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Show Saturday, February It's Kristie Phillips' year, llut she's a cheerleader, not U.S. gymnastics star By AUSTIN WILSON AP Sports Writer - &ATON ROUGE, La. (AP) Thjs was to have been the year of Krlstie Phillips, the Iron Pixie, expected to be the successor to Olympic champion Mary Lou Retton. 3t's still her year, but not the way it was planned. She has given upgymnastics, burned out mental-lyan- d physically, and is now a cheerleader at Louisiana State, dcng the things that other sophomores do. Campus life? Tl love it. I couldn't be happier. I live it at LSU," she said. She has an. active social life and just learned she had been accepted by a sorority. Cheerleading? "I love it. It's my personality. Even when I was in gymnastics, it was always me cheering my teammates on, 'C'mon, you can do it. You can do it.' It's in my blood, in my system," she said. Four male cheerleaders link arms and send Phillips flying high above the basketball court. Before she lands back in their arms, she does a back flip with a full twist. It's me most athletic move shown by an athletic group of LSU cheerleaders. Other people on the squad have done it before," Phillips said, "ty's really not that unusual. It's just that it comes easier to me because of my athletic ability. ' ' Phillips was an alternate on the '8J Olympic team at 16 years old, but she said she had no regrets over abandoning gymnastics, despite haying invested 12 years of hard work in the sport. She began as a then moved away from home to work with coach of champions Bela in Houston when she was 8. She returned home at 16 after dropping her quest for Olympic gold. She tried to get NCAA eligibility to compete at LSU, but she Ka-rol- yi had accepted some money for training expenses and hired someone to help arrange appearances. That was OK by Olympic standards, but the NCAA said she had professionalized herself. It was just as well, she said. ''I always wanted to be a cheerleader, but I never could, because of gymnastics. When it worked out that way, I just said, 'All right, that's what I want to be.' And I tried out for it," she said. She was injured, tired and emotionally drained by gymnastics, and that made the decision easier. "My body couldn't have taken it," she said. "Physically, I was incapable of competitive gymnastics. I was worn out, worn out with the sport of gymnastics anymore. "Once you get to that level, it is not fun anymore. It is a job. I had to not drop out of school, but I had to take a year leave from school in order to train 9 hours a 6-- day. "I broke my wrist in 1985, and I continued to work on a broken wrist for three years. To this day, it is still broken. It is a little bitty bone the navicular bone in your wrist. It doesn't get a very good blood supply, therefore it takes a very, very long time to heal. I couldn't take the time out to let my wrist heal. "One of these days, when I get the nerve, I will have the surgery to help it heal." The pain, the drudgery, the sacrifices were all worth it, she said. "I got to accomplish goals and do so many things that other people never get to do. How many people get to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated?" she said. Shaquille O'Neal came quickly to mind. "And Chris Jackson. You can put that in there, too. It makes a good trivia question," she said. "How many people get to travel around the world and compete for their nation? Those things kind of stand out in your mind, but I also learned discipline in my life, motivational habits, nutritional habits. There were so many things that went into gymnastics besides just learning to do a flip," she said. At 13, she began to attend the Northwest Memorial Baptist Church in Houston. There she found friends, a life outside of gymnastics and a youth director, Mickey Stockwell, who helped her cope with the stresses of the sport and the national attention it brought her. Now, her faith is helping her adjust to a new world, she said. "There are memories, but I knew God had a bigger and better plan for me. I had always given him all the glory for my talents and my abilities and everything I had accomplished," she said. "There's something out there for me that I'm searching for right now whether it will be a husband who will love me forever, whether it will be a job I will really enjoy or whether it will just be as a witness for Him, whatever He's leading me toward, that's where I'm going." Flash and sizzle missing at Albertville Olympics By JIM LITKE AP Sports Writer LA LECHERE, France (AP) -My Olympic spirit is lagging. I miss Katarina. I miss Eddie The Eagle. I miss the Red Menace. I can't wait much longer for La Bomba. I want a coy, manipulative woman who wants to be ogled. I want a few laughable competitors who don't mind being laughed at. I want villains who win and rub it in. I want braggarts daring us to hold them to their words. I don't want politically correct. I want fun. Bonnie Blair is a great skater she proved that by winning' the 500-metrace Monday. But she is not great fun. She wears Spandex outfits and sunglasses and a hood when she skates, because the only thing she wants to impress is the er clock. She would never wear