The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 60, No. 4, Ed. 1 Thursday, September 14, 1972 Page: 1 of 10
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gloat
gloat
the rice thresher
gloat
gloat
volume 60, number 4
thursday, September 14, 1972
'Arbuckle Effect' explains fantastic Rice win over UH
by BILL JONES and GREG
NORRIS
Saturday night the Rice Uni-
versity Owls defeated the Hous-
ton Cougars, 14-13 in one of
the greatest Rice wins in recent
years. The Owl win came as no
great surprise to most Rice
fans as we correctly predicted
in last week's Thresher that the
Owls would upset their cross-
town rivals by the same score,
14-13.
Although heralded by the
highly unacclaimed Daily Cou-
gar sports staff as a major up-
set, the Rice win was an ob-
vious manifestation of the "Ar-
buckle Effect" described in out-
book Football Fables and Fore-
casts (unavailable at ,$8.95 in
the Campus Store). We will use
the same principles described
in our book in an effort to ex-
plain the Rice victory.
We first call your attention
to Chapter 3 of our book, "Win-
ning the I're-season." In Table
13 we described the followiwng
aims for a successful debut:
]\o. 1: Gain the respect and
admiration of y o u r players.
There is no doubt that Coach
Conover has done this.
No. 2: Work their asses off.
Coach Conover said that he
didn't think that they could
work that hard.
No. 39: Become one of the
guys. A common remark has
been that it just doesn't seem
right to call him coach.
All in all, Big A1 seems to
have won the pre-season con-
test. In fact, we have never
seen an Owl team which has
such strong feeling for their
coach. With such a good pre-
season it seemed only natural
to hope for "The Good Season"
promised in The Book.
"TGS" received an excellent
beginning with the now famous
14-13 win. As Chapter 5 in The
Book states, the first step in
winning any football game is
the offense. And the basic key
to any offense is the backfield.
At quarterback Bruce Gadd
showed much poise in leading
the team on scoring drives of
58 and 77 yards. Of course, the
most pleasant change in Gadd
was that he threw 0 intercep-
tions while completing 8 of .17
passes for 2 touchdowns.
At running back John Cole-
man demonstrated that the an-
ticipation was justified as ho
gave every indication <24 car-
ries, 84 yards) of becoming one
of the better runners in the
Conference, in this, his fresh-
man year.
The Conover offensive game
plan seems reflective of th ■
plan described in Appendix I!,
"How to Win without r 1 a y
Variety." The basic tenets of
this style of play are:
No. 1: Using a small num-
ber of plays. The Owls wher..-
employing what we refer to as
the "right handed" offense.
Through an intricate array of
hand signals Coach Conover
was able to call every play
from the bench. By the second
half the Owls were using only
5 plays: we reason this is be-
cause one of Conover \s hands
became exhausted. It seems to
be a good idea to call plays in
this manner, as it will save ..the
usual time annd confusion lost
in shuttling players to (i.e, :n>
and fro (i.e., out). Perhaps
the greatest danger is the pos-
sibility that Jim Wynn will miss
a sign and be thrown out steal-
ing second base.
No. 2: Executing to near per-
fection. The most obvious so-
lution to the lack of variety is
more fingers for the coach. But,
since at last count Coach Con-
over had only ten digits, the
Owls are wise to seek perfect
execution. Against Houston the
strategy was moderately suc-
cessful, as there were only two
obvious breakdowns in execu-
tion. These were, however, in-
teresting in that one set up a
Houston touchdown and the oth-
(Continued on Page -1)
^ s , ^ ^ I '
m
Testy Texas delegation struggles for impossible unity
by MIKE ROSS
Democrats in Miami
Conclusion
On Monday afternoon, Texas
held its first caucus and both
camps were represented. Clay
Smothers, a black Wallace al-
ternate who "later placed his
own name in nomination for the
Vice Presidency, gave a stir-
ring speech attacking the con-
troversial McGovern proposals...
Casting evil glances toward Mc-
Govern, who was standing at the
side of the stage awaiting his
turn to speak, Smothers lam-
basted McGovern's welfare plan
saying that the money to fi-
nance it would "come out of
my black pockets."
McGovern then stepped up,
was introduced by Sissy (an
obvious strain for Briscoe) and
replied to the attack( "I got the
message.") Then the California
question arose. McGovern said
that he had tried to force the
California primary to be pro-
portional, but that that pro-
posal was voted down by the to change them.
That's exactly what hap- to mend some fences by propos-
committee, which allowed five
states until 1976 to eliminate
the winner-take-all primary.
"You don't change the rules
for the game after the game is
over," he pleaded. Humphrey
disagreed. He mentioned the
precedents set by the 1968 ban-
ning of the unit rule and the
1964 seating of the Mississippi
Freedom Democratic Party del-
egation. He claimed the the
convention has the right to
set its own rules and since the
proportional way was the fair
way, everyone Should support
the majority report.
