Tuesday, August 27, 1968 Page Six THE MICHIGAN DAILY Page Six THE MICHIGAN DAILY / e _ J / Unbeaten tennis squad boasts returnees By PHIL BROWN Nine conference championships and a national title in a span;of 18 years make for a pretty Impres- sive record, but for the Michigan tennis team it wasn't enough. The Wolverine netters were ed- ged for the Big Ten crown by Mi- chigan State in 1967, and they took to the courts in '68 to see that that wrong was righted. It didn't take long for people to see that they meant business. Coach Bill Murphy's charges swept through five straight dual meets without losing so much as a single match, and rolled on to a spectacular 112-5 match record, undefeated in dual meets. Included in the victories were a convincing 9-0 whitewash of con- ference runner-up MSU and a 6-3 drubbing of national power Miami. The Wolverines went into the season with a young squad, hav- ing only two seniors in the seven- man lineup. Murphy held playoffs at the outset to determine who would play where, and stuck to the results for the entire schedule. The playoffs brought some sur- prises, to be sure. Dick Dell, first singles last year, was dropped to third behind Pete Fishbach and Brian Marcus. Marcus returned to the number two-spot he had held the previous season, while Fishbach made the jump from third to first. All three were juniors and will be back to plunder conference opponents again in '69. The fourth spot was grabbed off by sophomore Jon Hainline, a Detroit product rated among the best in this area. Senior Ron Teeguarden, a long- haired native of Los Angeles, held forth in the fifth singles posi- tion, and Bruce DeBoer, another sophomore, rounded out the line- up. The order could not have work- ed much better for the Michigan cause. The Wolverines repeatedly mowed down teams with far less depth, dropping only one singles match in 13 dual meets. The lone loss was Fishbach's three-set defeat at the hands of Miami's Jaime Fillol, ranked third in the country among collegiate players. This left a horrendous four losses by Michigan doubles teams, with Miami again the major cul- prit. The Hurricanes took both the first and third matches from the Wolverines, while Wisconsin and Indiana were responsible for the others. Fishbach and Marcus combined in the first doubles shot, sustain- ing only the one defeat enroute to the Big Ten first doubles champ- ionship. Wolverine pairs also claimed the other two conference doubles crowns--Dell and Hainline, the number two title and DeBoer and senior Bob Pritula the third. In wrapping up the conference championship meet, Michigan took three of six singles titles as well as all three doubles crowns. Dell, Hainline and DeBoer record- ed wins in the third, fourth and sixth slots, respectively. It was a different story in the national collegiate meet in San Antonio, however. Lacking the big man that makes a good team a great one, the netters languished in a tie for 13th place with Cali- fornia and Mississippi State. Marcus was the only Wolverine not getting a bye in the first round, and he came through by dumping Glen Grisillo of Missis- sippi State. But that was the end of the line for Marcus. He faced Okla- homa City's Karl Coombes in the second round and dropped a leng- thy 13-11, 6-4 decision. Teammate Hainline also suc- cumbed in the second round. Hampered by a lack of practice before the meet, Hainline fell 6-1, 6-0 to UCLA's Tom Karp. Karp was seeded 16th among the col- legians. Both Fishbach and Dell sur- vived the second round, Fishbach downing Tennessee's Leonhardt Scheuerman and Dell trouncing Bobby Heald of South Carolina with little trouble. Neither could do any better, however. Del ran into another Bruin, Ed Grubb, and was out- lasted, 11-9, 6-4. Fishbach took on fourth-seeded Roy Barth of the same UCLA team and played poorly in losing 6-0, 6-2. Moving up to replace the de- parted Teeguarden and Pritula will be a trio of hopefuls from last year's freshman squad. Detroit's Mark Conti, Ramon Almonte of San Juan, Puerto Rico, and George Russell will all be gun- ning for spots in the varsity line- up. BHL MURPHY IF ~i1 R411 :: S. 1 ;3 ,: 11 }S, 1 ?; ' "II \ 42t .5 from the seat' Bill Levis i i of my pants S ports' own theatre of the abs urb hThe 1967-68 season will go down in the annals of sports as the year of the absurd. Amateur athletics had their share of stupidities. The AAU and the NCAA continued their obnoxious track feud into the midst of an Olympic year. The International Olympic Committee, headed 4 by Avery Brundage, first re-admitted and then again kicked South Africa out of the summer Olympic Games after many nations, in- cluding the Soviet Union, threatened to boycott the games if South Africa were present. Tennis also had its version of stupidity and hypocrisy. Last year the British proposed that professionals be allowed to compete against amateurs in all tournaments. Their logic was this: tennis was dying as a spectator sport because the best of the amateurs and the pros were not able to play against each other, so why not integrate the two. Acceptance by other nations wasn't that easy to obtain, how- ever. The Australians, along with a list of