a n-red, black, ruffle-trimme- crimso- d, outfit as Katarina Witt did in Calgary. And neither will any of the figure skaters now encamped in Albertville. And I guarantee you that none of them would dare say as Katarina did when discussing the male that "men would rather judges look at a well-bui- lt woman than a ing the whole flight praying that the road was rising up to meet him. And unlike Eddie, none of these guys was awarded a lifetime membership in The Monster Raving Looney Political Party of England, either. The Soviet oops, make that Unified hockey team is still mostly beating everyone's brains 1 out Saturday vs. Switzerland, 1 Monday vs. Norway. When this kind of thing went on 8-- 8-- previously, the victims used to fight back the only way they could with biting understatement. "If you're them," said Norway's asd sistant coach Tore Jobs, a first-roun- victim at Calgary, "you should beat us more than ." But considering how bad things are going off the ice for these guys outside of these days, who still has Steinbrenner George anything against them? And that's another part of the problem. There was a time, not so long ago, when a Soviet skater or Nordic skier would set a record and his coach would boast they had to hold a lottery to select the athletes for each team because there were 50 more like them back home. Now, when these Unified guys win and say they are glad just to have a job, we nod sadly in agre- rubber ball bouncing over the ement. ice;" Ernst Vitton is a great ski jumpehe proved that Sunday by r-1 jump. But winning the did the quiet Austrian make you care about this obscure event the 90-met- er the way Matti "Nukes" Nykanen, did? of Finn Calgary, Flying Did he drive his mother crazy by house jumping off the roof of the while still virtually in diapers, or, coaches crazy years later, drive his World the Cup cirbars exiting by one with legendary cuit over after another? way And this new duck-foote- d of pointing the skis may make them not Eddie fly farther, but it's just smiling, Edwards, "The Eagle" much jumpso not fogged, glasses and spend ing as merely dropping, fist-fig- ht thing you reprise the party-animdid at Calgary. Tell everyone how you are the "messiah of skiing," call home between runs down the mountain, and blow everyone else off the hill. Then do it again. Then grab a helicopter, knot a tie, drape those two gold medals over your neck, pluck a single rose and go wait backstage ai for whichever figure-skatin- g queen is finally crowned. Just do one thing different. If you must give her a poster of yourself, don't spell her name wrong (it was Katarina, not Katerina, remember). Maybe you won't get turned down this time. THE HERALD, Provo, Utah, - Page B5 es to make sure there are no prob-- " lems in the back of the shoulder," Ryan said. doesn't know where Still ball is going . i ... ? He looked a little out of place Tuesday, dressed in a tweed blazi er. He was in town to promote a ' new game, "Nolan Ryan's Strike , Zone Baseball." For a $79 sug- gested retail place, it's supposed to be realistic. i By RONALD BLUM AP Sports Writer - Nolan NEW YORK (AP) Ryan is tough on batters. And he's tough on his family. When he plays catch with his wife Ruth and his sons, bumps and bruises sometimes follow. How realistic? "If you hit the guy in the head, he said, 'Ow!'" Ryan said. . Now he is standing in a room full of adoring buyers, about five feet away from the game. The toy includes its own electronic who calls the action as ; the ball bounces off. . "I go through all of them sometimes," he said Tuesday. "One tfme, I hit her in the shins. Then, with my son, I bounced one and hit him in the head . " Even when throwing with his family, Nolan Ryan isn't entirely sure where the ball is going to Ryan stares down at the game,;-Th- e first pitch is high for a ball.; The second, high and outside,. Now a pitch on the corner. But the fourth is whacked for a double. wind up. "There's a price to pay," he said with a sheepish grin. In about three weeks, major league batters again will be paying the price. He's older than most of his fans, but no one else fans batters better. Just a few weeks ago, Ryan was down in Port Charlotte, Fla., pitching in a fanstasy camp. He took it easy. Threw in the 80s instead of the 90s. . ..v Clearly, here was a struggling pitcher. The next toss is lined to left for a home run. The next pitch brought another homer. - What's going on? This is lan Ryan we're talking about. "There was one guy, number 72 '' got him right in the chest. His smile stretched out into a smirk. You dig in against Nolan Ryan and you get what you deserve. "The rest of the week he walked around with his shirt off, - "f 'if 'J ' i No- "You go behind on a hitter and then you throw one down the middle, you get hit hard," Ryan said, laughing. Getting hit hard is a rarity in the life of Ryan, who's pretty rare himself. After all, he has. and pitched seven else has more than four. rs in no-hitt- er AP Laserphoto Nolan Ryan will be firing to the plate again this spring. control pitcher? Not after 5,510 strikeouts, 2,- 686 walks and 314 wins. Live by the heat until the day you can't. were two trips to the disa- - bled list last year with a strained