Win or Lose, Staubach Treats Them the Same

Roger Staubach, the former Dallas Cowboy quarterback who recently was inducted into the Hall of Fame, had a reputation as a fierce competitor. Teammate Charlie Waters told the Dallas Morning News that Staubach ruled the huddle like a dictator:

“That’s Roger, that’s his essence. If there was a chance, we knew we were going to win. We knew he could do it. Whatever it took for us to get the ball back to the offensive team, we were going to do it. If we could just get the ball back to Roger, not the offense, but to Roger, we knew he would make the other players play harder.

“Everyone believed Roger could pull off a miracle. And he did.”

Staubach insists he has mellowed.

“I’m an assistant coach of a baseball team. I told them, win or lose we’re going to the Baskin-Robbins to have ice cream.”

San Francisco 49er Coach Bill Walsh is regarded as a genius in some circles, but his two Super Bowl victories haven’t impressed the people who print the team’s media guide.

The 1985 version, just off the presses, refers to Coach Walsh’s “vastly futile mind.”

A second, revised edition is planned.

“It read ‘fertile mind’ when it went to the printers,” the 49er public relations director, Jerry Walker, said.

Parnelli Jones, who won the 1963 Indianapolis 500 but who has been out of professional racing for more than a decade, competed in a six-hour endurance race at Riverside Sunday.

During the parade lap before the start, Jones, who started from the second position, had to stop in Turn 6.

“It’s been so long since I’ve been racing on asphalt,” he said, “that I forgot to buckle my helmet strap. I got a corner worker to buckle it for me.”

On Aug. 23, Vitas Gerulaitis and aging Bobby Riggs will meet Martina Navratilova and Pam Shriver in a “Battle of the Sexes” doubles match at Atlantic City.

John McEnroe believes that his friendship with Gerulaitis could be a factor in the outcome.

“I hope that he wins,” McEnroe said, with a laugh. “I’m telling him I’m never speaking with him if he doesn’t, so maybe he’ll try to lose.”

McEnroe said the Riggs-Gerulaitis team “has a chance” in the five-set, $500,000 challenge match.

“They should win, but they might not,” he said. “The guy’s 70 years old, for God’s sake.”

Jimmy Connors thinks it’s time U.S promoters select tournament surfaces that allow American players to utilize their strengths.

“Europeans and South Americans just mostly play on clay anyway, but players from the States and Australia are the ones who go and fight it out on everything,” Connors said. “Our national championship, the U.S. Open, has gone from grass to clay to hardcourt, so we’ve been trying to satisfy everyone, except the Americans.

“If the best players from Czechoslovakia played well on cow dung, do you think they’d change it?”

Quotebook

Hubert Green, after winning the PGA championship Sunday: “It will take a while for this to sink in. It’s like the first hour of your honeymoon. It’s great, but you haven’t done anything yet.”