The Michigan Daily-Wednesday, January 16, 1980-Page 9 ANEFF Is A ENOUGHl By Billy Neff Happiness can be oh, so brief CBS hyped the matchup; can Magic make the Bird disappear? It had all the ingredients of a national championship. Wait a minute, this was the national championship game last year. It was Michigan State vs. Indiana State, Magic vs. Bird, Cowens vs. Ab- dul Jabbar. It was one division-leading team, the Boston Celtics vs. another powerful team, the Los AngelesLakers. Wasn't pro basketball suffering? Games like this one could inject some much-needed life into pro basketball; it had all the ingredients, anyway. But, no, it didn't have all the ingredients. There was someone missing from this game which made it much less meaningful, for me at least. On the Los Angeles Lakers bench, there was a face missing which took away the glitter of this game. Let me explain. In early December, Lakers' coach Jack McKinney was riding his son's broken bicycle down a steep hill in suburban Los Angeles. His wife had taken the car and he wanted to play tennis against his assistant coach Paul Westhead. The problem was no one had told McKinney that the bike was broken. All of a sudden, the bike went out of control and McKinney was sent tumbling down. In the ensuing crash, McKinney suffered severe head injuries, an elbow injury and other assorted injuries. He was in intensive care for a couple of weeks. An ironic thing about the whole incident was that this was the first day McKinney had taken off from the job with the Lakers, since being named head coach in the summer. But that sort of irony is the way McKinney's whole life had gone. First, he was an assistant coach under Dr. Jack Ramsey at St. Joseph's College. When Ramsey left the post to take the head coaching job with the Portland Trail Blzaers, McKinney took over at this small Philadelphia school. St. Joseph's is a tiny commuter college which doesn't even have a foot- ball team. Their basketball-team, noted for its tenacity, therefore received little recognition. McKinney coached at St. Joseph's from 1967 through 1974 and during that time, coached eventual NBA players Mike Bamton (with the Indiana Pacers) and Pat McFarland ( with Atlanta for a year). Success meant little His banner year was 1974 when he took a team of virtual nobodies to the NCAA tournament, where they lost to Billy Knight and Pittsburgh. But in his banner year, he was fired, a shock to everyone concerned with St. Joseph's basketball. "Jack had a personality conflict with the 75-year-old athletic director. He wasn't in tune with what was happening with the program and he didn't like Jack. So he was fired," said Jim O'Brien, the captain of that 1974 team and now the assistant coach at Oregon. So McKinney was at the crossroads of his career. He had just been fired from a small school and was uqemployed. But it didn't take him long to find employment. Coach Larry Costello of the Milwaukee Bucks snapped him up as his assistant. Talent goes places. After two years in Milwaukee and three years as an assistant under Ramsey again, McKminey was appointed head coach of the Lakers with Ab- dul Jabbar and Magic Johnson. He had finally made it. Then this happened. "I was with him two days before it happened. I was down to see a game in Los Angeles. And then Jack, Paul (assistant coach Westhead) and I went back to his house to have a few beers. We talked basketball. Then it hap- pened, two days later," said O'Brien. "I felt so depressed because he had made such a rise in five years - from the low point of being fired to being a professional head coach," con- tinued O'Brien. His formger mentor as a player and assistant coach, Ramsey concurred. "I knew how much he coveted the head coaching job. It was a very unfor- tunate accident." While McKinney was at Portland, interestingly enough, the Blazers had the finest record in basketball for three years, Portland officials say. John White, publicity director of the Blazers, said, "we were very happy he got the chance (to coach L.A.)." He got the chance alright, but sometimes, happiness'is so brief, life so bittersweet. Things can be going along perfectly and then boom, you're fired. Or, you make a resurgence and have a serious, accident. And, those stories always seem to happen to the best people. "He is one of the finest individuals. He's a great, great family man, puts his family first. Having him as an example, he is the kind of person I would like to emulate," O'Brien said. It's like a preordained thing that says certain people will suffer more than others. These same people, though, always seem to bounce back. Fortunately, this story has a happy ending too. McKinney should be able to coach again, says Ramsey. That's what really deserves hype. I *McCormack to be named new Baltimore head coach BEST AND WORST OUT WEST: Tumblers do Jekyll and Hyde act By LEE KATTERMAN Check the plane tickets! Scrutinize the expense account! A close look at last weekend's gymnastics results makes one wonder if Michigan coach Newt Loken didn't take a couple of ex- tra gymnasts to California. For example, senior Dorian Deaver (or someone using that name) scored an 8.2 on the pommel horse in the meet with Oklahoma, Berkeley, and USC on Friday night. It's not an exceptionally poor score, but it is lower than expected from Deaver. In the same meet-and on the same event-junior John Reickhoff