Pro Football / Bob Oates : A Unified Coliseum Commission Just Might Attract New Tenant

A Marina del Rey football fan, having shifted loyalties from the Rams to the Raiders six years ago, asks: “Where do we go from here?”

Well, there are only two things to do now:

First, the City of Los Angeles should get jurisdiction over the Coliseum. Wise leadership is improbable when operations are entrusted to a nine-member Coliseum Commission with three representatives each from the city, county and state.

Next, after order has replaced anarchy, the Coliseum should take applications for a new National Football League tenant. The Buffalo Bills and St. Louis Cardinals are two of several teams that would give moving here a thought if the Coliseum were properly managed.

When New York was clearly the dominant U.S. city, three baseball teams, the Giants, Dodgers and Yankees, coexisted there for years. Now that Southern California is challenging New York’s dominance, it could accommodate a full division of NFL teams.

Residents of the Westside and the San Fernando Valley would appreciate not having to drive to Anaheim or Irwindale to attend an NFL game.

The league and television are, of course, opposed to having more teams here, but these are times of rapid change for both. The NFL already has a contract with one cable network. By 1991, when the Raiders leave Los Angeles, it will be a new communications era.

But it will still be a free country, as it was when the Raiders packed up and left Oakland. Let’s say you’re the owner of the Buffalo Bills in 1990. Wouldn’t you be intrigued with the possibility of playing in the Coliseum?

First, however, the Coliseum Commission needs unified leadership. The problem is that it has been a three-headed monster running wild.

If there is an NFL strike, it could begin on Sept. 15, after the first weekend of regular-season games. There will be a strike unless the league and its players’ association decide to drift without a contract or unless they sign a new one. Midnight Monday is the expiration date of the old agreement.

All three options are still open.

“We sent a 60-day notice (on July 15) to the clubs and to the National Labor Relations Board,” said Gene Upshaw, the NFL Players’ Assn. president. “The notice expires with the playing of the first league game. Legally, the first day we can go out is Sept. 15. The players say they are ready to go.”

Upshaw said that, since there has been no progress at the negotiating table, union representatives have been meeting with teams at their training camps.

“It is my job to go out and inform the players of exactly the lack of progress,” Upshaw said. “One of the things the players have to understand is the issues and the process. Then they will make the decision.”

Upshaw said that the players are telling him, “If they (management) aren’t negotiating with you, why should you keep meeting with them? We’ve got to be prepared to take the step.”

The issue separating the players and owners, both sides say, remains free agency. The players want more freedom. The owners say they can’t afford it.

A number of people in college football as well as the pros are hoping for the NFL to make one major change in the NFL’s new player-owner agreement this week. They want a provision for an entry-level wage scale for rookies.

This would bring football into line with other American businesses paying uniform salaries to new employees.

In football, a scale for rookies--based on what round they were drafted and other considerations--would likely end the practice of agents making loans to college athletes.

In the meantime, during a supplemental lottery Friday, NFL teams will draft wide receiver Cris Carter of Ohio State and running back Charles Gladman of Pitt, both of whom were ruled ineligible this year for accepting loans from agents.

Michigan Coach Bo Schembechler, criticizing the supplemental draft, said: “What the NFL has done . . . is say that anybody in college football who robs, steals, commits murder (or) rape . . . they can take them into the professional league.”

This is a slight misconception. The players broke an NCAA rule, not any laws. The NCAA rule, which has not been tested in court, forbids a custom that is legal for all other students. Anyone else who can get a loan is entitled to one.

Schembechler and other coaches seem not to understand that if the pros closed the door to an athlete excommunicated in such circumstances, they would clearly be in restraint of trade as defined in federal law.

Once more, Coach Buddy Ryan of the Philadelphia Eagles picks his team to win the NFC Eastern Division. “If you don’t believe in yourself, who else is going to believe in you?” he asked.

The New York Giants and Washington Redskins will fight it out for second, Ryan said.

In the West, he picked the San Francisco 49ers over the Rams, and in the Central, the Chicago Bears over the Minnesota Vikings.

In the AFC: the New York Jets over New England Patriots in the East, the Denver Broncos over the Seattle Seahawks in the West and the Cleveland Browns over the Cincinnati Bengals in the Central.

John Lee, the former UCLA kicker, is back in the camp of the Cardinals, who drafted him a year ago.

And Ben Agajanian, his off-season coach, said Lee is ready to kick after undergoing knee surgery.

“He’s not quite as strong yet as he was before,” Agajanian said. “But he’s excellent up to 45 yards.”

Lee started his NFL career with six consecutive field goals last season and soon after was injured.

“Then they changed his center and holder, and he missed a couple,” Agajanian said. “Then they decided to send him down field on kickoffs, and someone got him from behind. It wasn’t the way we’d planned it.”

Kevin Murray, last year’s Texas A&M; quarterback, will fly to Lake Tahoe next week to undergo ankle surgery. Dr. J.R. Steadman will perform the operation.

“Kevin hurt it three years ago,” his agent, Steve Endicott, said. “It was a compound fracture, and he’s been playing with a steel plate in the ankle.

“It was bad enough that the NFL didn’t want to draft him this year, so he’s decided to have the operation.

“We could have played in Canada, but Kevin wants the NFL. He’s a big, strong kid, 6-2, 200. If the ankle is right, he compares with anyone drafted this year except Vinny Testaverde.”

Quote Dept.:

Gary Danielson, Bernie Kosar’s backup, on Cleveland, the favorite in the AFC Central: “Our offensive line here is the best we’ve ever had.”

Viking quarterback Tommy Kramer on football practice at an alcohol treatment center: “I worked a lot harder (there) than I do at training camp.”

TV commentator John Madden on how the NFL could protect its passers from over-eager blitzers: “My idea is to give the ref a noisemaker that he sounds after the quarterback throws. Then he can’t be hit. That takes the (officials’) subjectivity out.”

Rules Dept.: Art McNally, the NFL’s supervisor of officials, said the league will enforce two different ball-possession rules when offensive and defensive players are fighting over a catch.

“In the air, if there’s a simultaneous catch, it’s survival of the fittest,” McNally said.

“(When there’s a conflict) on the ground, the ball belongs to the offense.”

Two NFC quarterbacks were supposed to pass in the night this year--Jim Everett on his way up, Ron Jaworski going down.

But both have made a positive impression of late. The Rams are turning Everett into a look-alike of Dan Fouts of the San Diego Chargers, for whom Ram offensive coordinator Ernie Zampese used to work.

Zampese has had Everett studying films of Fouts. The quick drop, quick read, quick set and hurry-up throw are all the same. Everett even had Fouts’ accuracy Sunday night in an exhibition victory over the Chargers.

The stars on Monday night were the Miami Dolphins’ Jaworski and James Pruitt, the former Cal State Fullerton receiver.

With hardly any practice after joining the Dolphins this week, Jaworski did a first-rate impersonation of Dan Marino. Pending Marino’s return from an injury, the Dolphins, apparently, are in good hands.