The situation was quite iron-
ic. Humphrey had supported
the winner-take-all primary
("I'm no spoil sport," he told
CBS a few days before the pri-
mary) and McGovern led the
fight to overturn the unit rule
in 1968. Now both were arguing
the opposite cases. McGovern
wanted to keep the rules and
Hubert wanted the convention
Make love or war--choose one
Tryouts for the Brown Col-
lege production of "Lysistrata,"
a Greek comedy by Aristo-
phanes, were held Sept. 12 and
13 at 7:30 p.m. in the Brown
' Commons.
"Lysistrata" is named for
the heroine of the play, who
organizes the women of Greece
in an attempt to force their
husbands to end war. With the
slogan "make peace, not love"
as theirt rallying cry, the
N.O.W. of Ancient Greece
swears an oath to abstain com-
pletely from sex until the men
sign a peace treaty.
Production is scheduled for
Oct. 19, 20, and 21. The Doug-
lass Parker translation "will
serve as the script. For more
information, contact Kate Jones,
Brown College.
Fairness goes down the drain
when the political stakes get
high. All is pragmatism or
Old Politics, but it is inevitable.
"Politics is the application of
power," one McGovern staffer
told me.
South Carolina challenge
The first test of who had
the power would be the vote
on the South Carolina women's
challenge. McGovern supported
it, so ABM lined up against it.
The California 'delegation seat-
ed by the Credentials commit-
tee had 120 delegates pledged
to McGovern and 151 commit-
ted to others. Two parliamen-
tary rulings favorable to Mc-
Govern lowered the victory
number on the California ques-
tion from 1509 to 1483. The
worst thing that could happen
to McGovern would be a narrow
loss on the South Carolina chal-
lenge. In that case the rulings
could be challenged by ABM
from the floor and overturned,
meaning doom for McGovern
on California. That event would
turn the tide away from Mc-
Govern and his chances for the
nomionatin would greatly dimi-
nish. So when Rick Stearns, the
McGovern delegate counter,
could see that they couldn't win
the challenge, he decided to pull
votes and lose convincingly,
with a total less than 1433.
Then the ABM might think the
McGovern strength to be weak
enough not to bring up the pro-
cedural questions.
pened. The challenge lost 1559.7
to 1429.05. The ABM was fooled
and did not raise any questions,
it was a beautiful maneuver.
For example, Oregon, which
has 34 strong McGovern votes,
passed (a stall), voted 23-11
and eventually changed its vote
to 16-18. Senator Wayne Morse,
the delegation c h a ir m a n,
thought that they were voting
their consciences. But a young
Oregon delegate told me, with
a wide grin, that "the Oregon
delegation is very anxious to
nominate Senator McGovern"
and that "Senator Morse did not
come to the caucus" in which
the strategy was revealed.
While the ABM was celebrat-
ing the defeat of McGovern, the
McGovern forces were cele-
brating the impending nomina-
tion, for now they knew that
they had the ,1433 votes to seat
the McGovern California dele-
gation and it would be all down-
hill from there. The ABM was
shot down and they didn't even
know it.
The vote on the California
challenge was 16.18.28 to 1238.22
in favor of the minority report
seating the McGovern slate.
ABM tried too late to overrule
the parliamentary questions.
There was cheering by Mc-
Govern fans and stunned sol-
emnity by his foes. Willie Brown
had been given back his dele-
gation and McGovern would go
on to win the nomination.
McGovern immediately tried
ing a compromise between the
Dalev and Singer Illinois dele-
gations, but no one would buy
it and Daley was ousted early
Tuesday morning.
Briscoe glum
With the handwriting on the
walls, Humphrey and Muskie
withdrew from the race the
next day. That only left Scoop
and Terry Sanford in the ABM
camp.
Briscoe looked quite glum at
the Tuesday Texas caucus,
which was addressed by San-
ford and Jackson again. San-
ford pleaded for Southern pride
and Jackson started out on the
same speech that he gave
morning before. Again lie
gan with wife and went
about his family tree and
Protestant heritage. "All
ancestors were Protestants un-
til the Reformation, before
which they were all Catholics."
And more Party Loyalty.
"I was never a part of a third
party 'movement,".'twas the jab
at McGovern',s involvement with
Henry Wallace's Progressive
Party of 1948. Unfortunately,
that remark was taken as an
insult by the Wallace support-
ers, many of whom were in the
American Party four years be-
fore.
The ABM seemed to make the
avoidable mistakes.
Briscoe still claimed that "the
convention was not over" but
his wife Janey admitted that
(Continued on Page 9)
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Jackson, Steve. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 60, No. 4, Ed. 1 Thursday, September 14, 1972, newspaper, September 14, 1972; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245138/m1/1/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.