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By JERRY KELLAR; Times Leader Sports Writer
Monday, December 28, 1992 Page: 2C QUICK WORDS: ROBERTS FOOTBALL
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Stanford fullback Ellery Roberts talked about
keeping things in perspective on Sunday. Especially football games.
Roberts should know. The fifth-year senior from North Babylon, N.Y. woke up
one morning two summers ago with a pain in his neck.
Literally.
Three months later, the 6-foot-1, 215-pounder had surgery to repair a
herniated disc at the base of his neck, ending his 1991 football season at
Stanford.
Roberts returned to rush for 638 yards and six touchdowns this year, and
was second only to team leader Glyn Milburn (851) in yardage. But to this day,
he has no idea how or why the injury happened.
“Even the doctors don’t know how it happened,” Roberts said from the
Cardinal team headquarters at the Marriott Marina. “It wasn’t related to
football, and that’s the weird thing about it.
“That’s what made it so tough to deal with … what made it such a
mystery,” he went on. “If it was something that happened when I was playing,
well then I could have just walked away from it (the game).”
Instead, Roberts came back and walked all over Stanford’s opponents.
In his final three games this season, he ran for 283 yards on 48 carries
and scored three touchdowns to lead The Cardinal to a 9-3 finish and No. 13
ranking. In the season finale at Cal, Roberts rushed for a career-high 117
yards. He preceded that game with the first 100-yard rushing game of his
career, when he gained 100 against Washington State.
“I just got in a groove and didn’t look back,” said Roberts, who has
petitioned the NCAA to allow him to play another season at Stanford. “For now,
I’m really grateful to have been able to come back like I did.”
Roberts, who holds a double major at Stanford — English and
African-American studies — said the last two years has made him look at life
from a different angle.
Now he wishes others would, too.
“People put such importance on the outcome of a football game, it’s
foolish,” said Roberts, who transferred from the University of Miami after the
’89 season. “Football is great, but there’s so much more to life.”
* * *
Both head coaches began their Sunday press conference with complaints.
Penn State’s Joe Paterno has made it an annual practice to moan about his
team’s initial sluggish workout session at its bowl site, while Stanford’s
Bill Walsh was griping about, of all things, the lighting at his team’s
practice facility at St. Thomas Aquinas High School.
Paterno first:
“The first couple of days are always really lousy and it’s no different
this time,” he said. “We were terrible yesterday and almost as bad (Sunday).”
As he was leaving the conference room at the Pier 66 Hotel, Paterno crossed
paths with a few of his players who were on their way in.
The coach smiled, then told reporters, “See if you guys can get more out of
them than I did today.”
Now for Walsh, whose Cardinal practiced Saturday night after they arrived
in town:
“I coached in high school (Washington Union in Fremont, Calif., 1957-59)
and we had about eight or nine more (light) bulbs, at least. It was downright
dark out there,” laughed Walsh, who also guided the San Francisco 49ers to
three Super Bowl titles.
“I think they call that home-field advantage.”
* * *
Several members of both teams went to a Swap Shop Sunday afternoon. The
carnival-like event by the beach is dubbed as “The Most Unique Discount
Shopping and Entertainment Emporium in the World!”
In other words, it’s a flea market with a circus.”
Then at night, select “hungry” players engaged in a rib eating contest at
Flanigan’s Quarterdeck restaurant.
* * *
If you’re planning on coming to South Florida this week, you had better
bring a bicycle along. Almost all of the area’s car rental companies are sold
out, and the few that have cars are offering them at astronomical fares.
Needless to say, the weather isn’t the only thing that’s hot around here
these days.