foi second place behind powerful power-ful South Rich. The Miners brough a 2-4 record; their only victories were over last-place Manila. In the first quarter, the Miners were ahead by scores of 7-4 and 7-6 with the two teams feeling each other out. Roger Burns and Steve Toly put in some valuable points from the field and the free-throw line to keep pace with North Summit. Just before the end of the first quarter, guard Trent Leavitt put in his first of four 20-foot shots from back of the key to make the score 14-11. The quarter ended with the Miners down by three, 18-15. The second quarter was perhaps Park City's finest of the evening. Several minutes into the period, the Miners found themselves off the pace by nine, 4-15. Coach Reid called timeout to settle them down. This seemed to give the players a lift. From 24-15 the Park City team came back to tie the game at 31-31 when Trent Leavitt hit a bucket from 20 feet out with 3: 17 left. Leavitt scored four long-distance shots in the first half, all from the same position to the right of and behind the key. Park City even had the ball for the last shot of the half with 44 seconds on the clock. However, the Braves managed to pull in the rebound and score to leave the gym leading by a basket, 33-31. On reflection, Reid was encouraged by two things in the game. "I was very pleased to see us come back after seeing six unanswered points go on the board early in the second quarter, to close it to two points at the half. We showed enough composure to get back into the game. We displayed patience on offense and took our time making a good shot selection." The second encouraging aspect of the game was the play of Trent Leavitt. The eight points scored by leavitt in the first half kept Park City in the match. "Trent played an exceptionally excep-tionally strong game from the point. He committed only three turnovers and had seven assists," said Reid. The second half saw the Miners ahead at several times and continually getting get-ting the big basket when it was needed. Burns tied it right away at 33, and Steve Toly tied it again at 35 after a nice drive from the post. Burns put the Miners ahead at 5:20 of the third quarter, 37-35. At 3:04, Park City had a three point lead 42-39, due to back-to-back free-throws by Steve Toly. At this juncture the Miners could have writen their own ending for the game. The Braves fought back to lead at the end of the third quarter 45-44. The difference for the Braves was some clutch freethrows and fine offensive rebounding. The Miners were not boxing out the North Summit players after their shots, giving them additional opportunities. To start the fourth quarter, the Miners had two starters in foul trouble: Toly and Burns with four fouls each. The Miners had been behind by three at the first quarter, two at the half, and one point ending the third quarter. With eight minutes to go it was time for some game decision. "I was trying to hide Burns and Toly," said Reid. "Darren "Dar-ren Lawless had been covering cover-ing Brent Richins throughout the game and I took him off and put Burns on Richins." Brent Richins of North Summit scored four baskets in the fourth quarter to end Gymnastics the game with 16 points. Ricjiins turned out to be the bad guy for North Summit. With less then six mintues to go the Miners were only down by 49-45, and closed to within four after Lawless made a good layup shot under pressure. But this was as close as the Miners would come. The last four mintues saw the Miners begin to lose their shooting eye. They couldn't seem to pass the ball around as they had been. Once in the offensive zone, the Miners were getting just one shot, and these where hurried and poorly selected. The scoring leaders for Park City were Steve Toly with 18, and Roger Burns with 16. In free-throws,, the Braves shot 12 of 21, and the Miners scored 9 of 13. The J.V. game ended in overtime with the Braves beating the Miners 39-37. The Miners had been trailing by 10 points, but came back to throw it into overtime. The overtime period was played without three of Park City's starting J.V. players. "This is the most encouraged encour-aged I have been for a while," exclaimed Reid. Both J.V. and the Varsity played well." This Friday, Feb. 12, the Miners host first-place South Rich at the park City High School at 7:30 p.m. Rule changes should make competition tougher Park City Sdb& Tub 750 E. Highway 248, 104 ")L Park City, Utah 84060 (801)649-8172 T TM j Last year, the Park City High School Gymnastics team finished third in the joint 1A-2A State Tournament. Tourna-ment. In 1982, the team begins another season with high potential and a new tournament format. The Utah High School Activities Association has announced a rules change regarding the two competitive competi-tive categories, optional and compulsory. (The compulsory compul-sory category involves required re-quired routines performed by everyone; the optional area can be more individually-styled, while using certain mandatory moves.) In the past, the rules allowed each team to submit six routines (individual performances) per-formances) in each of the four scoring areas: bars, vault, beam, and floor. That permitted a total of 48 compulsory and optional routines. The new system eliminates elimi-nates the compulsory routines rou-tines altogether, and reduces the number of optional routines per team per scoring scor-ing area from six girls to four. Now, instead of 48 routines for each team in a meet, there are 16. According to Park City Coach Gail McBride, most of the other teams do not appreciate the socring change, but for her team it will be beneficial. "I think it is a good idea," says McBride. "It will give the more experienced girls incentive to improve, and it will lead to hea ted-up practice prac-tice sessions where the competition will increase because the number of routines in a meet is lower." The teams Park City will compete against this season are Lehi, Duchesne, Union, Emery, North Rich, and South Rich. Coach McBridp feels her team has a challenge chal-lenge ahead of them because most of these teams are among the best in the state for their school size. Union and Lehi are 2A schools. Park City is competing once again against both 1A and 2A schools in the State Tournament. Tour-nament. Park City will meet Union, Emery, Duchesne, and Lehi four times in five-way meets during their 1982 schedule. The only home meet is scheduled for March 25. Since there is no regional tournament for gymnastics, these teams have decided to hold a mock regional tournament tourna-ment in Duchesne April 1. The coaches have to make up their own schedules except for the State Tournament Tourna-ment which is going to be held at West Jordan High School On April 17. "We are going to use the Duchesne meet as a preparation prepara-tion for the State Tourna ment," says McBride. "It will give as many girls as possible the chance to prepare pre-pare and compete." She is requiring every first-year girl to compete in every event even though she may not qualify in any on meet. This can give them wide range of experience and enable them to become confident in gymnastics. In the last few years, several 1A schools have dropped their gymnastics sports programs. But interest inter-est in Park City is increasing. increas-ing. "We have a tremendous amount of parental support," sup-port," says McBride. "There are gymnastics programs in Park City independent of the schools and this provides us with needed early exposure to build up our own program." pro-gram." There are 16 members on the gymnastics team and only one senior. This depth ensures continued strength for future Park City teams. Freshmen gymnasts are Susie Miles, Marleen Mur-nin, Mur-nin, Michelle McReynolds, Chris Ruzicka, Wendy Blackbourn, Heather Moyle, and Cindy Thaller. Sophomores Sopho-mores include Amy Irvine, Holly Scott, and Lisa Olsen. The juniors are Teri Potts, Anita Miles, Susie Clark, and Susan Mahoney. The lone senior is Pamela Tebbs. |