St Edwards University - Tower Yearbook (Austin, TX)

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The Wide-eyed World of Sports In the year past storybook things happened as never before in sports, but so did some very unmagical things that opened our eyes as they’d never been opened before in sports. ST ne wide world of sports will not soon for- get 1972-73, a year that brought greater thrills in its victories but more grievous ago- ny in its defeats than any before. The victories were simply incompre- hensible. In professional football the Miami Dolphins, a 7-year-old expansion team from “that funny league,” tamed the mighty NFL as no team in history ever had, eclipsing the season rushing record of the Detroit Lions on their way to a perfect 17-0 season. At Munich swimmer Mark Spitz was just as per- fect, winning an unprecedented seven gold ' medals, each in world record time. Mean- while, UCLA (Bill Walton edition) rolled on to its seventh consecutive NCAA basketball championship and its ninth in the last ten years, and raised its record winning streak to 75 consecutive games, and still counting. And at the Belmont, Secretariat added the third jewel of horse racing’s Triple Crown, the first horse able to do so in the generation since Citation did it in 1948. | Each feat by itself is astounding, a once in a lifetime affair, and yet all four happened in one year. But if there was never a grander year in the world of sports, there was never a more tragic one either. From the beginning the grandeur of the summer Olympic games was soured by prej- udiced judging by the East Europeans and later by the U.S.-Russia basketball debacle, but on September 5 real tragedy gripped the Olympic Village when eight Arab com- mandos of the Black September broke into the dormitory of the Israeli team, killing two Israelis immediately and holding nine others as hostages for the release of 200 Arab commandos held in Israel. The nightmare ended 16 hours later in a shootout at an airfield outside Munich that left 15 more people dead. After a 24-hour suspension the games continued to the mixed reaction of a stunned world. On New Year’s Eve the great Roberto Clemente died in the crash of a plane carrying relief supplies from Puerto Rico to the earthquake victims in Nicaragua. In Indianapolis, Indiana, the grandest event in sports showed again why it is also the grimmest, counting one dead crewman, two critically burned drivers, 13 hospitalized spectators, and, yes, a winning driver finally after only 332.5 miles of a rain-delayed and wreck marred Indianapolis 500. Between these heart-stopping moments fans could pause and catch their breath while the University of Southern California skipped past Ohio State in the Rose Bowl to wrap up the national title that might again have been Nebraska’s (an effortless winner over Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl) until UCLA’s stunning upset of the Cornhuskers on opening day. Ohio State had earned its Rose Bowl invitation with two heroic goal-line stands before a national TV audience that preserved its thrilling 14-11 victory over unbeaten Big Ten rival Michigan. USC had also thrilled a national audience when it turned sophomore running back Anthony Davis loose for six touchdowns, two on kick returns of 97 and 96 yards, against Notre Dame on the season’s last Saturday. In baseball the mustachioed Oakland Athletics, looking more like the original Philadelphia A’s, beat the Cincinnati Reds in seven games to wrap up baseball’s most interesting World Series since the 1969 Mets miracle. Six of the games were decided by one run, two night games were played for the first time in Series history, and the A’s unlikely hero was erstwhile second-string catcher Gene Tenace, who drove in nine of the A’s 16 runs while socking four home- runs. At the college world series USC won its fourth consecutive title, edging top-ranked Arizona State 4-3. In the NBA the New York Knicker- bocker surprised the ailing Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals and then ripped the Los Angeles Lakers in 5 games after losing the first to reclaim the NBA title, and in golf, Lee Trevino passed $1 million in prize money. And in whatever catagory it deserves, Howard Cosell and Don Merideth were signed by ABC for their fourth season of ‘Monday Night Football, a new American tradition. iat}

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Illustrated by Teresa Hall 114 Sports had not one, or even two, but three historic per- formances in 1972-73. Bob Griese, his broken leg healed, took back the reins of the Miami Dolphins from the NFL’S finest relief pitcher, Earl Morrall, and completed the Dolphins’ perfectly Super season with a 14-7 victory over the Washington Redskins in the Super Bowl VII. Seven was also the magic number for Mark Spitz who, redeeming an embarrassing Olympic showing in 1968, set seven world records in winning his seven gold medals. For UCLA it was, yep, a seventh straight national champi- onship as John Wooden coached his 75th con- secutive victory.

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