Morning briefing

Dungy gets hard sell on UCLA

How about a Super Bowl-winning coach to fill the vacancy at UCLA?

Tony Dungy, who guided the Indianapolis Colts to a victory over the Chicago Bears in last season’s Super Bowl, is a regular guest on the Fox Sports radio network show that former UCLA defensive back James Washington does with Craig Shemon, and this week Washington did a little recruiting.

“After you win your second Super Bowl, would you like to be the coach of the UCLA Bruins?” Washington asked Dungy.

Dungy: “You know what? I have always admired John Wooden. And to maybe be on the same campus where John Wooden was, it would be something special. [But] I don’t think I could get my wife out that far West. But it would be special.”

Washington: “We’ll put a special package together just for you.”

Dungy: “Well, you can float that rumor a little bit.”

Morning Briefing has done its part.

Trivia time

Dungy was the starting quarterback in college at Minnesota from 1973 to 1976 and played basketball there as a freshman. What current NBA coach was Dungy’s basketball teammate and roommate?

Bear facts

The Chicago Bears (5-9) certainly have fallen a long way since their Super Bowl appearance.

This is what Mike Downey wrote about them in the Chicago Tribune after their 20-13 loss to the Minnesota Vikings on Monday night:

“Crown them with a dunce cap. This season has been a farce.

“Kyle Orton, as rusty as the Tin Man, ran the offense. The play-calling was conservative, the execution futile. It took the Bears much of the first half merely to get a first down.

“Orton and tailback Adrian Peterson [not to be confused with the Vikings’ Adrian Peterson] went from being third-stringers on Super Bowl Sunday to starters in a prime-time TV appearance. They proved so impotent the Bears’ rushing total at halftime was a laughable nine yards.”

Is this a good thing?

Bill Sharman rarely does broadcast interviews because of a voice problem he has had since the early 1970s, and that has probably hurt his celebrity status. The other day, a friend called the former Boston Celtics star and Lakers coach, general manager and president and told him he had heard a sportscaster refer to him as “the most famous non-famous sports figure.”

Said Sharman: “I’m trying to figure out if that was a compliment.”

Apt description

Former baseball agent and current Chicago White Sox executive Dennis Gilbert, who is putting together the fifth Professional Baseball Scouts Foundation dinner to take place Jan. 19 at the Hyatt Century Plaza, attended the recent baseball winter meetings in Orlando, Fla.

“I came away thinking Fortune 500,” Gilbert said. “A lot of owners spent a fortune on teams that won’t finish above .500.”

Power players

Ohio State has the nation’s biggest college athletic department budget, according to Fortune magazine, which listed the school’s budget at $104.7 million for the year ending June 30, 2006. No. 2 on Fortune’s list is Texas at $97.8 million for the year ending Aug. 31, 2006. Virginia ($92.8 million for the year ending June 30, 2006), Michigan ($85.5 million) and Florida ($82.4 million) round out the top five. Notre Dame ($78.9 million) is No. 8. No Pacific 10 school was listed in the top 10.

Trivia answer

The Detroit Pistons’ Flip Saunders.

And finally

Not only did the Buffalo Bills lose, 8-0, Sunday in the snow at Cleveland, the team had to make the 190-mile trip back home by bus because the team’s charter plane drove off an airport taxiway and got stuck in the mud.

Noted Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times: “NFL statisticians did the math, estimating the Bills’ only productive drive of the weekend ate up 4 1/2 hours off the clock and measured 336,000 yards.”

larry.stewart@latimes.com