other nations, put up a big stink when the suggestion was made. The Aussies cried that it would be against the best interests of the sport to integrate. Doesn't that sound familiar? The Aussies this summer reversed their stand. Very good of them, you say, but you must remember the only reason they changed their position was because it was to their advantage to do so. Most of the pros are Australian and with their pros fighting for the mother country, what nation could ever beat them in the previously amateur Davis Cup. What a funny world we're living in. Rational as ... ....It's like saying we're against pros playing amateurs in principle but when we are benefitted, well then, we guess it is okay. The American League proved rational enough by splitting into two divisions after properly expanding to Kansas City, which had lost its franchise to Oakland, and .to Seattle, putting a major league club in the previously teamless northwest. Wouldn't you know, however, that the owners would blow it when they decided to split the 12 team league into a Western and an Eastern division., They just took one look at the national map and cut the league right down the middle, putting three ex- pansion teams (Seattle, Kansas City, and California) in one division along with a perennial weak sister, Oakland, and a team that has been having its troubles this year, Chicago. That only leaves one viable contender in this year's 10 team league, Minne- sota, in the Western Division. The Eastern Division has all the other contenders and the per- fect television and radio setup. All its teams are In one time zone, but look at the poor West. The division is split all over kingdom come and it covers three time zones. Why didn't Joe Cronin and his buddies put their heads to- gether and come up with a realistic league setup? All they had to do was make one switch, Kansas City for Detroit. That would leave three teams on the coast, three natural rivals, and would permit another rivalry to form. Among Minne- sota, Chicago, and Detroit, all situated in the Midwest and on or near a Great Lake. Not only that, but it would put one 1961 and one 1969 expansion team in each division. But if you thought the American League setup was crazy, just take a look at what the National League, 25 years older and sup- posedly that much wiser, did with its expansion. They outdid the junior circuit all right. First they expanded to San Diego and Montreal. I don't mind San Diego getting a franchise but not just be- cause Walter O'Malley says so. Who thinks San Diego is such a great town for sports? Even with a winning team in the Chargers. and a brand new stadium, those weren't capacity crowds I saw on NBC last fall. I have only one comment on the Montreal selection. When was the last time Montreal even supported a minor league team? If this is the gratitude a city gets for not supporting a team, then Ann Arbor certainly deserves an expansion club. Then there is the Milwaukee case. There is no rational reason * why the National League owners refused to re-admit this city. Milwaukee suffered enough undue punishment when the carpet- bagger Braves were shipped south to Atlanta some three years ago. The fans in Wisconsin had supported the Braves for 11 years like no other fans in history. If you don't think Milwaukee can still support a baseball team, just look at the crowds the White Sox draw when they play there, and don't say that Milwaukee is too close to Chicago to offer a rich TV and radio market. How close is San Diego to Los Angeles and Anaheim? And if you feel the lake is a factor, isn't there an even bigger body of water to the west of San Diego? And finally, there was the refusal of the senior circuit to split up into two divisions. That was really absurd. Who is going to watch the Houston Astros battle the San Diego Padres for 10th place next year and how many Montreal fans are going to pay money to watch their team when the Canadians are 50 games off the pace?,; You think that would be bad? How would the fans in, say, Pittsburgh feel if they had to sit through a game between the Pirates and the Padres, battling for ilth place? Boy, would that be exciting. Well, that's the sports world for you and it appears to be getting dumber every day. The Welcome mat is out And it's good to meet all the new m en on campus as well as see our old friends again. Because keeping in touch is precisely what keeps us aware of what's happening in University Men's wardrobes. That's why we re not only authorities on the classic, natural shoulder model and button- down shirt, but we sense how to ad apt to new things. Ties come a little wider. Shirts with more color. Of c ourse, everything remains carefully tailored to our own exacting specifications and there's no place quite like us for finding a reliable 3-button, back vent suit. And almost any- thing else University life always has needed. glad to open ta charge account for you. So come in soon. We'd be THE UNIVERSITY SHOP STUDGNT BOOK SGRVICg THE SMALLEST STORE IN TOWN THE BGGEST STOCK OF USED TEXTBOOKS (also new books, paper, notebooks, supplies) FOR ALL YOUR}COURSES 4 "4 SAIS FIFTH AVENUE jI 332 South State Street. Ann Arbor