Now, He’d Walk a Mile for a Good Point Guard

Texas Christian basketball Coach Jim (Killer) Killingsworth says it’s no big deal that he’s given up smoking, but don’t believe it.

“He used to talk awhile and hack awhile,” TCU publicist Steve Marshall said.

Said TCU forward Tom Mortimer: “It got to the point that 60-second timeouts weren’t long enough to do us any good.”

Said student manager Alan Umholtz: “His postgame speeches used to run for more than an hour. Without the cough, he gives the same speech in 20 minutes.”

Assistant coach Charlie Fenske, accustomed to watching game films through a haze of cigarette smoke, said he didn’t realize the high quality of the films until he watched one this year in a room free of smoke.

Killingsworth now chews gum, great gobs of it, which he attacks with the finesse of a runaway cement mixer.

“He’s got the jaws of an alligator,” marveled one reporter.

Said TCU Athletic Director Frank Windegger: “Killer’s got the strongest jaws in America. The man’s chewed enough gum to stretch to Mt. Everest and back.”

It-had-to-happen dept.: Two weeks ago, the University of Iowa announced that Chuck Long, who threw six touchdown passes in the Freedom Bowl, would return for the 1985 season instead of declaring for the NFL draft.

This week, the school announced that it was raising football ticket prices $2 a seat.

Is Pittsburgh Pirates Manager Chuck Tanner as much an optimist as everyone says? More so, says third baseman Bill Madlock.

“I was home for a week following the season before I realized we weren’t in the World Series,” Madlock said.

Trivia time: What do Dwight Stones, Mark O’Meara and George Gervin have in common. (Answer below.)

Be sure to clip this item for future reference: FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. AP--Yogi Berra need not worry about being fired as New York Yankees manager, no matter what happens in the 1985 season, club owner George Steinbrenner said.

“A bad start will not affect Yogi’s status,” Steinbrenner said. “I put a lot of pressure on my managers in the past to win at certain times. That will not be the case this spring.”

Bobby Wadkins, who has won $6,157 on the PGA Tour this year, on brother Lanny Wadkins, who has won $183,850: “I’ve suggested a revenue-sharing plan, but he wasn’t interested.”

A group of Kansas City Kings were talking about the club’s proposed move to Sacramento when one said, “Hey, it might be fun to play in California.”

Said Reggie Theus, who prepped at Inglewood High: “Let’s not kid ourselves. Sacramento is not California.”

Trivia answer: All went to Cal State Long Beach. Stones transferred there from UCLA. Gervin went there from Detroit to play for Jerry Tarkanian but left before the 1969-70 season and transferred to Eastern Michigan.

Quotebook

University of Dayton basketball Coach Don Donoher, asked after a game if he had tried to manipulate the officials: “I don’t know much about psychology. Then again, I don’t know much about coaching, either.”