Carson’s Monologue Is Not Wholly Offensive

The way Bud Carson tells it, it’s no accident that the Pittsburgh Steelers have won four Super Bowls under Coach Chuck Noll.

Carson, the well-traveled defensive coordinator who now works for the New York Jets, told Greg Logan of Newsday: “Chuck Noll is the smartest football man I’ve been around. Most head coaches spend their time with the offense, but Chuck knows both offense and defense.”

Of Ray Malavasi, former Ram coach, he said: “I have a lot of respect for him as a coach. The politics wore Ray down. People were making decisions for him. He lost control of things like who you keep and don’t keep, tryouts, so many little things. With every game we lost, you could see it get worse.”

Of John Mackovic, coach of the Kansas City Chiefs, with whom he feuded, he said: “John is a good coach, and I think he’ll win. Reporters always leave that part out. But he still doesn’t know anything about defense. He never will, and I think he knows it. I’m not knocking him. But it’s obviously the truth. In his case, doubly.”

That’s not a knock?

Carson also told Logan: “Every time I read an article, I realize I should have kept my mouth shut.”

Add Carson: He said he still hasn’t recovered from Super Bowl XIV, when the Rams, leading, 19-17, blew a double coverage on John Stallworth and eventually lost to the Steelers, 31-17.

“It was third and 15, and the play went 75 yards,” Carson said. “I couldn’t believe it. We buried Pittsburgh’s running game. They couldn’t move. We had them. It was the most disappointing moment in my life. I couldn’t go to bed that night and I had a hell of a fight with my wife. It’s hard to believe how it will affect you. One play turned the game around. Nobody knows how much that sticks with me.”

Trivia Time: Vic Raschi and Dick Drago were the bookends to what record? (Answer below.)

Responding to a trivia item on names that are spelled the same forward or backward, a reader called to submit the names of former major leaguers Eddie Kazak and Dick Nen, former Raider center Jim Otto, boxing great Willie Pep, and golfer Jack Renner.

Oregon football Coach Rich Brooks told the Seattle Times: “I think there are eight teams in this league capable of beating each other, and we’re one of them. The only two that aren’t are Oregon State and Cal.”

You can just see Joe Kapp nailing that one to the bulletin board.

Add Pac-10: Said Bob Graswitch of the Sacramento Bee: “I’m voting on the AP poll and I’m voting Washington No. 1 in the country. Don James is the best coach in the conference, and the conference is the best in the country.”

He added: “At USC, the players are cocky to the point that it makes them uptight. They talk too much. The Washington guys have a quiet confidence about them, the aura of being in control of their destiny.”

He didn’t explain how the cocky guys managed to beat the quiet guys last year, 16-7.

Said Monte Clark, former coach of the Detroit Lions, in response to quarterback Eric Hipple’s blaming him for the lack of leadership last year: “Eric Hipple had all the leadership of Curly and the Three Stooges.”

Trivia Answer: Henry Aaron’s 755 home runs. He hit the first off Raschi, then of the St. Louis Cardinals, in 1954. He hit the last off Drago, then of the Angels, in 1976.

Quotebook

Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post, on the prospect of a Freeway World Series: “Watching Tom Lasorda manage against Gene Mauch would be too much fun to bear. The best dumb manager against the worst smart manager.”