shoulder, but when he came back, the heat was still on. "During the course of the sea-The- re son, I'll do some specific exercis ' no-on- "Can you pitch a this game?" someone asks. showing the mark," Ryan said. "You could see the seams of the ball on his west. I got him good. I think he was kind of proud of it. " He started laughing, but not viciously. "There were a couple of 'em where I said, 'Look out!' They were right at their heads. ' ' What was No. 72 expecting, a .' . "That was the first time I threw in months," he said. Ryan quickly turns to John Osher, the game's inventor, and, gives him a sharp stare, like the one he gives batters just before letting loose. "There had better be a ter in there," he said. no-hi- t; Tomba promises to kee p lowp rofile SESTRIERE, Italy (AP) Al- berto Tomba doesn't expect to be partying in Albertville next week. Impossible, you say? A low profile "La Bomba"? It's true. Tomba intends to win two medals when he gets to France, and the defending double medalist says that's no cause for celebration. "Lately I have been toasting defeats rather than wins to avoid too much celebration," Tomba said Thursday, when a group of reporters left the Olympic sites in France to go chat with Italy's top skier. "fam in great form, very confident," Tomba continued. "Fans like skiers who take risks and I will throw myself down the slopes without psychological problems, without any fear. I will seek two titles, but I could be satisfied with that's one gold one and a half and one silver." The Italian, a slalom and giant slalom champion in Calgary four years ago, goes after gold in the same Olympic disciplines in Val D'Isere next week. A back to back Olympic triumph is unprecedented in men's Alpine skiing, and Tomba emphasized he loves to be the No; 1 . "Being at the top is my favorite position," he said. Tomba, who is completing his Olympic preparation in this north Italian resort, said his opponents would have little chances of victory "if the courses are well Tomba listed Paul Accola of Switzerland as one of his toughest opponents in slalom and giant slalom, although Accola did poorly in the Olympic downhill and combined events this week. "Perhaps he was too tense, but I expect him to fight back next week. Norwegian skiers, Paul and Marc (Girardelli), are the men I will have to beware," Tomba said. "However I feel stronger than four years ago. With some good luck and a low starting number I can win both races." The Italian skier begins action in Val d'Isere in Tuesday's giant slalom. He will then start in the slalom on the final Olympic Saturday. Tomba, whose pictures made the front page in several Italian, magazines this week, said "everyi' body expects gold medals from.me now. Tomba is the name in '.'.tKenews these days." -' "If I fail, I will have to show the!; two medals I have won in Cal-- ; gary," Tomba joked. Tomba has been training slabm and giant slalom daily here in'the, western Alps, avoiding the pressure of the media and of fans at the' Olympic sites in France. "I never saw the Olympic course in Val d'Isere but it will be enough to inspect it the day before the race," Tomba said. "I hope.', it's better prepared than for the; combined. I could see the holes-anbumps on television . " d Foreman will return to ring - Former LAS VEGAS (AP) heavyweight champion George Foreman will return to the ring April 1 1 against Alex Stewart in the first fight ever in the 19,500-seUNLV campus arena. Promoter Bob Arum said the Foreman will receive $5 million for the fight, his second since losing a bid for the heavyweight title last April against Evander Holyfield. James Toney will defend his middleweight title on the same card against Glenn Wolfe of Miami, Arum said. The fight will be sponsored by the Las Vegas Hilton, but will be held at the Thomas and Mack Arena where the UNLV basketball team plays. Arum said 9,500 of the tickets will be sold for $25 each, with ringside tickets going for $200. "We want people who can't normally afford to go to fights to be able to come to see George," he said. televiArum said sions will be set up throughout the arena, and fans will be treated to the fireworks show that usually precedes UNLV basketball games. He said hoped to get UNLV coach Jerry Tarkanian, who is being feted at a farewell dinner the night before, to be the guest of honor. "We plan to sell it out," Arum said. "George is a folk hero. He's like Paul Bunyan." Foreman has fought only once since losing a decision to Holyfield, stopping Jimmy Ellis in the third round Dec. 7 in Reno. The former champion's overall record is 70-- 3 with 66 knockouts and he is 25-- 1 with 24 knockouts since resuming his career after a decade of inactivity. at big-scre- Tomba, save us. We'll forgive your hiding out in Italy this week if you promise to 15, 1992 join Your Friends At The My Herald HIT u u u o Tuesday, Feb. 18 at 7 p.m. Seven Peaks Resort Excelsior Hotel Talmage Room en IT'S FREE! IT'S FUN AND IT'S INFORMATIVE! Bob Relitz from Carnival Cruise Lines and Greg Jewkes from Morris Air will make presentations about the Bahamas and Orlando. Florida. You don't want to miss it...plan now to attend. SEATING IS LIMITED! 18535233 Movie Slide Presentation Door Prizes |