earned a disappointing 8.3. The mystery begins to take shape when pommel horse scores attributed to Deaver and Reickhoff for the Satur- day meet with UCLA and Stanford are examined. Both showed suspicious im- provement. Deaver boosted his score from 8.2 to 9.3 for a career high. Likewise, Reickhoff's total jumped from 8.3 to 9.1. Were the gymnasts who wore Michigan blue in Friday's meet really Deaver and Reickhoff? Or did Loken substitute someone else, since no one from Ann Arbor could possibly have been there to keep him honest? When interviewed, (the real) Deaver explained Friday's score by saying he got a "bad start" on his routine. "It's like dominoes all lined up," said Deaver. "If you miss the first one, the rest won't fall." Over on the parallel bars, there was more curious activity. Sophomore Mar- shallyGarfield squeaked through his Friday set to earn 8.05. Saturday, the Garfield we know, and want to see more of, earned 9.45, another career high for a Wolverine. Teammate Al Berger (although that question remains, was it the real Berger on Friday?) improved his parallel bar score from 7.85 to 8.85 in the 24 hours separating the two meets. These Jekyll-and-Hyde-like perfor- mances would probably be enough to justify calling for an audit of Loken's budget, if it wasn't for one last piece of evidence. Even with Friday's admittedly dis- heartening scores on pommel horse and parallel bars, the overall team score-260.25-is the best of the season. Even so, the Wolverines came in third, behind Oklahoma and California- Berkeley, but ahead of USC. How could Loken have substituted some other gymnasts and still end up with this high score? A scramble through other meet statistics shows that the remainder of the squad scored somewhat better than usual, but not out of (heir range. The explanation came from Loken: the semester break gave the whole team time to both rest, and improve and perfect their routines. This story becomes more plausible when Saturday's stats are added to the re-evaluation. Against the super- powered UCLA Bruins, the Wolverines put everything together-even on pommel horse and parallel bars-for a new season high of 265.95. While-this total was not enough to defeat the Bruins, Stanford finished well behind the Wolverines. "The extra days over vacation gave us time to become better prepared," said Loken. "And the California trip provided the incentive to work extra hard." Besides the career high scores by Deaver and Garfield, a number of other Wolverines reached personal milestones. On rings, junior Darrell Yee posted a 9.6, high enough to take first against the Bruins. Kevin McKee had a 9.6 on vaulting, also good for first place, and Doug Zahour tallied 9.5 on high bar. Back in the real world (i.e., East Lan- sing), the Wolverines were well represented in the Big Ten Invitational, despite the absence of the 'first string.' Three Wolverines reached the finals of this two day meet. Freshman Mike McNelis picked up 8th place on floor exercise, averaging 8.55 for his pair of routines. Another freshman, Mike McKee (twin brother of Kevin) used a novel and difficult vault to average 9.3 for third place. The highest total on pommel horse in the finals went to Wolverine senior Brian Carey, but a low preliminary score allowed for only a fourth place finish. TUMBLING TALES: The Wolverine men and women meet with Illinois next Sunday at 2 p.m. in Crisler Arena ... It's getting close enough to the Big Ten finals to begin comparing team ; scores and speculate on the eventual finish. Michigan's 265.95 puts them right in the thick of the race, with Illinois having scored 263 in December, along with Minnesota's 266 versus Ohio State's,263.25 in a recent dual meet. Ever-Lloyd plans to hang up tennis shoes,-, FORT LAUDERDALE, (AP) - Chris Evert-Lloyd says she plans to retire from tennis competition after five more tournaments because she doesn't enjoy winning any more. "I just don't have the same love for the game that I once did," she said in a copyright interview published yester- day in The Fort Lauderdale Sun, Sentinel. "THERE WAS A long tinae when I felt obligated to play as many tour; naments as possible to help the tour," she said. "I don't feel that obligation any more and I've gone along for the last year or so thinking I would regain my eager- ness and come out of this. Obviously, I haven't. "I have never played tennis the way I'm playing right now. It's not the way I want Chris Evert to be remembered. "WHEN YOU'VE been No. 1 for five years and tasted all the fruits your sport has to offer, it's difficult to accept anything less." In a statement issued Monday, Lloyd said she plans a "long indefinite, rest" after playing in Avon Championship tournaments in Chicago, Seattle; Detroit, Houston and Boston. "I will fulfill that obligation, but if I had my choice right now, I wouldn't play any more." LLOYD SAID she didn't like the word retire, but couldn't think of another word for her plans. "I've been disenchanted for the last year and a half," she said in a telephone interview from Cincinnati. "'I'm not en- joying playing tennis anymore - that's the problem. There's a good chance I'm ' burned out. Although I'm only 25, I've been at it for eight years." Lloyd said she didn't decide to quit because of Sunday's loss to Tracy Austin, her third in as many weeks to the teen-age sensation who mirrors the playing style