Merlin Olsen Isn’t Counting Rams Out of Super Bowl, Yet

Most of the people around NBC are hoping for a Chicago-Miami rematch in the Super Bowl.

Those teams set a regular-season record with a 29.6 national Nielsen rating Dec. 2, when the Dolphins beat the Bears, 38-24.

But commentator Merlin Olsen, who will be in the booth when NBC televises the Super Bowl at New Orleans Jan. 26 at 2 p.m. PST, won’t be pulling for the Bears against the Rams Sunday.

“For nostalgia’s sake, it would be nice if the Rams made it to the Super Bowl,” said Olsen, a Hall of Fame defensive tackle who played for the Rams for 15 seasons.

Somewhat amazingly, the Rams are only one win away from the Super Bowl. “Earlier in the season, I wouldn’t have given them much of a chance,” Olsen said. “But this team has shown considerable improvement. You have to give John Robinson a lot of credit.

“Also, I think it’s obvious that Eric Dickerson had a physical problem. Now, he seems to be back to 100%.”

The Rams’ biggest challenge Sunday may be trying to protect quarterback Dieter Brock from the Bears’ fierce pass rush. Olsen sees a few ways for that to be accomplished.

“First, the Rams can force the Bears into a different game with Dickerson,” he said. “With Dickerson, the Rams can slow down the Bear linebackers by making them conscious of the running game.

“Another way to slow down the linebackers is with draws and screens.

“And the Rams must have Brock moving out of the pocket. That’s the way the Dolphins beat the Bears. Dan Marino is a dropback passer, but against the Bears he was rolling out.

“Also, the weather has to favor the Rams. By that, I mean it needs to be at least 20-25 degrees. If there’s a blizzard, that’s sure not going to help the Rams.

“I remember playing at Wrigley Field one year. It was the coldest I’d ever been in my life. The wind was the worst thing.”

The Rams left for Chicago Thursday, a day early, to try to get used to the cold. Olsen remembered that one year when George Allen was coaching the Rams, they went to Minnesota a week ahead of a playoff game to get used to the cold.

“When we arrived at the airport in Minneapolis, the Viking players were there. They were headed for Oklahoma to train in warm weather. We never got used to the cold, and we lost the game.”

About the Ram defense, Olsen said: “It reminds me of some of the teams I was on. Everyone does their job. They play a good team defense. No matter who’s playing, they do what’s expected of them.”

The Rams are traditionally tough on defense, something Olsen played a major role in establishing. Might that tradition be a factor in the Rams’ current prowess on defense? “I’d sure like to think so,” Olsen said.

If the Rams somehow make it to the Super Bowl by beating the Bears, Olsen will be in a slightly awkward position.

“I’ll have to be honest and up front about having emotional ties to the Rams,” Olsen said. “And then I’ll go about my business of doing an impartial job of broadcasting.”

Olsen said that of the four teams left in the Super Bowl tournament, he knows the least about the Rams. He has worked games involving the other three this season.

“I haven’t worked a Ram game in four years,” Olsen said. He’s overdue.

The new Globetrotter: For the first time since they were founded in 1927, the Harlem Globetrotters have a woman on the team--Lynette Woodard, a former University of Kansas star and captain of the 1984 Olympic gold medal-winning women’s team.

Saturday, the Globetrotters will play in Woodard’s hometown, Kansas City, against their traditional traveling foe, the Washington Generals.

ABC will televise the game live on “Wide World of Sports” to most of the country, marking the first time the network has televised the Globetrotters live. However, the game will be shown on tape-delayed basis in the West, with Channel 7 carrying “Wide World” at 4:30 p.m. and San Diego’s Channel 10 at 5:30 p.m.

“It’s a blessing just to be a part of this team,” Woodard said. “And to be playing in my hometown and on national television all at the same time makes it really something special.”

Woodard, 25, has been with the Globetrotters since Oct. 17. They play almost every night. “There have been a lot of good times,” she said.

Jim McKay and Al Trautwig will be the announcers. Trautwig, coincidentally, was a ballboy for a Globetrotter game in New York in the early 1970s.

Notes NBC will televise 15 golf tournaments this year. The first will be the MONY Tournament of Champions now under way at La Costa. The final round will be televised Saturday at 10 a.m. . . . The tournament used to be played in April or May, the week after the Masters. But it was switched to January this year, which turns out to be a break for NBC’s Tommy Roy, a 28-year-old associate producer who is getting his first shot at producing a sports event. NBC’s regular golf producer, Larry Cirillo, is busy this weekend with the AFC championship game at Miami, which will be televised by NBC at 1 p.m. Sunday. . . . NBC’s second golf tournament will be the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic Jan. 18-19. . . . The Tournament of Champions Saturday will be followed at 1 p.m. by the Hula Bowl on NBC. Local players in that game include defensive back Matt Johnson of USC, linebacker Tommy Taylor and wide receiver Mike Sherrard of UCLA, and quarterback Doug Gaynor of Cal State Long Beach.

Ratings game: The Ram-Dallas game last Saturday got an L.A. Nielsen rating of 27.2. It drew a 47.7 in Dallas and a 30.1 in San Francisco. Other L.A. ratings included a 20.7 for Cleveland-Miami Saturday and a 29.6 for the Bears and New York Giants Sunday. The Elvis movie, “Loving You,” shown on Channel 4 Sunday instead of the Raider-New England game, drew a 6.0 rating. That was better than the USC-Oregon basketball game on Channel 2, which had a 4.0. The Raider-Patriot game got a 40.7 in Boston, the second highest sports rating ever in that city. The highest was a 45.4 for Game 7 of the 1984 NBA championship series between the Celtics and the Lakers. . . . USA Today reported Thursday that the Sugar Bowl may change its kickoff time so that its goes up against the Rose Bowl rather than the Orange Bowl. This year, the Sugar Bowl got a national Nielsen rating of only 6.8, while the Orange Bowl got an impressive 21.3.

CBS will televise Sunday’s “NFL Today” at 9 a.m. from Chicago’s Soldier Field. Bud Grant and Tony Dorsett will be the featured guests. . . . Rich Marotta has signed a new multiyear deal with KRLA and K-BEST-fm (formerly KHITS). Marotta is now doing morning spots on Charlie Tuna’s 5-to-9 a.m. show on K-BEST. . . . The Dodgers announced their TV schedule this week. At least 50 game will be shown on Channel 11, including five against the National League champion St. Louis Cardinals. . . . Alan Massengale, a Jacksonville, Fla., sportscaster, has joined the ESPN “SportsCenter” staff. . . . Cox Cable in San Diego and Simmons Cable in Long Beach are now carrying the Prime Ticket Network, bringing the subscriber base up to about 1.2 million.

Recommended viewing: If the Ram-Bear game is a runway, you might want to check out “Bob Uecker’s Wacky World of Sports” Sunday at noon on Channel 4. It offers a lot of bloopers and oddball stuff, and Uecker is his usual funny self. Some of the footage has been seen before, and a couple of segments border on being corny, but overall the show is entertaining. It’s worth taping if you have a VCR.

There’s no doubt that sports are big business. And now Bill Wood, host of “The Business Side of Sports,” weekdays at 10:50 a.m. on Channel 22, is offering daily stock quotations on 40 corporations that are involved in sports. Wood, who was the first and may be the only television reporter in the country who covers strictly the business side of sports, is calling his financial report Sportsbiz Index. “This is an entirely new economic industry,” Wood said. “No one has ever tried to separate the sports world into a chartable industry, such as steel, autos or housing.” Wood’s list is headed by R.J. Reynolds Industries and Goodyear. He said compiling the list required more than a year of research.