The Pantagraph from Bloomington, Illinois • Page 22

Normal, III. March 13, 1977 rtmi T. A nnlo Pnrlfinn hiring lUClly wUyi Illinois State University's National In- vitation Tournament-bound basketball team hits the road today for a Monday date with Houston at New York City's Madison Square Garden. Shown here packing bags are, from left, forward Jeff Widdel, forward Del Yarbrough and guard Rick Ferina. Belt top-notch promoter for Bloomington ISU basketball players have some fun with the "Big Apple" in anticipation of their trip to New York City.

In a playful mood with assistant coach Ron ISU The fans are involved now and that was Belt's main objective. Personally, he's become more involved and he's become good friends with the ISU players. Usually he can be found sitting on the team bench during ISU games. Belt hopes to continue promoting the basketball program next year and may even lend his services to the football team. Promoting sports, however, is not his immediate goal upon graduating.

"After I get my piece of paper here I'm going to law school at the University of Pennsylvania," Butch said. "I should be able to get some help there. My grandfather was the first black representative in that state. He's retired now. He's got a little money.

I'm one of 42 grandchildren and we've all had an opportunity to go to college, although I'm the first that will graduate." Belt has something to accomplish, though, before he leaves Normal. "Hopefully, we can get more students involved here next year," he said. "We've got the backing now; people are willing to offer gifts and everyone is getting on the bandwagon. "Everyone's always talking about Notre Dame fans and everyone else, but they should be talking about ISU fans." They may be talking of Butch Belt before long, too. Walcher captures downhill ski title HEAVENLY VALLEY, Nev.

(AP) -Josef Walcher of Austria won the men's downhill ski race Saturday while Olympic gold medalist Franz Klammer saw his chances of moving into the World Cup lead dashed when he finished fifth. Klammer, with tears in his eyes, admitted that he had no chance to catch defending champion Ingemar Stenmark of Sweden. It was the worst downhill finish of the year for Klammer, who had won six of the eight previous downhill races this season, finishing no worse than fifth. Brigitte Habersatter-Totschnig of Austria won the women's downhill, with five-time world champion Annemarie Moser-Proell of Austria finishing fifth. Proell, with her poor showing, was unable to gain ground on points leader Lise-Marie Morerod of Switzerland.

Paragraph B-2 I A yl "A i 1'' Belt started dreaming up and promoting halftime entertainment for ISU home basketball games this season. He proposed "McDonald's Night," "Parents Night" and "Return of the Yell" to basketball coach Gene Smithson and ISU Athletic Director Warren Schmakel and eventually carried them out. One idea proposed but never worked out may have been the most amusing. "We tried to get three football coaches to wrestle a bear," Belt explained in his dorm room on the ISU campus, one wall of which was filled with a collage of sports pictures. "Coach Smithson initiated the idea.

The bear was up in Chicago. We couldn't get together with either of them (the coaches or the bear)." Belt's latest promotion was filling three fan buses to make the trip to see the Redbirds' basketball team in the National Invitation Tournament at New York's Madison Square Garden Monday night. "We needed 32 people by four o'clock Friday to fill the third bus or we wouldn't go to New York," Belt said. "At about 3:45 we had a deluge of 22 students. We were wondering all day whether we would get enough people to go.

Then last night (Friday) we were still getting calls to see if there was any room. "Now' were getting some support from the fans not the instructors, though. They said students would be given zeroes for missing class. But now Vice-president and Provost (James Horner issued a statement asking instructors to allow students to make up classes. A lot of people are going by car.

One kid's father owns a jet and he's taking six or seven people. "I'm going on the first bus because they put me in charge of the buses. One bus will have the 46 members of the pep band. Our allotment of 200 student tickets is sold out. A group of students that couldn't get tickets is going out there (New York) to buy them." This sudden rush of interest in ISU basketball is not all because of the NIT, according to Belt.

He said the halftime promotions have helped. "This season went over real well," he said. "There was so much cheering thatlSU had a sixth man coming right out of the stands. We really wanted to Butch Belt Ferguson, second from left, are, from left, guard Ron Jones, forward Billy Lewis and guard Derrick Mayes. (ISU photos) Morcis posts top practice time for Carolina 500 ROCKINGHAM, N.C.

(AP) Dave Marcis turned in the top practice speed Saturday as the 36-car field made a final tuneup for today's Carolina 500 Grand National stock car race which was rescheduled after a rainout last week. Marcis seemed to be the only driver to significantly 'improve his speeds from the previous week. He circled the 1.017-mile North Carolina Motor Speedway oval in 27.05 seconds, nearly equal to Donnie Allison's pole position winning speed. Marcis, however, starts ninth. Marcis had complained last week that his Chevolet's chasis felt like it was flexing in the turns, rather than remaining rigid.

Since then it has been almost entirely rebuilt. Allison, in a Chevrolet, and Dodge driver Richard Petty, who comprise the front row in the $140,000 event, were consistently running laps Saturday in the 27.3-second range. Rain had threatened Saturday's session, but a track official said, "There was no kind of rain but it did get close enough to see it a few times. We're hoping that is the kind of luck we'll have today. "We had a 70-80 per cent chance the last two days and it hasn't rained yet.

