Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.sports From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Coach V continues to fight hard against toughest opponent Date: Sun, 22 Nov 92 17:26:45 EST Message-ID: \SE C;SPORTS;SPORTS BAZAAR;NOTABLE \HD Coach V continues to fight hard against toughest opponent \BY Dick Heller \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES Jim Valvano, the gung-ho basketball coach who directed North Carolina State to an NCAA title a decade ago and later resigned when his program was placed on NCAA probation in 1990, reacted typically last June when doctors told him he had cancer and had a year to live if he didn't respond to treatments. He didn't believe it. "You say, 'Run that test again - not cancer,' " Valvano said last week. "I had no pains, no symptoms. You feel helpless." Now, however, Coach V's despair has turned into determination. He took a huge step toward psychological recovery Friday night when he handled the commentary for ESPN on a Preseason NIT game. Valvano, 46, is receiving outpatient treatment for metastatic adenocarcinoma, a cancer that originated in his lung, every two weeks at Duke University, of all places. He spends three or four days in the hospital after undergoing chemotherapy every six weeks. "My spirits are good; my family has been wonderful; friends have been great," he said. "I'm fighting every day." Valvano said he experiences pain in his back, hips and knees from the cancer and numbness in his hands and feet and ringing in his ears from chemotherapy. "But I can tell you the truth," he said. "When my eyes open and my feet touch the floor, I say, 'Thank God for the day I have, and let's go get 'em.' " IRON CITY CENTENNIAL A marker commemorating the 100th anniversary of the first pro football game will be unveiled by Pittsburgh Steelers president Dan Rooney before today's Steelers-Detroit Lions game. The game was played Nov., 12, 1892, at the long-gone Recreation Park on Pittsburgh's North Side near what is now Three Rivers Stadium. Rooney grew up only a few blocks away. If the participants in the game between the Pittsburgh Athletic Club and the Allegheny Athletic Association weren't excited about making athletic history, it's understandable - most of them didn't get paid. The only player who cashed in was future Hall of Famer Pudge Heffelfinger, who received $500 from Allegheny's $1,121 proceeds. Fittingly enough, he scored the only touchdown on a fumble return. FORDHAM STINKS UP JOINT The most dubious PR campaign of the college football season has been by Fordham, which is pushing receiver Tom Garlick for Division I-AA all-American honors. The school attached a piece of garlic to its press release. "This garlic stinks," it said. "This one doesn't." Above the latter, of course, is a picture of Garlick and his accomplishments. Wonder how a man who played on Fordham's famed "Seven Blocks of Granite" line in the late '30s would have reacted to such nonsense. Guy named Vince Lombardi. WOMAN PLAYER DEBUTS Everyone who wondered when they would see Melissa Burden play men's college basketball did not have to wait long. Burden got into Friday night's opening game in the first two minutes and finished with one point and one assist as Savannah, Ga., College of Art and Design lost to Maryville (Tenn.) College 135-51. Women players in men's college basketball are extremely rare. Pratt Institute in New York had a female player last season and Stevens Tech in Hoboken had one in the 1988-89 season. Burden, a 5-foot-7 senior guard, played 11 minutes and 48 seconds, made one of two foul shots and committed a foul. Savannah, an NCAA Division III school, is in its second season of men's basketball. The team is 0-27 overall. Burden's postgame reaction: "It's different playing against men. It felt OK, and I had the team behind me. The play was more aggressive, but there was not a whole lot of difference." Kelvin Richardson, the Maryville player who guarded Burden the most, seemed more impressed by the occasion than she was. "This was history, man," he said. Well, almost. QUOTABLE Actor Burt Reynolds, on why he chose to attend and play football at Florida State: "It had been a girls' schools just a few years before and the coach, Tom Nugent, told me, 'I don't know if you know it, son, but there are 15 girls for every boy here. Right then, I decided it would be a wonderful school to go to." * Grambling football coach Eddie Robinson, football's winningest coach in his 51st season at the Louisiana school, on the fact that five of his former players have sons on the 1992 team: "There could have been more, but I guess a lot of the fellas had daughters." This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM