751099

751099

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Squires Shaking Heads 10/75

...And Now for the Bad News

By NELSON BROWN
Virginian-Pilot Sports Writer

VIRGINIA BEACH—With Mack Calvin sitting out an expected two months, Mike Green out at least until the regular-season opener Oct. 24, Dave Twardzik sick and David Vaughn giving no significant signs of a return to form, Jack Ankerson found himself a man bewildered Tuesday as he rose to address the Virginia Beach Sports Club.

“It’s like a black cloud has descended over us,” the general manager of the Squires said gingerly, hoping his words might be heard by a Force with a sympa-thetic ear.

Then Ankerson began relating his ABA team’s tale of woe—oh yes, don’t forget the dislocated thumb of Darrell Elston—with a final reminder that all cannot re-main so bleak.

“After all,” said Ankerson, “it’s better for these things to happen early in the sea-son than later. We’re gonna be a good club, and we’ll be ready by the time the playoffs roll around.”

So much for the bad news.
Now for the Squire fan who asks, “What can happen next?” It did—already.

The Squires missed their plane home Monday night after absorbing their fourth straight exhibition defeat in Asheville, N.C., the Squires had been promised their flight would be held if the team was late. So what happens? The team arrives and the plane is six minutes airborne. Back into town, find a motel, and spend the night—minus such overnight amenities as a toothbrush.

That plane wouldn’t have dared allow the Denver Nuggets to miss it, of course. But right now the Squires are so low that, well, everything and everybody seems to be against them.

So much for more bad news.

Now for the good news.

Ticky Burden, it seems, has rapidly be-come “a player.” In coaching terms, “a player” is a guy who can shoot, score the works.

While the Squires did lose, 114-111, to David Thompson and the Nuggets in Ashe-ville, Burden scored 33 points. It was the sort of show the Squires will need more of to stay competitive until Calvin returns to the backcourt.

“Ticky Burden, mercy, can he shoot the basketball,” exclaimed Ankerson to the gathering. “This morning’s Asheville paper ran the headline ‘Denver, Thompson Beat Squires But Burden Steals the Show.’ ”

“We had thought we might have to bring him along slowly,” Ankerson said of the 6-2 rookie out of Utah, “but he’s playing like a veteran.”

Burden played only 12 minutes in the ex-hibition opener against Houston, when he left early with five fouls. But he has aver-aged 24.3 points in the last three games and is hitting 52 per cent of his shots for a team that is managing a mediocre 43 per cent.

“When everyone gets healthy, when we can put our whole team together, we’re gonna be good,” Ankerson implored his lis-teners to believe.

A couple more Ticky Burdens might help, though.

October 13, 1975

TO MY SCIENTISTS...as you know from your file material, some years ago I attacked the Norfolk Squires ABA basketball team...when they were ahead of New York in the champ playoffs 3-1, and helped New York win the next three games and beat the Squires. But since that time...the PK has 'grown', like corn in a field...and the team has fallen to pieces.
It is important...to keep an eye on these things...so that you can see how devastating are these other-dimensional powers that I utilize, with UFO help.
Bear in mind...years ago I attacked the Philadelphia Eardes with PK power...and their owner, Jerry Wolman, went bankrupt and the team fell apart and for years has been a laughing-stock of pro football. (Now the effects just might be wearing off. Put the effects for the Eardes go back to 1966-67...the beginning of the attack. So after I attack a team with PK...it takes years and years and years for them to recover from the effects.)
Next, as you know from your files and newspaper write-ups...I attacked the Baltimore Colts, then owned by Rosenbloom. He was smarter than the others and didn't wait to go bankrupt...but traded his pro team for the Los Angeles Rams. The Colts fell apart and they, too, became a laughingstock of pro football. Just fell apart.

“Hindsight” reveals a great deal...with reference to the effectiveness of my 150 “PK” mechanisms.

Gwens XPKMan

Squires' Dream
Now Ruptured Nightmare

By MIKE LITWIN 10/77
Virginian-Pilot Sports Writer

Looking back on the disaster of Saturday night, the Squires can only wish it was a bad dream.

It wasn't.

Mack Calvin, the key to the Squires' offense, is indeed out for probably two months with a ruptured tendon in his left knee. The return of Mike Green, the hub of the defense, is more than two weeks away. And the curious virus that has attacked Dave Twardzik, probably the best reserve guard in the ABA, lingers still.

Thus the men of Al Bianchi already win-less in three exhibition games, appear to be in for another rough time of it tonight, in Asheville, N.C., where they will take on the Denver Nuggets and David Thompson at 7:30.

