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Page Eight

THE MICHIGAN DAILY

Sunday, March 18, 1973


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1948:

A

Wolverine winter

. .

...Mann,

what a Keen year!

By CLARKE COGSDILL
Nineteen forty-eight was the
kind of year for Michigan sports
which brings tears to the eyes of
the alumni and shivers to the
spines of coaching staffs who
know they can't possibly keep up
the pace forever. Most people
can remember Bennie Ooster-
baan's football team, which went
undefeated and was proclaimed
National Champion, so that team
will not be discussed here. In-
stead, let us concentrate upon
some other great teams from that
same year, which have become
more obscure as time has passed.
For example, the basketball
team won Michigan's first West-
ern Conference title since 1929,
the last basketball championship
Michigan was to enjoy until the
Buntin-Russell. era.
And the Wolverine hockey team
won the first NCAA hockey
championship ever played.
Matt Mann's swimpmers, led by
Matt Mann III-one of the most
successful examples of nepotism
ever-also won a national cham-
pionship that year.
Cliff Keen's wrestlers finished'
second in the Big Nine confer-
ence meet, deprived of the title
only by an incredibly arbitrary
and capricious referee.
That was the kind of year
1948 was for Michigan: like no-
thing the campus has ever seen,
before or since.
Michigan's basketball resur-
gence began in 1946 when H. 0.
"Fritz" Crisler convinced Ozzie
Cowles to leave Dartmouth,
where he had coached seven out
of the previous eight Ivy League
basketball titlists, to come to
Ann Arbor and try to build a con-
tender. Oosterbaan, the incum-
bent basketball coach, had com-
piled an acceptable record, but
Crisler had decided to groom him
as the next Michigan football
coach, thereby creating the va-
cancy.
COMING OFF a 12-8 record in
1946-47, and with most of their
top men back, the cagers were
installed along with Minnesota
as pre-season contenders for the
1948 conference championship.

Forward Mack Suprunowicz and
guard Bob Harrison were expect-
ed to provide the scoring punch
while pivotman Bill Roberts was
counted upon to lead a tough Wol-
verine defense.
However, the hoopmen began
their season erratically, looking
impressive in their opening win
against Western Michigan, but
following that with an embarrass-
ing upset loss to Michigan State
College. The Blue finished its
seven-game tune - up schedule
with a mark of only 4-3, hardly
the stuff of which title contend-
ers are made, and then proceed-
ed to drop two of its first five
conference games, to Northwest-
ern and Ohio State.
The problem was that one of
Michigan's top basketballers was
spending the early basketball
season on the bench of the foot-
ball team. Pete Elliott, second-
string quarterback behind How-
ard Yerges, rejoined the cagers
immediately after the Rose Bowl
victory, but although he played
well from the beginning, it was
a full month before he and the
team were able to click with any
consistency.
The turning point of the en-
tire season was the upset 66-57
win the Wolverines notched
against tough Illinois. This shock-
ing victory touched off a seven-
game winning streak which car-
ried Michigan to the conference
championship and a number-four
ranking in the national polls. The
Blue clinched a tie for the title
on February 28 with a tough 40-
36 revenge win against OSU, and
won it outright two nights later
with a 51-35 demolishing of Iowa,
provoking a binge of dancing in
the Ann Arbor streets.
In the NCAA championships,
Michigan fourd itself up against
Holy Cross, featuring Bob Cousy,
and was thrashed 63-45. A 66-49
consolation match victory over
Columbia was not consoling in
the least.
COACH VIC Heyliger's hockey
team showed its talent early
when it defeated the Detroit Red
Wings 9-7 in a preseason exhibi-
tion. Although the Blue received

