Now, the Oilers are in Tennessee and nobody is certain where the cup
rests.

Dallas beat the Oilers 24-19 in the Citrus Bowl in Orlando last year
back when Houston was still Houston.

Such is the backdrop for tonight's preseason finale in Texas Stadium in
which the Cowboys plan to play their reserves for most of the game and
the Oilers the same.

It's a lot different from 1989 when owner Jerry Jones gave then-coach
Jimmy Johnson a big bear hug after they won their first game following
the ouster of Tom Landry and Tex Schramm. It was against the Oilers in a
preseason game on a hot, sultry night in August.

Then the Cowboys went on to a 1-15 regular season.

Or, the days of Bum Phillips coaching the Oilers into a frenzy. Beating
the Cowboys in a preseason game was considered a big deal by Phillips.
There were always sellout games in the Astrodome and packed houses in
Texas Stadium.

The game tonight isn't a sellout.

Dallas owns an 18-13 edge in the series which could be in jeopardy.
Jones and Oilers owner Bud Adams have yet to schedule another game next
summer.

Most of the Cowboys wish this game wasn't even on the schedule.

``If they come and ask me if I want to play, then I'm going to tell them
no,'' said Dallas running back Emmitt Smith. ``If they ask me to play
then I guess I might have to play.''

Dallas coach Barry Switzer said he would like to see Smith play, a
little, alongside quarterback Troy Aikman and wide receiver Michael
Irvin.

``We'll go with our regulars a short period of time,'' Switzer said.

Aikman said ``We'll probably play like we did in the first preseason
game. We may go about two series then turn it over to the reserves. We
had our main dress rehearsal last week against St. Louis.''

The Cowboys played only two offensive series against New England in
their Aug. 3 preseason opener. Smith didn't play.

``I don't know the last time I played in the last game of the
preseason,'' Smith said. ``But if they put me in there I'll go all out.
You'll get hurt if you try to go half-speed.''

Steve McNair, who shattered NCAA passing records while at Alcorn State,
and running back Eddie George will play for the Oilers.

Houston coach Jeff Fisher said he expects this to be the last preseason
game between the teams.

``This is probably the last preseason matchup for a few years,'' Fisher
said.

However, he said both teams will have enough pride for a good effort.

``A lot of players know each other, the coaching staffs, are familiar
with each other,'' he said. ``Last year we scrimmaged them twice and
played them at the end of the preseason. The rivalry still exists. Guys
will come out and play hard and trying to win. There's still a few
players who can show us what they can do as far as making the team.''

Houston placekicker Al Del Greco said the rivalry ``won't be the same as
it was before. I think that's good. Now they can be the team of Texas
like they said they were all along. We'll be Tennessee's team.

``I don't know if too many people in Dallas liked us anyway.''

Tennessee is 0-3 in the preseason while the Cowboys, fresh off a 34-31 victory over St. Louis, are 1-2.

Swim club names coach, sets sign-ups

Registration for the 1997-98 season will begin at 6 p.m. at the
natatorium, with practice set to begin on Sept. 2.

The club is for swimmers below high school level who have Level 4 Red
Cross swim instruction, and will have a new instructor this year after
Colleen Coman resigned as from her job at Crockett Middle School over
the summer.

Mike Moralez, who moved to Pecos earlier this year to serve as pastor
for the Apostolic Faith Center and is a former high school state swimmer
in Wisconsin, will be the new coach for the team, according to Flo
Salcido, Pecos Aquatic Club president.

"We will miss Colleen, but we think Mike will do a real good job for
us," Salcido said, adding the club is still seeking an assistant coach
to help Moralez.

Coman had also helped Pecos High School swimming coach Terri Morse while
serving as aquatic club coach. April Blackwell was named to replace
Coman as PHS assistant swim coach, though she will not be overseeing
junior high swimmers as Coman had in past seasons.

PAC practices are scheduled for Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6
to 7:30 p.m. at the PHS pool, and fall-winter meets are expected to begin in October.

Weary Woods shares early Series lead

The learning process continued for Woods on Thursday in the opening
round of the NEC World Series of Golf.

A bogey on the last hole -- and defending champion Phil Mickelson's
birdie on the same hole later -- left them both with 67s and tied for
the top spot, a stroke ahead of a line of major championship winners.

``People tend to forget this is my first year on tour,'' Woods said
after another day surrounded by record galleries at Firestone Country
Club. ``I have never played this much golf. This is a long season
because of that and because I'm not used to it. I have had lulls in my
game and you can just look at my finishes -- they're right there on
paper.''

A wet course and strong crosswinds played havoc with the shots of some
of the finest players in the world in the winners-only tournament.

Only 14 of the 46 players broke par. The field had 126 birdies to 171
bogeys, and eight double-bogeys to just two eagles.

The course was playing so long that Jeff Sluman, who finished with a 69,
hit a 4-wood on his third shot into the 625-yard ``Green Monster'' 16th
hole.

Woods, battling a balky driver and an ankle injury, saved par at the
16th with a spectacular flop shot that left him just three feet for par.

That save, and a birdie on the next hole after hitting a 7-iron to 4
feet, gave him a 2-stroke lead going to 18, but he pulled his drive left
near a drainage grate.