It's supposed to be a 50 per cent chance tomorrow morning, then clearing about noon. We'll stay here till the sun goes down if we have to, trying to get this thing in." Rosewall triumphs over Nastase LAKEWAY, Tex. (AP) Veteran Ken Rosewall of Australia survived strength-sapping baseline rallies and scored heavily on volley winners at the net Saturday to stun favored Hie Nastase of Romania 6-3, 6-3 in the quarterfinals of the $200,000 Tournament of Champions. American Eddie Dibbs pinned Vijay Amritraj of India to the baseline with deep, spinning groundstrokes to take the other quarter-final match 6-5, 6-3. Dibbs won the first set tie-breaker 7-4.

The tiebreaker was decided at 5-all for the benefit of television. Dibbs and Rosewall play today for the right to enter the final match in Madison Square Garden in September. 1203 Morrissey Drive Bloomington, II. Phone 662-4522 No. 1 Michigan faces Holy Cross get the people involved.

When I came here last year I started going to every game. I saw the cheerleaders on the wrong side of the court. They were cheering to the alumni. Nobody was cheering. "We would win or lose and everyone would say 'Oh well, let's go There was no involvement." Belt finally did something about it.

"I started to get involved when the ISU coaches began recruiting Del Yarbrough," Belt related. "He's from the same hometown I am (Chicago). They thought he had signed a letter of intent with another school, but I assured them he hadn't. "Then in the summer I was always playing basketball with Billy Lewis and Jeff Wilkins and the coach would come talk with us all the time. I started telling Coach Smithson how I thought the fans weren't involved in basketball here.

He said why don't you come up with some ideas on what we can do about it and we'll see what happens." That's when Belt, who coached football and basketball in the Air Force, winning the All-Pacific League basketball title, came up with his halftime schemes. The most popular has been the half-court shooting contest. Lucky numbers were drawn during the game and at halftime six fans had a chance to win a stereo by making a half-court shot. If they missed, they had three chances to make a free throw to win three "Big Macs" from McDonald's. Nobody won the stereo until the final game of the season.

A promotion that was less than sue-, cessful was the "Yell Night," Belt admitted. "We wanted the fans to make up their own cheers. We wanted the residence halls to get involved but it didn't go over too well. We did it because it seemed dead here." A promotion that did go over well was the deal where all fans would receive a free coke at McDonald's if ISU held its opponent under 55 points. "The fans really got involved when it looked like the team might be held under 55 points," Belt said.

"They were sticking around until the end of the game and yelling 'defense, They were hanging around and cheering and they never did that before." NAPA has been providing top quality vehicle parts for over 50 years. If you are seeking advice as well as top quality parts visit us. The person behind the NAPA counter knows. By Dave Wieczorek Pantagraph sports Writer He's known as "Mr. Cosmopolitan" to some.

Others closer to home know him as "Levonia." Some may even think Butch Belt to be Illlinois State University's version of boxing promoter Don King. Belt just likes to be referred to as Butch. He was tagged "Mr. Cosmopolitan" because of his experiences travelling around the country and world. The 23-year-old ISU junior has already served two years in the Air Force and been to places from California to the island of Guam.

Levonia is actually Belt's real name. "When I went to kindergarten the first day the teacher called out Levonia and marked me absent because I didn't answer," he recalled. "Everyone had always called me Butch. I didn't know Levonia was my real name." The Don King association comes into play because Belt is probably the most active, and maybe the only, basketball promoter the Redbirds have ever had. His official, unpaid title is "chairman of half time promotion." inside and prevents opponents from getting second chances at the basket.

Green missed the Wolverines' last two games but is expected to play today. Holy Cross, however, will have to wait until game time before deciding whether Ron Perry will play. Perry was the nation's leading freshman scorer with a 23 points per game average. He suffered an ankle injury Feb. 24.

Michigan was NCAA runnerup last year. Holy Cross hasn't played in a NCAA tourney since 1948. DeBusschere files suit against Nets, Boe MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) Dave DeBusschere, former general manager of the New York Nets, filed suit Friday in State Supreme Court against the team and its principal owner, Roy Boe, for $400,000 he claims the Nets owe him. DeBusschere served in the former American Basketball Associaton club's front office for one year of a 10-year, $1-million contract before leaving in 1975 to take over as ABA commissioner.

He helped arrange the merger of the ABA with the National Basketball Association. According to DeBusschere 's suit, he signed a settlement with Boe last November for the remaining nine years of the contract. DO YOUR LAWN AND YOURSELF A FAVOR PUT YOUR LAWN PROBLEMS IN MY HANDS I can weed and feed your lawn for less money than you can do it yourself WE SPECIALIZE IN Lawn Fertilization and Weed Control Dandelions Crab Grass Insect Control BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) The last time Michigan and Holy Cross played basketball, Holy Cross won 63-45. That was during the 1948 NCAA tournament when the Crusaders were led by Tom Heinsohn.

Today the two schools meet again in an opening round game of the NCAA Mideast Regional. In the pther mideast matchup, MidAmerican Conference champion Central Michigan plays North Carolina-Charlotte. Central Michigan last played in the NCAA in 1975, losing in the opening round. Last year, North Carolina-Charlotte upset San Francisco in the National Invitation Tournament before losing the championship game to Kentucky. Holy Cross finished a 23-5 season last week by knocking off 13th-ranked Providence 67-65.

It was the second victory over Providence this season for Holy Cross. Providence upset Michigan early in the season 82-81 in double overtime. Michigan ended the regular season with a 24-3 record, the No. 1 ranking in The Associated Press poll and the Big Ten championship. The Wolverines' other two losses were to Indiana and Northwestern.

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