School’s out of luck against Irish

First Notre Dame stopped winning the big ones, going 0-9 in bowl games since 1994.

Then it stumbled against a little one, tiny Winthrop University, in the first round of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.

Looking for an opponent it could finally handle, Notre Dame is now down to picking on high schools.

Sorry as it sounds, Notre Dame has devoted several years to seeing that Indianapolis’ Cathedral High School give up its longtime usage of the fighting leprechaun logo owned by the university. At last, the Fighting Irish won one.

Describing the logo as “a symbol of the university,” Don Wycliff, Notre Dame’s vice president for news and information, said the school is simply exercising its trademark rights.

“That’s what entities all over the nation and the world do,” he told the Indianapolis Star.

Cathedral agreed with Notre Dame’s latest written request to remove the leprechaun logo from its website and notified parents that teams and clubs should no longer use the image.

“Not a single alum I’ve talked with sees this as a positive thing,” said Mary Boyle, president of the Cathedral Alumni Assn.

Reaction to the news, she said, has been, “You’ve got to be kidding.” Cathedral, founded in 1918, was started by the same religious order that founded Notre Dame, according to Boyle.

“It’s a little disheartening,” she said. “It’s kind of like being disowned by your own family.”

Trivia time

Against which school did Notre Dame record its most recent bowl victory?

Bearer of too many bad tidings

Stanford, another NCAA tournament first-round loser, has opted out of the last four years of its six-year multimedia rights contract with CBS Collegiate Sports Properties.

The university recently reached an agreement with Learfield Sports to take over management of marketing, sales to corporate sponsors and some television broadcasts.

Apparently, school officials were unhappy with CBS’ repeated use of the phrase, “Stanford loses.”

Lasorda would have pitched him too

The recent passing of former big-league catcher Gene Oliver might have dredged up a few old nightmares for longtime Dodgers fans.

Reader Mike Dudnikov e-mailed to make note of Oliver’s “devastating impact on Dodgers history.

“In September of 1962 on the last day of the baseball season – with the Dodgers leading the Giants by one game – Oliver came up in the eighth inning and homered (for the St. Louis Cardinals) as the Dodgers lost, 1-0.

“Much as they had in 1951, the Dodgers blew a large late-season lead over the Giants and then proceeded to lose in a three-game playoff, also again after leading late in the third game.”

Dudnikov concluded, “Gene Oliver may not have had a storied career, but no Dodger fan can forget his infamous deed.”

Cubs catchers need sense of humor

Oliver ended his playing career with the 1969 Chicago Cubs, this time on the other end of another historic late-season collapse. He was a little-used reserve on the team that blew an eight-game lead in the National League East to the New York Mets.

At Oliver’s memorial service Wednesday, former Cubs catcher Randy Hundley said Oliver “had the most wonderful sense of humor of anyone I know

“He used to say that he had to spend two terms in fourth grade – Truman’s and Eisenhower’s.”

Trivia answer

The Fighting Irish defeated Texas A&M, 24-21, in the 1994 Cotton Bowl.

And finally

Comedian Chris Rock, discussing his favorite NBA team, the New York Knicks, on the “Best Damn Sports Show Period”: “We were the worst team I’d ever seen last year. Now we’re just bad. It’s like a crippled guy wiggling his toe.”

 mike.penner@latimes.com