Page Eight

SCARLET AND BLACK

Friday, January 23, mo

 

SCARLET & BLACK SPORTS

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Fable of the
Novice
Sportswriter

1
John Nigel Pepper

The Associated Colleges of the
Midwest, as you have all been
told, is an organization devoted
to the pursuit of Good Clean Fun
at the intercollegiate level. It
consists of colleges which send
athletic newsletters to each other
and to the Press. The minute he
gets these Lloyd puts them in my
wire basket, leans hack in his
swivel chair and tells me. Except
on vacations. When I arrived on
Saturday, Lloyd put a month‘s
accumulation in my wire basket,
leaned back, etcetera. Knowing
No Better, 1 opened and read 1
NCAA newsletter, 4 from
Carleton, 3 from Grinnell, 2 each
from Coe and Beloit, and 12 from
Monmouth. There was another
from some tennis organization,
but Lloyd kept that, so you'll have
to ask him if you want to hear
about it,

Just as well for me that I went
through all this trouble, because
it Disencumbered Me Good and
Proper. There is, it seems a
notion abroad among the laity
that sports is made up of roughly
equal proportions of Good and
Bad Teams, and mat the two
meet periodically and the For-
mer defeat, trounce, edge, down,
romp over, upset, detenestrate,
or similarly demonstrate their
unbridled superiority over the
valiant, but (alas!) doomed
Latter. Needless to say, I couldn’t
have been further from the truth
if I’d tried. There are neither
Good Teams nor Bad Teams, but
no need to worry. (Where there
remains so little as a Former and
a Latter, there springs Hope in
the pedant’s mind.)

The fact of the matter is that
there are Optimistic teams and
seasoned ones (players 32 years
and older), and that these
regularly encounter and defeat,
trounce. edge, down, romp over,
and upset the Latter, which are
Building Teams (generally
paraplegic sophomores).
Promising Teams (a specialty at
church-affiliated colleges). and
Teams Plagued by Injury (in-
cluding, in our own ACM, at least
two cases of blood poisoning, not
to mention outbreaks of House-
maid’s Knee on the field hockey
rosters),

When I had learned all this.
Iputmy newsletters in a Campus
Mail Envelope, sealed it, and

Pioneers Beat
Beloit, Face
Crucial Trip

The Grinnell Pioneer
Basketball team beat Beloit 7560
last Saturday after losing to Coe
the night before. Two weeks ago
the cagers opened conference
play with a road trip to North
field, Minnesota and battled
defending league champion St.
Olaf and then Carleton.

The Pioneers faced a tough
Carleton team and were leading
going into the last few crucial
minutes of the game until the
Carls put on a sudden later game
surge and took the victory away
from the Pioneers, finally win-
ning by seven points, The next
night, Grinnell played an inspired
game against St, Olaf. Grinnell
was forced into overtime before
losing by four points. The Oles
are currently leading the Mid»
west Conference with a 4-0
record. Sophomore center Bob
Burnett played a tremendous
game and led all scorers with
29 points. St. Olaf’s two all»
conference players could not stop
Burnett as he played his finest
game of the season. This road
trip proved that Grinnell is
capable of beating any team in

theleague.

On January 16th Coe invaded
Darby Gym and coasted to a 103-
62 win over the Pioneers,
becoming the first team in the
league to break the century mark
this season. Junior Scott Hanson
and senior captain Don Peterson
led the disappointing scoring with
eleven points each, while
sophomore Greg Bombinski had
ten points.

The next night was a successful
one for the Pioneers, as they
nailed down their first home
conference victory of the young
season. The Pioneers outplayed
Beloit and rolled to a 7560 viri-
tory. Junior Greg Bumbinski
scored 18 first half points and
finished with a game high of 21
points. Hanson and Bombinskihit
double figures again, scoring 17
and 11 points respectively.

Tonight Grinnell plays at
Lawrence against a team which
was soundly beaten by Beloit.
The Pioneers are favored to beat
Lawrence and if they do, they
could go into Ripon with some
momentum and possibly sweep
the road trip. This would give
the basketball team a creditable
.500 record going into a live game
home stand.

FOR SALE: 52 Chevy. Ex-
cellent condition. low
mileage, Gary Zarker.

236-7029.

Filed It Carciully Away in a
drawer somewhere, coming
away somewhat chastcncd and
certainly Educated

MORAL: Ask Lloyd for the
tennis magazine, Since it might
be interesting

Swimmers Easily
Win Relays

By Reggie Graham

The ups and downs of the past
two years have produced an
excellent group of swimmers.
Many of us have come up from
poor to mediocre backgrounds
With the help of Coach Ober-
miller, and we are now a team
of winners. Enough said:
Examine the results of last
week's Grinnell Relays.

The annual invitational affair
was attended by three nonr
conference schools: Wayne State
University, The University of
Northern Iowa, and Luther
College. These are large schools
compared with Grinnell and
usually afford excellent com-
petition. This year Grinnell
produced an outstanding per-
formance. We are in good shape,
just closing out our two weeks
of prersemester, two-a-day
workouts. Our relay teams took
first in eight of the ten events,
placing second in the other two.
In a relays meet such as this one,
swimmers compete in pairs as
teams. Thus, for example, in the
200 yard butterﬂy, Jim William's
and Hal Dale’s times were
combined. Their total being less
than that of any other team, they
won the event, the trophies, and
kisses from the queens (Kathy

New Wrestling

Coach Interviewed

When I went to Darby on
Tuesday afternoon I found
Maurice Hunt in the locker room
with his four~man wrestling
squad. The team was preparing
to leave later that afternoon for
a meet at Wartburg. and there
hadn’t been time to arrange a
trainingmeal.

