Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, July 3, 1990 TAG: 9007030436
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: LUIS CABRERA ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: TACOMA, WASH. LENGTH: Medium
It went downhill from there.
The Soviet national champion Moscow Bears were whipped 61-0 Monday night by the year-old Tacoma Express, a minor-league football team, in an exhibition game before 1,300 spectators in the Tacoma Dome.
The game was billed by promoters as Glasnost on the Gridiron.
Bears coach John Ralston, a former Denver Broncos head coach, didn't talk game strategy or give his players a fiery pep talk before the game. He explained to them how to suit up in full pads.
"Don't forget, you need your thigh pads, your knee pads and your elbow pads," he said through an interpreter. "You don't want to land on that AstroTurf without your elbow pads."
The Moscow Bears are among some 20 teams in the fledgling Soviet Union American Football League founded a year ago. For the past eight weeks, Ralston has been trying to mold the group of onetime rugby players, shot-putters, javelin throwers and decathletes into a professional football team.
He still has a ways to go.
"I'm disappointed in our fundamentals," he said after the game. "I don't think we do the fundamentals very well."
The team is to play in Fresno, Calif., Oklahoma City and Macon, Ga., with a possible game in Charlotte, N.C.
The starting quarterback first touched a football seven months ago, and he's the veteran. Ralston's biggest player weighs 250 pounds.
Ralston had said he mainly hoped that his players finished the game intact - especially his starting tight end, since both backups had been detained in the Soviet Union by the KGB the night before departure.
The Bears suffered no major injuries.
The anthem mixup wasn't the only glitch. The programs carried no numbers for the Soviet players. The announcer searched in vain for starting lineups while waiting for a Soviet interpreter who never got to the booth. She stayed on the field to relay Ralston's play calls and other assignments.
When it came time for national anthems, the Soviets appeared stunned when they heard the selection played for them.
Organizers discovered their mistake while the American anthem was being sung. Fans and players then stood a third time to listen to the real Soviet anthem.
Until this week, the players were outfitted in whatever castoff equipment they could find, Ralston said. He told of watching games where a team had equipment for only two dozen players, and players had to trade helmets and pads when they went in as substitutes.
But thanks to American corporate sponsors who have donated 100 pairs of shoes and enough helmets and pads for the whole team, the Bears will return to Moscow as well dressed as most minor-league American teams.
by CNB