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Wednesday, September 10, 1986 / University Daily Kansan
Coffman will play for K.C.
KANSAS CITY, MO. — Paul Coffman, who has caught more than 300 passes for the Green Bay Packers over the past eight seasons, signed a contract yesterday with the Kansas City Chiefs.
"It's definitely working out for the best," said Cochman "I'm living in my home city. I'm playing with people I know, coaches I know.
"I'm really looking forward to it. It's worked out better than I thought it would."
Coffman, a native of Chase, lives near Kansas City in Lee's Summit, Mo. He went to college at Kansas State.
To make room on their roster, the Chiefs put rookie center Tom Baugh on injured reserve. Baugh, a fourth-round pick from Southern Illinois, broke the ring finger on his left hand Sunday during Kansas City's opener. He will miss at least a month.
Coffman started all but one game for the Packers since the start of the 1979 season. He caught 322 passes for 4,223 yards and 39 touchdowns with Green Bay. But the nine-year veteran was cut by the Packers during the preseason.
"I pretty much expected it from the time I got there," Coffman said. "I knew it was coming, so it wasn't too tough to take.
"I'm confident in my abilities. I haven't lost anything. They've just made a lot of changes up in Green Bay and I don't think it had anything to do with my performance."
Coffman said he expected to play Sunday when Kansas City travels to Seattle.
"I've been in the league for eight years and seen a number of offenses," he said. "There's just not a whole lot different you can do, you just call it different things."
American gets boost from Open
United Press International
GASTONIA, N.C. — Tim Wilkinson, quarterfinal in this year's U.S.Open Tennis Championships, says he's sharpening the weapons needed to carve himself a slot among the top tennis players in the world.
"My consistency has worked against anybody outside the top 10, but to beat anyone in the top 10 — and this showed up when I played (Stefan) Edberg — consistency isn't enough." Wilkison said yesterday.
"To beat those guys, you've got to force them with a weapon in your game — something that they'll have to steer away from, something that will mess up their game."
wikison. 26, was the last remaining American in this year's Open, after defeating fifth-seeded Yannick Noah of France and Andrei Chesnovok of the Soviet Union. Wilkison lost to Edberg in the quarterfinals.
Wilkison said he was a bit surprised, but not at all shocked, by his performance in the Open.
"I don't want to call myself a major contender or anything like that, but I can definitely keep up this level of play," said Wilkison, who is ranked No. 26 in the world.
"It's not like I was hitting unbelievable shots that just happened to be going in that day. I was playing within myself at the Open. It wasn't like I was saying, 'Oh God, this is going to end at any day.'"
Wilkison's hustling style — complete with dives on the court and a victory over a Soviet player — endeared him to the crowd and earned him some half dozen nicknames, including "Rambo" and "Dr. Dirt."
"I like 'Dr. Dirt best," he said. "I call my wife, Mirs. 'Mirl.'"
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DALLAS — Considering the events that transpired in Texas Stadium the other evening, perhaps it is time for another review of the bidding to fully appreciate the highway robbery perpetrated by the Dallas Cowboys over the years.
United Press International
Cowboys steal some of the league's best players
Commentary
Jones continues to blot out the sun at left defensive end for the Cowboys and is as hard to throw passes over as a mature oak tree. White, often maligned as a quarterback, ran his record to 61-27 as a starting quarterback Monday night.
A dozen seasons have passed since the Cowboys convinced the Houston Oilers they needed Tody Smith and Billy Parks in exchange for their No. 1 and No. 5 draft choices. Neither Smith nor Parks had spaces reserved in the Hall of Fame, and Houston's draft picks turned into Ed Jones and Danny White.
The next year the Cowboys dealt Craig Morton, who wasn't going to play another down as quarterback for them, to the New York Giants for a No. 1 choice. That turned out to be Randy White. After more than a decade of competition, White continues to cause mayhem at right defensive tackle.
In 1977 the Cowboys acquired three second-round draft picks in addition to their first-round choice, and they all of them to Seattle for the
Seahawks top pick.
That, of course, resulted in the acquisition of Tony Dorsett. Textbooks refer to that as the most daring daylight holdup since Jesse James's last big heist.
Finally we jump forward to 1984. The Cowboys traded the constantly grumbling Butch Johnson to Houston for Mike Rentro (one of the key contributors to Dallas's division title last year) and a No. 5 choice in 1985.
With that fifth-round choice the Cowboys called out the name, "Herschel Walker."
The results of that decision became obvious against the New York Giants Monday night and additional positive proof is expected to continue rolling in as the weeks go by.
Now the question becomes, why did no one take a chance on Walker before the fifth round in 1985 — the first year in which an NFL team could draft him?
The chief reason Walker lasted until the fifth round, of course, was that he was under contract to the U.S. Football League's New Jersey Generals.
"Everybody around the league is trying to answer that question today." said Tex Schramm, the Cowboys president and general manager. "But it was natural that no one took him any earlier."
But even on the day of the draft there were those who like to bet the high odds who felt Walker was worth the risk in one of the early rounds.
The preliminary results were in at
the time on the USFL and those results were not glowing. The league had obvious problems, and it was not going to shock anyone if it quietly slipped into darkness.
On top of that, Walker has the sort of talent that does not come along every weekend. Here is a fellow who has enough speed to get on the same track with Carl Lewis and has the power to run through a chain link fence.
Why not take a chance? Amateur oddsmakers made it a 50-50 possibility that Walker would wind up in the NFL. A lot of second-round picks wouldn't bring those kind of odds.
"I'll tell you what," said Schramm.
"Teams are always anxious to find help right now. They have players they see in college who they are excited about. They want to get them in and help themselves right away."
The Cowboys, themselves, had no preconceived notion that they would take Walker in the 1965 draft.
"There were really some question about Herschel last year," said Cowboys Coach Tom Landry. "Everybody knew what he had done in college, but in his first year or so in the USPL he wasn't producing like some people thought he should. His progress in that league came all of a sudden."
After four rounds of the draft, however, Walker's name came up. And it was brought up by Cowboys personnel director Gil Brandt.
The Cowboys actually had two fifth-round choices in 1985 and they
used their own to take Texas A&M center Matt Darwin, who never reported to training camp.
As long as they had two fifth-rounders, Brandt argued, they should go ahead and draft Walker's NFL rights.
"Brandt started talking him up."
"Laughily said. "Actually Gil is responsible for us taking Herschel."
"We didn't even have Herschel on our board where we list all the players," Schramm said. "It was just one of those things that when the time came we took him."
And, in so doing, the Cowboys added to their long and distinguished record of not-so-petty larceny.
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