”Don’t worry,” he said ”a
hungry man is a dangerous
man.” and he sent them off to
the Forum for their training
meal.

Hunt comes from Kentucky
State College (captain of the
football team) by way of Gary,
Indiana’s city school system,
where he taught and coached.
Coaching the wrestling team of
a school with an enrollment of
more than 2,000 (compared to
Grinnell‘s 1180), he guided at
least one of his wrestlers to a
city championship. And all navelr
staring urges aside, it would be
difficult not to wonder what his
reaction to coaching at Grinnell
has been.

Maurice is disappointed,
though keenly sensitive to the
athletic situation at Grinnell, and
hewas willing to talk about it.

First of all, Grinnell does not
have a reputation as the sort of
school at which highly competi-
tive athletes can do great things,
and A c M, regulations prohibit
any recruitment of prospective
students by coaches. So the
college must depend, says Hunt,
on alumni aSSlstance and team
records within the conference.
But alumni of Grinnell tend
towards urban areas, and urban
athletes tend towards large

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Our man in the flowered bathing trunks hits the water ahead of

all the rest.
Abbott and Val Siedert). Records
of the previous Grinnell Relays
have been kept, and several were
broken this year. The 1000 yard
freestyle is a new event for the
relays, and the team of John
McBlain and Mike Daley set a
good mark toward which future
teams can aim. Don Linke and
myself set a new diving record;
Bruce Rollins and Jim Carns, a
record in the 60 yard freestyle.
Rollins and Steve Ward broke the
1000 yard freestyle record, and
the unbeatable distance team of
Daley and McBlain set a new
record in the 500 yard freestyle.
A new 400 yard freestyle relay
record was also set by the team
of Ward, Carns, Chris Freeburg,
and Rollins.

Individually, Mike Daley didn't
get into the pool without breaking

schools which can offer the busi-
ness and professional programs
as well as their athletic attentions
and scholarships. Nor can
Grinnell draw to the Same extent
on alumni and organizational
loyalties as can schools like St.
Olaf, forinstance.

Hunt, who also coaches the
football and track teams, feels
that despite these drawbacks, the
college can attract talent in par-
ticular sports by virtue of team
records in these sports. He cites
as an instance the increase in
prospective football players after
last year's winning season.

But no matter how good his
wrestlers, he is dogged by cir-
cumstance and appearances, in
this aspect. The wrestling team
at its full strength will number
five men: Jim Weiser, Mason
Klippell, Washington Alston,
Torn Ratliff, and Chuck Farr. As
a complete team should cover all
eleven Weight classes, Grinnell
must forfeit most matches in dual
meets before they are into their
tights and out of the locker room.

Consider also this: Grinnell is
slated to meet Hofstra next
Wednesday at Iowa City. Hof-
strau is ranked well up in the
top-ten small-college wrestling
teams in the country, and the
Grinnell squad is understandably
nervous about the meet. Hunt,
whilehe feels that this scheduling
is a mistake, thinks that there
is a real possibility of strong
individual performances making
a contest of it. But the fact
remains that a meet like this
tends to discourage the team, and
perhaps more importantly, can
present an erroneous picture of

AfonliEss HERE:

a meet record. even breaking the
old pool record in the 500 by
swimming a 528.4. 1 scored
213.60 points to get the individual
diving record; Rollins swam a
28.5 second 60 to get the in
dividual record in this event.

Coach Obermiller thinks the
team is in excellent shape, and
is looking forward to a whole
season of meets ending as hap
pily as our relays.

The second dual meet of the
season is Saturday (the first was
with Coe before vacation, and we
won it handily). We face Mons
mouth, which has had a string
of excellent teams. They beat us
last year by one point, so we’re
up‘ior a grudge victory. We have
only one other home meet this
year s why not come tomorrow
atpnethirty?

its genuine strengths. This sort
of thing also can inhibit the team
from cashing in, as no doubt the
football team did, on an attrac-
tiVe record, and from good perv
tormances that looked good.

But, given all this, What ac-
counts for the apparent apathy
of Grinnell students towards
varsity participation? Here the
coach was genuinely puzzled. He
pointed out that wrestling, like
track, differs from :rnost coller
giate sports in that'th’e'socus of
blame and attention is on the
individual, and that he has little
chance to cover up mistakes and
inadequacies. 0n the other hand,
he feels that individual compe-
otion has as much as, if not more
to offer a highly motivated
athlete than team sports. Train-
ing is limited to about ninety
minutes a day to find a balance
between conditioning and fresh-
ness,

Hunt’s city champion was a kid
he buttonholed on the basketball
court. who first came on as team
manager and only later wrestled
himself. But of those who signed
up for wrestling at Grinnell, most
did not even appear. And of those
others who show an aptitude for
the sport, but will not come out
for it, he can only shake his head
at their lack of interest.

While conceding that he an-
ticipatcs low team scores in dual
meet competition due to under
staffing, Hunt says that he is
hopeful of strong individual
performances, and with luck and
proper climmations, a chance at
a championship showing at the
Midwest Conference Meet early
in March.

 