some help for the game, i.e. Har-
ry Lumley, Ted Lindsay, Sid
Abel and Gordie Howe, its level
of play was rather impressive,
provoking Lindsay to state sev-
eral weeks later that "Michigan
should do well this year. The boys
are rugged and play hard."
Led by high-scoring forwards
Gord McMillan, Wally Gacek, Al
Renfrew and Wally Grant, and
backed up with a strong defense
featuring team captain Connie
Ross and goalie Jack McDonald,
the Wolverines swept through the
regular season with a 19-2-1 rec-
ord to qualify for the NCAA fin-
als. A tough 6-4 victory over Bos-
ton College, followed by an 8-4
drubbing over Dartmouth, was
enough to give the Wolverines the
national championship.
Even though McMillan smashed
all previous Michigan scoring
records (most of which had been
set by Heyliger, 10 years earlier),
the leading charcteristic of this
team was its play as a unit.
Grant, Gacek and Hill stood out
enough to make All-America
listings.
Meanwhile, down at the "na-
tatorium," coach Matt Mann was
trying to push his team out of
a frustrating habit: finishing sec-
ond in the NCAA's. The Wolver-
ines had done this every year
from 1942-1947, usually being beat
out by Ohio State.
This was truly a "loaded"
squad, strong in everydevent and
featuring plenty of depth. The
heart of the team was an out-
standing pair of middle-distance
swimmers, the aforementioned
Matt Mann III and present-day
Wolverine mentor Gus Stager,
but they did not overshadow their
teammates by very much.
The Blue swept through its du-
al meet season with eight con-
secutive triumphs, featuring a
46-38 victory over Ohio State
which ended the Buckeyes' 19-
straight dual meet win streak.
The Big Nine meet was much
closer, but a pair of thirds by
diver Gil Evans kept enough
points away from OSU to ensure
the Michigan victory, 63-59. No
individual Wolverine won an
NCAA championship, but Mann
III took second in the 1500-meter,
Harry Holiday finished second in
the 150-yd. backstroke, Stager
added three thirds in the 1500,
220-yard and 440-yard freestyle,
and the remainder of the squad
added points here and there to
give Michigan a 47-41 margin
over the nearest competition -
Ohio State.
Looking back on what had been
his last national championship
team, Mann commented: "Some-
thing that made this one of the
best teams I've ever coached is
the fact that I had two men of
equal ability in almost every
event. That made each man go
faster and produced the fastest
group I've ever handled."
CLIFF KEEN'S 1948 wrestling
squad wasn't the most talented
bunch he ever worked with, but

they used the talent they had to
go a long way. After a dual meet
season at the .500 level, the
whole team reached its peak at
the Big Nine championships, tak-
ing fourth or better in almost
every weight class.
Still, it was a hotly-contested
official's ruling which stopped
Michigan one point short of
champion Purdue. Wolverine cap-
tain Bob Betzig, wrestling in the
155-1b. finals, twice had his op-
ponent (Ken Marlin, of Illinois)
pinned, only to be penalized each
time by the referee for using an
"illegal hold" which every other
referee that year had ruled per-
missible. Keen was furious.
"Twice Betzig had that boy
pinned with the same cradle hold
he's been using all year," he
fumed. "Everyone up here agrees
with me, including the Illinois
coach." The referee, showing a
shrewd sense of self-preservation,
made . himself unavailable for
comment.
Of course, there was only one
way for Michigan athletics to go:
downhill. Heyliger's dekers con-
tinued to pile up victories, the
basketball team began to slip,
and Cliff Keen had to wait until
1953 to win the championship that
eluded him by one point in 1948.
Michigan athletics, as a whole,
will probably never do as well
again, but it's remarkable enough
that Fritz Crisler was able to
put it. all together once, in 1948.

AP Photo
REPRESENTING HER COUNTRY in the Second Annual Russian-American Indoor Track and Field
Meet held this weekend in Richmond, Va., Robin Cambell (9) of Washington, D.C., anchors the win-
ning Women's Sprint Medley Relay team, helping the USA girls defeat their Russian counterparts 63--
62. The USSR captured the overall victory, however, downing the Americans by a score of 146-141.

WOMEN VICTORIOUS

Soviets redden

U.S.

track faces


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L S A
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TUESDAY
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March 20
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EVERYONE WELCOME

