Yelling at Dawkins Is Real Trip

Philadelphia Coach Billy Cunningham told Inside Sports he was frustrated by his inability to bring out the best in Darryl Dawkins when he was with the 76ers but said it was impossible to get mad at the big center.

“He’s a great guy,” Cunningham said. “You never know what he’s going to do next. I can remember one time in training camp when he was loafing through some drills. I got real mad, so I grabbed him on the sideline and read him the riot act. I told him that his career was at stake. He just hung down his head and said: ‘You’re right. From now on I’m gonna work hard all the time.’ ”

And?

“As soon as I turned away,” said Cunningham, “he stuck out his foot and tripped me.”

Add Dawkins: He claims he was ripped off by former agent Tom Meehan, and Inside Sports says: “At present, Dawkins is poised to start legal proceedings against Meehan--whose latest investment is a horror film featuring gigantic cockroaches that devour Fresno.”

Last Add Dawkins: The Inside Sports story was written by Charley Rosen, himself a former basketball player who, like Dawkins, has given names to his dunks. They include “The Almost There,” “The Wrist Buster” and “The In-My-Face Disgrace.”

San Francisco tight end Russ Francis, whose off-season pursuits have included flying, sky diving, motorcycling, skiing, surfing and professional wrestling, told Jim Smith of Newsday he has mellowed out some since the day before a Pro Bowl game Jack Lambert dared him to jump from the sixth floor of a Honolulu hotel into the pool.

“I didn’t clear the side by much,” Francis said, “and I scraped my knees on the bottom. The idea was to get to the deep end. I got there eventually. The funniest thing was, a large wave went right over Lambert’s beautiful stereo and just silenced it. Knowing Jack, he probably just threw it in a dryer.”

Add Francis: Last summer, he told Coach Bill Walsh he planned to try to break the world speed record of 261.8 m.p.h. for a six-liter, one-seat airplane during an Oroville air show.

“Bill was concerned I might get hurt,” Francis said. “I told him, ‘At that speed, flying 50 feet above the ground, if something goes wrong, there aren’t going to be any injuries.’ ” Much to Walsh’s relief, Francis called the flight off.

Before he made the catch that put San Francisco in Super Bowl XVI, Dwight Clark’s biggest claim to fame was that he was dating Shawn Weatherly of Sumter, S.C., Miss Universe of 1981.

“I rode her shirt tails to publicity,” Clark told Steve Jacobson of Newsday. “She was good at what she did, which was looking good.”

Clark has since married another South Carolina girl.

“Her name is Ashley, and we met at Myrtle Beach,” he said. “She’s blonde, green-eyed and pregnant. My ideal Southern family is on its way.”

Quotebook Actor John Matuszak, once the most villainous of the Raiders, on his forthcoming book, “The Great Tooz”: “It’ll make Jim Bouton’s ‘Ball Four’ look like ‘Alice in Wonderland.’ ”