He tried to cut an 8-iron around a tree 20 paces away and over the trees
surrounding the green, but it ended up short, and he failed to get up
and down from the left rough.

``It feels pretty good because I played well today and under these
conditions if you play well you're probably going to be up near the top
of the leaderboard,'' Woods said.

Mickelson got off to a rocky start with a bogey, but righted himself to
take the lead with birdies at holes 10 and 11. Back-to-back bogeys at
the 12th and 13th holes cost him the outright lead.

He made up for those lapses by rolling in his 30-foot putt for birdie on
the last hole for his 67 and a piece of the lead.

It was business as usual for Mickelson, who has supreme confidence
playing at Firestone.

``I have a lot of positive thoughts playing here,'' he said. ``I have a
lot of good memories and I also have a belief that I can score well on
this golf course because it requires some patience. It's not a course
you can just attack and expect to go low on.''

Mickelson said it was the course that produced the star-spangled
leaderboard.

``The better players tend to come out at this type of golf course as
opposed to a course we normally play that might lead to 16- to 20-under
winning,'' Mickelson said.

The crowd lurking a shot back included the current U.S. Open (Ernie Els)
and PGA Championship winners (Davis Love III), a past World Series
winner with three major titles (Nick Price), a two-time British Open
champion and former World Series winner (Greg Norman), a two-time winner
this year (Mark O'Meara) and a local favorite who grew up in Akron and
whose father is the World Series' tournament manager (John Cook).

All were humbled by the conditions.

``You are always playing a crosswind and that makes you concerned with
some of the shots you are hitting, 3- and 4-irons,'' said Norman, who
won the World Series two years ago.

Of the par-4 fourth hole, listed as 458 yards, Price said, ``I hit a
pretty good drive and ended up with 228 or 230 yards to the pin uphill.
It's more like a par 5.''

``If you didn't drive it pretty long out there, it was a real difficult
course,'' said Love. ``That's why you didn't see a whole lot of birdies
or a whole lot of good scores.''

Unlike most of the others who were subpar, Cook is not considered
particularly long off the tee.

``It's just ripe for some of the long hitters,'' he said. ``They love it
this way.''

Only Mickelson, who won last year on a dry and fast track, said he
looked forward to playing Firestone the way it is now.

``It's playing a little easier because you can take that 4- or 5-iron
that you might be hating and attack the pin because the ball will stop
right where it hits,'' he said. ``It's much easier to get at some pins
than it has been with 7- or 8-irons as hard as the greens have been the
last couple of years.''

Nick Faldo, winner of six grand slam events including three British
Opens, was at 3-over 73 along with reigning British Open champion Justin
Leonard.

The winner of the World Series collects $396,000 from a $2.2 million
purse -- not to mention a 10-year PGA Tour exemption. Only winners of international events are invited to play.

Comeback from car wreck near Kent foundation of Hogan's legend

Hogan, who died recently at the age of 84, is still ranked as one of, if
not the greatest golfer ever, having won 37 titles in the four years
after World War II. That included PGA victories in 1946 and 48, as well
as the 1948 U.S. Open title.

But it was Hogan's victory in the 1950 Open that remains his most
famous, coming just over a year after his near-fatal accident on Feb. 2,
1949 on U.S. 80, west of Kent in Culberson County.

The accident received mention in a small front page story in the
Enterprise the following day, and information about the cause of the
accident was undetermined at that time.

In his 1995 book on Hogan, Curt Sampson described the accident as having
occurred on an icy bridge, when the Cadillac Hogan and his wife,
Valerie, were in was hit by an oncoming Greyhound bus which was late
leaving Pecos and was trying to pass a truck under foggy conditions.

Hogan dove across his wife's lap just before impact, and saved his own
life when the impact impaled the steering wheel on the driver's seat.
But Hogan's left shoulder was fractured by the column, while his ankle
and pelvis were broken and the rest of his left leg mangled when the
engine came through the firewall.

Then, as now, the area around Kent is a bad place to have a serious
accident because of the distances involved, especially in bad weather
conditions. An ambulance wouldn't arrive from Van Horn for 90 minutes,
and took him first there before going onto El Paso.

According to Simpson's book, Hogan wanted to go east towards Pecos for
medical treatment, because it was on the way to the Texas Open in Fort
Worth, but the ambulance continued on to the Hotel Dieu Hospital in El
Paso. Once there, he battled death from the threat of blood clots,
before being flown to New Orleans for extensive surgery which saved his
life.

The effects of the injury, including some loss of vision and pain from
the fractured collarbone, would be with Hogan until he died. But it
didn't stop him from winning the 1950 U.S. Open at Marion -- rated at
the greatest comeback ever by Sports Illustrated's Dan Jenkins -- as
well as winning the Open and Masters the following year, and repeating
the feat in 1953 while taking the British Open as well.

Pecos Enterprise
Mac McKinnon, Publisher
Division of Buckner News Alliance, Inc.
324 S. Cedar St., Pecos, TX 79772
Phone 915-445-5475, FAX 915-445-4321
e-mail: news@pecos.net
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