RICHMOND, Va.-The cloud of Herb Washington of Mienigan [Chicago whipped two-time Olympic The eighth-grader won the 880
controversy that hung all week State University won the 60-y ard winner Viktor Saneyev in the triple in 2:11.1, then came back to an-
over the second annual USSR-USA dash in 6 seconds flat, edging jump for the second year in a chor the women's medley relay
indoor dual track meet had ill but Ivory Crockett of Carbondale, Ill., row and George Frenn of North team to the victory that snapped
disappeared yesterday and the re- who had the same time. Fred New- Hollywood, Calif., did the same a 62-62 deadlock and won the meet
criminations, if any, were few. house of Seattle ran a record 1:10 to Olympic hammer throw winner for the women.
A Russian men's lineup that in- in the 600. And George Woods of Anatoliy Bondarchuk. "I heard only the coach and my
cluded five Olympic gold medal- Worden, Ill., set a shot put iark The women's record fell to team, not the crowd," she said.
ists, only one of whom was a vic- of 68-2%. Martha Watson of Long Beach, Johnson, who's her actual coach
tor, had posted an 84-76 victory For the Russians, there was Calif., who upped her own Ameri- in Washington, said Robin "never
Friday night over a U.S. squad hit Yevgeniy Arzhanov with a record can standard in the long jump to goes on the track thinking anyone
hard by a jurisdictional dispute, 2:06 in the 1,000; Vladimir Pante- 21-3%/4, and the Soviet Olympic gold can beat her."
injuries and illness. ley with a mile time of 4:01.5, medalist Nadezhda Chizhova with The American girls won every-
But, for the second year hi a which also was a Soviet indoor a heave of 61-51 in the shot put. thing up to the mile as Patty
row, a group of precococious teen- mark; and Rashid Sharafyetdiniv Iris Davis of Tennessee State Johnson of Seattle took the hur-
agers, led by 14-year-old Robin with a 13:22.6 three-mile that upset tied the record of 6.6 seconds in the dles; Kathy Hammond of Sacra-
Campbell of Washington, D.C., the flu-weakened world indoor rec- 60-yard dash, but it was the be- mento, Calif., the 440 after winning
sparked the American women to a ordholder, Tracy Smith of Long spectacled Miss Campbell who cap- the 600 last year; and Cheryl Tous-
65-62 upset. Beach, Calif. tured the fancy of the crowd. saint of Brooklyn, N.Y., the 600.
The net result was an over-all Russia's Yevgeniy Tananika re-
146-141 triumph for the Russians- peated in the pole vault in the ie0 1
but did it reallymatter that much? absence of world indoor record- S o u th ern E dnI wtatwon a l
(y"We were beaten by a better 'holder Steve Smith, and the So- r1 (,/IU 5 1.,U iiU,~ L,5ft~1
team," said Brooks Johnson of viets turned in surprises when
Sports International in Washing- Valeriy Podluzhny won, the long
ton, the U.S. men's coach-and a jump and Anatoliy. Moshiasvilli
substitute at that, because his pre- beat Tom Hill of West Point in the
decessors were victims of that hurdles.
very dispute. But the Americans had their By THERESA SWEDO These men will be competing
BThere were eight meet marks own surprises as John Craft of Battling their way out of the against practiced Southern teams
broken and one tied. The Russian Tampa swamps, seven Michigan in a crowded tournament field.
men won nine of 15 events, the .. . .. ...:......golfers qualified for the Miami In- Last year, Michigan fared sur-
U.S. women eight of 12. vitationals in Florida this coming prisingly well in this debut com-
__ __B I rdweek. In preparation for this open- petition, finishing tenth. Caution
SEU ing tournament all the team hope- is in order, this year, however,

3

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SPECIAL! HOT CHOCOLATE
Everyone Welcome !

LOTS OF PEOPLE

GRAD
COFFEE
HOUR
WEDNESDAY
8-10 p.m.
West Conference
Room, 4th Floor
RACKHAM
LOTS OF FOOD

Have you ever wondered
where the ideas for Michigan
football halftime shows origi-
nate? Or maybe you had an idea
for a show and then forgot about
it because you didn't know who
to contact? The Marching Band
Formations Committee is looking
for you. It is composed of per-
sons interested in developing en-
tertaining, relevant, and thought-
provoking shows. Each meeting1
is an open forum where new
ideas are discussed and entire
shows are developed - from the
main theme down to the indivi-
dual formations and music to be
performed. If you feel that you
have a workable idea and would
like to present it to the commit-
tee, please call Prof. Cavender
at 764-0582 for further details.
Ken McKenzie, pitcher for the
1962 New York Mets, attended Yale
University in New Haven, Conn.
His 5-4 won-loss record was the
only winning record for a Met
pitcher that year.

fuls traveled at their own expense
to Tampa over spring break for
an intersquad qualifying round.
Approximately 25 golfers par-
ticipated in the 90 hole intersquad
elimination, competing for six
spots. The two captains, Neil Spit-
alny and Chuck Burnham, were
not required to qualify.
A score of 400 or less for the
rough 90 holes of the University of
Southern Florida golf course put a
golfer in good shape for qualifying.
But the water hazards and trees
took their toll, and the roster end-
ed up to be a matter of Coach Bill
Newcomb's discretion. Factors in
consideration included last fall's
showing and the Tampa rounds.
Originally designed to be a
traveling squad of eight, the team
was cut a man because of a sticky
three-way tie for the last spot. The
crisis was resolved by leaving all
three sophomores behind.
Besides .captains Spitalny and
Burnham, the five other members
of the team are Brent Baily, Tom
Young, Jon Dale, Craig Ghio and
Peter Spitalny, Neal's brother.

considering the lackluster scores
in Tampa.
Newcomb and his team left Ann
Arbor this past Friday, shortly be-
ma State loom distantly, but be-
spend ten days in Miami, all ex-
penses paid, and defend Michi-
gan's athletic honor from March
21st through the 25th. The Miami
Tournament gives the golfers a
chance to play on a course, rather
than in the nets, and a chance for
Newcomb to survey his team.
The "regular" season begins
around April 1st, when the Univer-
sity course should open. The next
competition the golfers will tenta-
tively enter will be the Illinois In-
vitational, in Champaign. Every
tournament is preceded by a 36-
hole qualifying round, so the team
roster has a tendency to vary
from meet to meet.
The Big Ten season will end on
May 18th-19th at the conference
meet in Lafayette, Indiana. The
NCAA Championships at Oklaho-
ma State loom distantly, but bo-
comingly in the future on June
18th-23rd.

i s


n

A third annual

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BMarch 18 through March25

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