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South Shore Ruins Jefferson%u2019s Season 20-16GARY HOENIG%u2019SBottomLineAnother week without the daily sheets to tell us what%u2019s going on at the circus. Oh, the Post is back, passing rumors and one-liners that no one but athletes and teamowners takes seriously. But the fan remains mercifully free to judge for himself what he has seen, rather than be told. For the confused, these observations on the week's events:The baseball tent is closed for the winter, but the memory of%u2014and some of the garbage from%u2014the Yankee comback remains. The Yankees conspired, through the tantrum and sheer professional brilliance, to dominate the circus news for the last six months. They are not. among those who know, a team of people it is easy to like. They are probably as venal and selfish a bunch of athletes as there are in pro sports.Ah, but they win, and they're as tough as Times Square steak when they have to be, and, in the end, who cares if Reggie%u2019s a ham and Thurman's a surly thug and Mickey Rivers makes basket cases out of managers? The Yankees come out on top most of the time, and when they don%u2019t, they kick and scream and come back the next day, and they don%u2019t alibi.They don't blame fans, a city, a patch of dirt, the umpires, for their mistakes and mental lapses.The Yankees, for the most part, are not small people.There seemed to be a lot of small people wearing blue and white on the other side in the Series.* * * * *CompetingWithoutSmugness,RancorOr ConflictFJeven thousand plus pounded the potholes in the Marathon Sunday, and for every reader that wheezes through two miles of New York grit every morning, there must be one who is bored to tears with the whole idea. Don%u2019t let the boredom disguise the truth: Running is the best thing to happen to sports in years.People who have spent thirty years of their lives thinking of them selves as non-athletes, as klutzes, clumsy oafs, and, ultimately, as inadequate on some levels, have suddenly discovered what their bodies can do. And that is run for a very long way. It makes people feel good about themselves. It is competition without conflict, without rancor, without smug winners and sore losers. It punctures the myth that the athlete is born superior. It rekindles the hope in all that with a little compulsive hard work, you can be what you want to be. You can even be Bill Rodgers, sort of. Which is a lot closer than I ever got to being Willie Mays.The people who are really angry are the guys with the stake in the jock myth, those who have always made the rest of us feel flabby and stupid. They resent the intrusion of all of these \into their private little world. It punctures that snotty macho that tries to define you as an active human being: Play as we do, or don%u2019t play at all.Joggers, after all, don%u2019t close anybody out. **********The Knicks won a couple of games over the weekend, and so Willis Reed%u2019s job is safe for another couple of weeks. But the rumors are already flying: Willis was the planned scapegoat from the start. Willis will be replaced by Red Holzman. Willis will be replaced by A1 McGuire. Willis will be replaced by Billy Martin. And so on.Most of these rumors come from inside Gulf & Western, so you know that even if they%u2019re not true, they%u2019re still pretty nervous up there. Tuesday night a record low crowd for a pro basketball game at the Garden%u2014only 10,000 plus%u2014showed up to laugh the Knicks through a humiliating loss to Seattle (Lonnie Shelton: 20 points, 9 rebounds). The green seats were serenading the bench with choruses of %u201c Goodby, Willis.%u201d The blue seats weren%u2019t singing. There was no one sitting in the blue seats.What%u2019s maddening about all this is all the self-fulfilling panic that is cyclically produced. Knicks purchase big star, proclaim him as savior. Cost excessive, so management raises ticket prices. Irritated fans impatient for success because it costs him the kid%u2019s bar mitzvah money to take the family to the game. Thus the boos when team plays badly for more than half a minute. Frightened management panics, goes out and buys another mismatched superstar. And theWJIUIC lillllg s i a i i s u p a g a i n .Ten years ago, four kids with six dollars could sit in the Garden and watch Willis Reed set screens for Clyde and Dollar Bill and Dave Debusherre. Now it costs up to $13.50 a throw to watch guards loft passes into the crowd and forwards drop-kick dribbles they should never have bounced in the first place. And all Willis can do is glare from his seat on the bench. One fan had this advice for him on leaving Tuesday%u2019s debacle: %u201c Ht >, Reed, when you leave, take the rest of them with you!