It’s Jackson After All, as Advertised

Rupp Arena was originally scheduled to stage the first of the Michael Jackson concerts last summer.

The singer never made it, but the marquee outside Rupp Arena reads: “Live Saturday. Michael Jackson. Sold out.”

Michael Jackson, of course, is the junior point guard for defending national champion Georgetown.

Wait a minute: Said ESPN’s Dick Vitale in picking Georgetown to repeat: “John Thompson and Patrick Ewing are the greatest winning machine since Bill Russell.”

In the four years Ewing has

played for Thompson, Georgetown has lost 22 games. That’s the same number John Wooden lost in his last 12 years at UCLA. In the six years Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Walton played for Wooden, UCLA lost six games.

Note: Under the selection format in those days, in which only conference champions were chosen, Georgetown would not have qualified for the NCAA this season. In the Big East, Georgetown finished second to St. John’s.

Trivia time: Dallas Cowboy guard Herb Scott, who retired this week, is the answer to what trivia question? (Answer below.)

Don’t talk to Billy Gardner about leadership. The Minnesota manager said he’d rather have somebody who could hit 18-20 home runs and drive in 70-75 runs.

Gardner told Patrick Reusse of the St. Paul Pioneer Press: “When you say a player has leadership, it’s like telling someone the blind date you have line up has a wonderful personality. When someone says that, you better run.”

From New York Knick General Manager Dave DeBusschere: “Ray Williams will help Boston as long as they keep the ball out of his hands at the end of games.”

New York Islander goalie Billy Smith, after a recent game against New Jersey, disputed a goal awarded to Paul Gagne of the Devils.

Of the official, Denis Morel, Smith said: “I couldn’t believe he called that a goal. Morel is always out to get me. It’s an old story. Something has to be done.”

Something was. On Friday, the NHL fined Smith $500.

Said Switzerland’s Jakob Hlasek, looking to his semifinal match against John McEnroe in the Italian indoor championships: “I’m anxious to see how hard I have to work to keep up. It should be a good learning experience for me.”

Said McEnroe: “There’s plenty I’d like to teach him out there.”

You can have the run-and-shoot. Dick Coury would rather have Jim Kelly.

After Kelly and the Houston Gamblers beat Coury’s Portland Breakers, Coury told George Pasero of the Portland Oregonian: “For all that run-and-shoot baloney, you put Kelly in any formation and he’ll throw for 400 yards. If he were running the single wing he’d be just as scary. He is as good a quarterback as there is in either league.”

Trivia answer: Herb Scott is the answer to the question, “Who caught the last pass of Roger Staubach’s career?” In the waning moments of the Rams’ 21-19 win over Dallas in the 1979 NFC championship game, Staubach, under severe pressure, threw a ball that was caught by Scott, an illegal receiver.

Quotebook

Bill Lee, 38, trying to land a pitching job in the San Francisco Giants organization, on how he wants to be remembered: “As a guy who cared about the planet and the welfare of his fellow man. And who would take you out at second if the game was on the line.”