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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Thursday, January 9, 1969
Speaking of sports
Top 10 sports stories 1968
By
1968. It was a great year for sports.
Ron Yates, Kansan sports editor
The record-breaking Olympic Games, a classic World Series, great confrontations on America's football fields and basketball courts-just a few of the ingredients which went into 1968's zeaty sports stew. After sampling the brew, members of the Kansan sports staff ranked the ingredients in the order of their impact upon the 1968 sports scene and gravity of achievement.
The top ten sports stories of 1968:
1. OLYMPICS—Not just one or two events, but the entire 1968 Games. The swimming, gymnastics, boxing, track, field and decathlon. For pure sports news value, nothing in the sports world matched the Olympics. More than 100 countries covered the games via television and the printed word. Almost two billion people followed the events in Mexico City through newspapers and television as the United States compiled more than 100 medals amidst racial demonstrations, unrest among Mexican students in Mexico City and strained relations between Russian and Czechoslovakian athletes due, primarily, to the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia.
z. BASEBALL-The 1968 World Series. Detroit comes back from being down, three games to one, and whips St. Louis in the series. The odds against the Tigers accomplishing this feat were enormous, but the Tigers bucked the oddsmakers and won.
3. BASKETBALL--Houston nips UCLA 71-69 last winter in the Houston Astrodome. This game was one of the most publicized college basketball games in history. It matched the undefeated Bruins with 7-2 Lew Alcindor against the undefeated Houston Cougars with the 6-8 "Big E" Elvin Hayes. The game was televised nationally and watched by more than 50 million people.
4. TRACK-Bob Beamon makes a fantastic leap to better the existing world long jump record (27 feet, 4 and $ \frac{3}{4} $ inches) by almost two feet—29 feet and $ \frac{1}{2} $ inches. "Compared to that jump, the rest of us are children," said Igor Ter-Ovanesyan, the Russian long-jumper who shared the previous world long jump record with America's Ralph Boston. "It felt like a regular jump." Beamon said recently, remembering the moment of his jump at the Olympics.
5. BASEBALL—Denny McLain, Detroit pitcher, wins 31 games thus becoming the first pitcher to win 30 games since Dizzy Dean's era in the 1930's. Dean won 30 games in 1934. Lefty Grove of the Philadelphia Athletics won 31 in 1931.
6. TENNIS—Within a two-week period, Arthur Ashe Jr. of Richmond, Va., won the U.S. Nationals at Brookline, Mass. and then won the Open Tennis Championship at Forest Hills. He was the first amateur tennis player to do this. He defeated the world's best professional tennis stars and was declared the mens international champion—the first Negro ever to accomplish this.
7. FOOTBALL—The Green Bay Packers, after winning their third straight NFL championship (the first team ever to do this) proceed to dismantle the AFL's champion Oakland Raiders in the second annual Super Bowl 34-14. (After three phenomenal seasons winning consecutive championships, Packer coach Vince Lombardi steps down from coaching to take a front office job with the Packers. After his departure, the Packers appear to crumble and do not make it to the NFL championship in 1968.)
8. BASKETBALL-UCLA wins its second straight NCAA championship by humiliating Houston in the NCAA championship round. This second meeting between the two teams was long-awaited after Houston had upset UCLA earlier in the season at the Astrodome.
9. TRACK—Kenya's Kipchoge Keino sets a blistering pace in the Olympics by racing six grueling heats in three different distance events within a five-day
period topping it all off with an upset win over KU's Jim Ryun in the 1500-meter race. Keino won every race he entered at the Olympics and showed little concern for Mexico City's thin air.
10. FOOTBALL-The New York Jets, led by the newly-shaved "Broadway" Joe Namath, beat the defending champion Oakland Raiders for the AFL championship while the Baltimore Colts smash the Cleveland Browns 34-0 for the NFL crown. The teams will meet in the third annual Super Bowl with the Colts installed as 17 point favorites.
Other top vote getters in order of their votes were;
11. FOOTBALL—The controversial Oakland Raider-New York Jet "Heidi" game on NBC. With the Wets leading 32-29 with about one minute to play NBC cut away from the game to begin its scheduled broadcast of "Heidi," a children's story. During the last minute Oakland scored two touchdowns to win the game 43-32. NBC received thousands of letters from irate fans for cutting away from the final moments of the game. Some fans said that by breaking away from the game NBC broke off "support waves" being emitted from loyal Jet fans across the nation.
12. BASKETBALL-Yugoslavia upsets Russia in the Olympics and earns a spot in the championship game against the United States. The Russian team was said to have the best chance of beating the Americans in this year's Olympics.
The United States has 64 separate wilderness areas.
Forecasts many re-runs in 1969's sports scene
By STEVE SNIDER
UPI Sports Writer
NEW YORK (UPI)—Best bets in the world of sports for 1969:
BASEBALL PENNANTS—The division set-up is new but the pennant story is old with the Detroit Tigers and St. Louis Cardinals repeating, American League playoffs to match Detroit and Minnesota Twins with Cardinals and San Francisco in the National. Tigers and Cards go on to another donwpbrook World Series.
BATTING CHAMPS — Matty Alou of Pittsburgh and Carl Yastrzemski of Boston are the consistent ones. Both should find the new restrictions against the pitchers much to their liking.
LEADING PITCHERS — Repeaters Bob Gibson of St. Louis and Denny McLain of Detroit but neither figures to approach 30 victories.
PRO FOOTBALL — Baltimore
Colts over the New York Jets in
Hicks makes all-bowl team
NEW YORK (UPI)—Ohio State and Texas hogged the All-Bowl football team picked by United Press International from press dispatches and reports of televisioners.
Rose Bowl champion Ohio State won five and Cotton Bowl winner Texas won four of the 22 berths on the mythical team while no other team landed more than two positions.
The teams include: OFFENSE
Greg Cook, Missouri, running back.
DEFENSE
Elmer Benhardt, Missouri; end;
Emery Hicks, Kansas, linebacker.
January's Super Bowl. For the fall of '69: Baltimore over Dallas in the NFL title game, Oakland over the Jets in the AFL.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL — All those current sophomores make Ohio State's national and Rose Bowl champs the team to beat for the marbles.
PRO BASKETBALL - Uphill all the way for Boston Celtics in the National Basketball Association. Oakland in the American.
COLLEGE BASKETBALL Time is running out for college coaches to figure ways and means of stopping Lew Alcindor. UCLA as usual.
TENNIS — Aussie Rod Laver and Arthur Ashe of Richmond, Va., who'll be a rookie pro, alternating in the big ones on grass. Ken Rosewall, the littlest Aussie, to win most of the better titles on clay.
GOLF—Billy Casper and Jack Nicklaus figure to lead the money parade but look for more surprises in big tournaments. A new guard is rising.
KENTUCKY DERBY — Beaut Brummel or Top Knight may have the stuff to do a mile and a quarter if they don't get lost on the way to Churchill Downs.
HOCKEY—Our favorite snooper, who picks Montreal almost every year, does it again.
HEAVYWEIGHT BOXING — It's an even money bet the tandem champs will get together by late fall and about the same odds Frazier will beat Jimmy Ellis for sole control of the division.
AUTOS—National title for Mario Andretti but only if he can finish high up at Indy.
Man on the hottest spot—Baseball's next commissioner.
Man on the coolest spot—Football's current pro commissioner, Pete Rozelle.
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