Lloyd herself used to rise to the top as a teen-ager. "I've lost before," she explained. "I've never enjoyed losing, but now I don't enjoy winning, either." JIMMY EVERT, Lloyd's 56-year-old father, said he had been aware of his daughter's disenchantment with the game. "It's been coming on for the past six months," he said from his Fort Lauderdale home Tuesday. "I could tell it was, becoming more of an effort' for her to practice. My wife has seen the same thing while she's been with her at tournaments. After five years as the world's No. 1 woman player, Lloyd lost the No. 1 ranking in 1979 to Martina Navratilova. Lloyd said she plans to travel with her husband, British tennis pro John Lloyd. Join The Daily Sports StaffI i SPOR TS OF THE DAIL Y Sonies topple Bullets, 129-100 By The Associated PressI LANDOVER, Md. - Dennis Johnson scored 34 points in a brilliant all-around performance, leading the Seattle SuperSonjes to a 120-100 National Basketball Association victory over the Washington Bullets last night. In addition to hitting 12 of 19 shots from the floor, Johnson had 10 assists, seven rebounds, two steals and two blocked shots for the Pacific Division leaders. Seattle outscored Washington 12-2 during the streak which started near the end of the first period, and the SuperSonics were never headed as they won their fifth in a row. Johnson, who scored a career-high 36 points in a double overtime loss to the Bullets in Seattle on Jan. 2, hit an amazing variety of shots under pressure while helping to deal Washington its second loss in the last seven games. Gus Williams scored 19 points for Seattle, which beat Washington in last year's NBA championship finals after losing to the Bullets the year before, and John Johnson had 15. Larry Wright led the Bullets with 20 points and Bob Dandridge had 16. Greg Ballard, Washington's leading scorer in the last two games, picked up three fouls in the first five minutes of the game and scored only four points in limited action. CaEs 129, Knicks 110 NE!W YORK - The Cleveland Cavaliers got 35 points from Mike Mit- chell and snapped a seven-game losing streak with a 129-110 National Basket- ball Association victory over the New York Knicks last night. Toby Knight's 28 points led the Knicks, who suffered their fifth straight loss. Cleveland was aided by Kenny Carr, subbing for the injured Campy Russell, as he registered 16 second-quarter poin- ts and 26 for the game, breaking his previous season's high of 22. 1 Mitchell converted his first five field goal efforts and scored 13 points in the first period. Randy Smith had 22 for the Cavs. The Cavs took a 67-61 halftime lead which they increased in the third quar- ter to a 13-point margin, 93-80. The closest the Knicks came after that ws nine points, 99-90 with 10 minutes left to play, but a 10-0 Cleveland burst in less than two minutes gave the Cavs a 19- point margin, 109-90. Islanders 5, Jets 2 UNIONDALE, N.Y. - Bryan Trottier and Mike Bossy scored two goals each and Clark Gillies added three assists last night as the New York Islanders recorded a 5-2-National Hockey League victory over Winnipeg to hand the Jets their sixth consecutive road loss. Trottier opened the scoring at 6:18 by stealing the puck and sending a 20-foot backhander past Winnipeg goalie Lin- dsay Middlebrook. The Jets, who have only one victory in their last 11 games overall, pulled even at 16:23 when Lars- Erik Sjoberg sent a 25-foot shot between the legs of Islanders goalie Bill Smith. But Bossy and Bob Nystrom put New York ahead to stay with goals 1:17 apart in the second period. Bossy, after colliding with Sjoberg in front of the Winnipeg net during a power play, sent the rebound of a Gillies shot past Mid- dlebrook at 4:47. Nystrom, after being stopped on a breakaway, converted a pass from Join Tonelli for a 3-1 New York lead. sign up now Union League Bowling! Monday night for men Thurs. night-mixed league at Union Lanes open: 10am Mon.-Fri 1 pm Sat.- Sun. The University of Michigan Toe Kwon Do Club Demonstration with Master Hiwa Chong, 8th Degree Black Belt BALTIMORE (AP) - Mike McCor- mack, an All-Pro lineman in his playing days whose previous head coaching job und up in a shambles, is expected to named coach of the Baltimore Colts today. The National Football Lei gue team called a 12:30 p.m. news conference to name a new coach. ERNIE ACCORSI, assistant general manager, declined to discuss the mat- ter further, but it was known that Colts owner Robert Irsay had called General Manager Dick Szymanski about Mc- Cormack Tuesday morning. McCormack met with Irsay and Wmanski in Irsay's Skokie, Ill., of- fices Monday. The Colts had been ex- pected to announce the naming of a new coach Tuesday, but put off the announ- cement when Irsay said he wanted time to think about the choice. Monday was the first time Irsay and McCormack had met. A STANDOUT tackle for the Cleveland Browns in the 1951s, McCor- mack will succeed Ted Marchibroda, who was fired as Colts coach after two consecutive 5-11 seasons. The Colts won division titles in Marchibroda's first three years at the helm. McCormack became the front-runner for the Colts' job last weekend as Szymanski soured on Frank Kush, the fired Arizona State coach and the man said to have been the early No. 1 choice for the NFL team's post. r WEDNESDAY GRAND OPENING! 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