%u201dNotes from the amateur circuits:South Shore won the batle of the unbeatens over Jefferson, 20-16, to qualify for the public high school football playoffs in two weeks. South Shore got three touchdowns from Howie Brown for all its scoring. The two teams figure to meet again in the playoffs, because Jefferson can still qualify by beating Lincoln on Saturday, and they are the prohibitive favorite. Brooklyn Tech is still in the running, after shutting out Boys and Girls 29-0 Saturday. But Tech lost to Jeff a week ago.Brown, a genuine prospect for college stardom, has now racked up 14 TD%u2019s for South Shore, and ran for 167 yeards on 30 carries against Jefferson. He provides South Shore with the ultimate weapon in high school football: a means to control the ball and the clock on the ground, safely.Some local college teams will beGrid Scores:C.W. Post 25, Westminister (Pa) 7 Florida 31, Army 7 Hofstra 25, Kings Point 20 New York Tech 24, Western Conn.6 Princeton 13, Colgate 12 Ramapo 29, New York Maritime 0 Rutgers 24, Villanova 9 Seton Hall 17, Pace 0 Yale 3, Columbia 3waiting to hear from the NCAA about post-season playoff bids. No, we%u2019re not talking about football or basketball, but soccer. St. Francis ranked 15th in the nation and second in the state, behind Columbia, was dealt a surprising loss over the weekend by unranked Adelphi, 3-1. But St. Francis, with a 9-2 record overall, figures to make the postseason tournament. Adelplhi%u2019s 3-2, overtime win over L.I.U. the previous week has dented the Blackbird%u2019s postseasonchances, however.Local fans with a sense of regional pride will be watching Penn State through the rest of this season. Joe Paterno%u2019s seemingly endless quest for a national title may finally peak this year. The Nittany Lions crushed Syracuse, 45-15, on Saturday while Arkansas was losing to Texas. Now only Oklahoma stands between Penn State and old Number One, and, should both teams survive the remainder of the schedule, it could all be resolved with some judicious bowl selections.Penn State, now 7-0, has one big regional game coming up with unbeaten Maryland, but should come out on top there. Paterno says this may be his best team ever, and a national championship would be a sorely-needed shot in the arm for regional collegiate athletic programs, which for years have watched the best local products go elsewhere to school%u2014G.H.T IP T O E IN G : Giant back Doug Kotar (44) see ks%u2014 and fin d s%u2014 running room against the %u2019 S k in s . (Jim C um m ins P h o to .)Sports Roundup: NY Et alGIANTS: Defense (three interceptions, two sacks) took Redskin pills, and chased Joe Theisman back to Washington for 17-6 win. Defensive problems of last few weeks have disappeared, and Giants now have genuine shot at wild card playoff spot with 5-3 record midway through season. Offense is still a big question mark, with Pisarcik completing only three passes (none in second half) against Redskins including wild schoolyard flea flicker that set up last score of game. Giants lost two key players, strong safety Beasley Reece and right tackle Ron Mikolajcyk, for season Sunday. New Orleans next week not a pushover (Saints upset previously unbeated Rams Sunday)they%u2019re tv*** P r m i K m r o nifVinrWinless Cards beaten by Jets Sunday, follow Saints as Giant opponents before rematch with Redskins in Washington, by which time Giants could be%u2014get this%u20147- 3.JETS: People who ask are theJets for real won%u2019t have to waitlong for an answer. Jets play New England for share of first place next week at Foxboro, and it seems like the first big game Jets have played since losing A.F.C. playoffs in 1970. Jets handled Cards, 23-10, in kind of boring game New York was on the wrong side of for too many years. Losers make a gallant effort, but turnovers and clear superiority of other team makes one-sided result inevitable. Scott Dierking took the load from Kevin Long (Coach Michaels said Cards were keying in on Long, the A.F.C.%u2019s fifth leading rusher) for 23-94 and two touchdowns, his first rushing t.d.%u2019s after a season and a half in the pros. Jet line shift (two tackles on one side) got Wes Walker open all day. MattR O b , %u00bb%u00bbSCr' in rt rv* in ln lrrvfree offense Jets had no penalties in first half and no turnovers for second game in a row. Denver and Philadelphia on the road follow New England as Jet opponents, but how much those games matter depends on next week%u2019s score.KNICKS: A couple ofadjustments%u2014moving Marvin Webster into the low post, and Ray Williams into the starting lineup %u2014and the Knicks picked up a couple of victories, including an impressive 10 point road victory at Milwaukee Friday. There were far fewer turnovers Friday, and a semblance of offense, but the defense is still shooting a lot of pointing fingers and shrugging shoulders. The foul shooting is atrocious, probably for lack of concentration, and nearly cost theKnicks their one point win over the Nets Saturday. One positive sign: Both games were on the line down the stretch, and the Knicks responded with strong ball.NETS: Four straight losses after that encouragingk n m r t n i n r r A n n k t r %u00a3 0 n n i n n 4 nM vb %u201c %u201c M%u201c b W*%u00bbV WW p v m u VUHouston%u2014and the Nets are staring at the same discouraging situation as a year ago. At least their paychecks won%u2019t bounce. Loughery%u2019s team has one enormous problem: Not enough firepower. After Williamson and Money and King, there is hardly anyone %u2014G.H.Fags 2\