Did Flutie Play His Trump Card Too Soon?

On Nov. 29, two days before Boston College’s final regular-season football game against Holy Cross, Will McDonough of the Boston Globe led off his column with this item:

“A guy who knows his way around the underground football business calls yesterday and says:

“ ‘OK, Mr. Scoops, why don’t you write this one? Bob Woolf is Doug Flutie’s agent. He is already talking to Donald Trump. Trump has offered $2 million for three years. If Woolf is representing Flutie, then he is breaking the NCAA rules.’

“We asked the caller, a familiar name to most readers who follow such things, why he didn’t go on record. He said he wouldn’t because it would hurt him in his business, but that his allegation was strong because he heard it from a top executive in the U.S. Football League.

“We put the allegation to Woolf.

“Woolf: ‘That’s the wildest thing I ever heard.’ ”

Said World B. Free of the Cleveland Cavaliers after running into 7-4, 280-pound Mark Eaton of the Utah Jazz and spraining his ankle: “It’s like hitting a tree. When he’s standing still, it’s like he’s got roots in the ground.”

Says Boston Celtics Coach K.C. Jones: “Mark Eaton makes Robert Parish look like the world’s tallest midget.”

The annual recruiting budget for football at the University of Texas is $150,000, according to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Coach Joe Harper, who has a budget of $5,000.

Asked how he gets by, Harper said: “We do a lot by telephone. We don’t get very many good players, either.”

After the NCAA pairings were announced, Michigan center Roy Tarpley was quoted in the Michigan Daily as saying, “I’ve never heard of Harley Dickerson. Are they a good team?”

Tarpley got an education Friday night. He learned that the school is Fairleigh Dickinson and that it plays pretty good basketball.

Said Michigan Coach Bill Frieder after the No. 2 Wolverines escaped with a 59-55 win: “I hope this is a jolt for us. It depends if these kids are smart and mature enough to figure it out.”

On the eve of today’s game against Maryland, Navy Coach Paul Evans just laughed when told that Terrapin Coach Lefty Driesell had called the Middies “awesome.”

“Lefty calls Towson State awesome,” Evans said.

Said Iowa wrestling Coach Dan Gable after the Hawkeyes won their eighth straight NCAA title: “I assume this is a record not only in wrestling, but all sports as well.”

You’re one short, Dan. From 1935 to 1943, USC won nine straight NCAA titles in track and field.

In 1943, USC wasn’t going to send a team, its ranks having been thinned by World War II. At the last minute, however, Coach Dean Cromwell decided to send a token group of four men to Chicago. The four men--sprinters Jack Trout and Cliff Bourland, long jumper Edsel Curry and javelin thrower Doug Miller--scored 46 points to give USC the title.

Bernie James, a defender for the Cleveland Force of the Major Indoor Soccer League, explains how he gets ready for a game: “I make sure I don’t have a routine. Of course, making sure I don’t have a routine is actually a routine. Know what I mean?”

Quotebook

John Feinstein of the Washington Post, comparing basketball announcers Billy Packer and Al McGuire: “Packer knows every rule; McGuire has broken every rule.”