"I'm not really feeling any better," said Twardzik, who sat out the second half of Saturday night's 130-113 loss to Philadel-phia with complaints of dizziness and chest pains. "I've been resting all day, taking fluids and aspirin. Hopefully, I'll be able to play against Denver."

Obviously concerned for his team's men-tal state, Bianchi will feel much relieved if Twardzik is on hand. Otherwise, the Squires will be without a proven playmak-er.

"After the game," Twardzik said, "Al asked me to go if I could. That will have to weigh heavily in my decision."

There is no telling what the Squires' starting lineup will be. If Twardzik makes it, he'll team with Ticky Burden in back-court. Otherwise, it will be Burden and Johnny Neumann. The forwards almost certainly will be Willie Wise and Jan van Breda Kolff.

At center there remains much question. The Squires have been outrebounded in each of their three games--at times bad-ly--and David Vaughn has been woefully erratic. Neither of the rookies, Rick Dar-nell and Bill Bunton, has been particularly impressive.

FAST BREAKS--Marvin Webster, the Nuggets' other bonus baby, may be out for the season with hepatitis. There is some talk the Nuggets are trying to void his gen-erous contract, claiming prior illness. Former Squire George Irvine will be in Asheville, but not Patty Taylor, who has been having contractual differences with the Nuggets. Bad luck seems to be haunting all the Squires. General partner Van Cunningham's Rolls Royce reportedly was vandalized in the Hampton Coliseum parking lot Saturday night. The Squires play Thursday in Salisbury, Md., against the Baltimore Claws and Sunday in Scope against Chicago of the NBA.

"Hindsight" reveals a great deal...with reference to the effectiveness of my 330 "PH" mechanisms.

Gwene XPKMan

Scientists... in my former
written predictions... I
predicted the fall of South
Vietnam... also cannibalism
in 1975! G. Wens
4

Monday, April 7 1975
No. 59,363
Price eight pence

PHNOM PENH
TIMES
Phnom Penh considers prospect of
unconditional surrender

Discussions on the possibility of Phnom Penh's unconditional
surrender to the attacking communist forces were said by
reliable sources to be going on yesterday among the
Cambodian leaders in the capital. However, Mr Long Boret,
the Prime Minister, on his way home from Bali, said the
capital "will not fall". Meanwhile, there were reports of
widespread cannibalism among starving Government troops.
In Washington General Frederick Weyand, the Army Chief
of Staff, back from Saigon, reported that there was virtually
no hope of saving South Vietnam.

Cannibalism practised
by Cambodian troops

From Bruce Palling
Phnom Penh, April 6.
Unpaid Government soldiers
killed and ate their paymaster
only a mile away from the
besieged Cambodian capital, it
was reported here today.

In their reaction to the inci-
dent military observers seemed
more concerned with the main-
tenance of discipline among the
troops than with revulsion over
the acts of cannibalism.

An inspection of the troops at
a Buddhist temple where they
have been temporarily stationed
south-east of Phnom Penh has
revealed that thousands of
starving people have taken part
in acts of cannibalism recently.

The paymaster was killed in
a shooting incident, according
to observers on the scene, when
he refused to hand the soldiers
their monthly pay of 14,000 riels
(about £3) until they went to
the northern front—about seven
miles away. A superior officer
was also shot and killed.

The soldiers had been air-
lifted from the besieged pro-
vincial capital of Kompong
Seila late last week after the
Government decided to aban-
don the town, about 70 miles
south-west of Phnom Penh in
order to bring more troops into
the capital. The troops, then
numbering 1,500, and 5,000 in-
habitants lived under siege from
last May until January when
pressure eased on the positions
with the Khmer Rouge concen-
trating their efforts on their
offensive against Phnom Penh.

A captain interviewed today
said that everyone in his bat-
talion of 500 men had eaten the
corpses of Khmer Rouge killed
in the fighting because they
were starving.

"We ate grass, lizards and
banana leaves and finally
Khmer Rouge—everyone ate
men, women and child-
ren," the captain said.

During the weekend, about
80 employees of the American
Vinnell Corporation, which
maintains and trains the Cam-
bodian Army, withdrew entirely
at the orders of the State
Department in Washington.

The American Embassy also
withdrew up to 30 of its 200
employees during the past four
days in case the military situ-
ation deteriorates rapidly or
Congress refuses to grant
supplemental military aid to
Cambodia when it reconvenes
on Monday.