Morning Briefing : He Believes His Luck’s Been Better

Red Holzman, former coach of the New York Knicks and now a consultant for the team, told Ira Berkow of the New York Times that a recent electrical storm on Long Island did considerable damage to his house and destroyed one of his cars.

“People kept telling me how lucky I was, that it could have been worse,” Holzman said. “They said I was lucky that I wasn’t sleeping when the house burned, and that only part of the house burned. And they said I was lucky that the car wasn’t a new car, and that I still had one car left.

“It was comforting. I never knew how lucky I was until half my house burned down and a car was lost.”

Trivia Time: What do Buster Crabbe, Biggie Munn, Bevo Francis and Ace Parker have in common? (Answer below.)

Ken Margerum of the Chicago Bears said the team got eight hours of sleep the night after the Super Bowl.

“Of course, when you divide 45 players into a total of only eight hours, that doesn’t amount to much,” he said.

Buddy Ryan, new coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, told Mark Whicker of the Philadelphia Daily News: “I’d like to have an offense like San Diego does. Good passing, good receiving, linemen lined up toe-to-toe to pass-protect. Of course, they haven’t won any playoff games, either. I want the whole thing. I’ll probably give my offensive guy the same kind of leeway I gave Ditka.”

Hey, who was the head coach of the Bears?

Says Whicker: “Ryan once opened his paycheck envelope while muttering, ‘Not bad for saving this so-and-so’s job.’ ”

Guess who the so-and-so was?

From the Denver Post: “Houston’s Akeem Olajuwon recently filmed a commercial for McDonald’s. It took more than 100 takes to get the 60-second spot just right, and during each take, Olajuwon had to eat a Chicken McNugget. Hey, no problem. After finally getting his lines right, Olajuwon kept eating more of them. Move over, Fridge.”

The Last Word: Says George Young, general manager of the New York Giants, “There are three things everybody in America thinks they can do better than anyone else--make love, be President and coach a football team.”

Said center Dave Feitl of Texas El Paso after scoring 24 points in the 64-49 win over Oregon State Tuesday night: “I just did what I’ve done for four years at UTEP.”

Which is?

“Shoot the ball,” he said.

Would-you-believe-it department: Eric Brown, 6-6 freshman who leads the University of Miami in scoring, said his mother tried to talk him out of going to the school.

“She watches ‘Miami Vice’ on TV,” he explained. “She was afraid for me because of all that violence.”

Brown is from Brooklyn.

Trivia Answer: The same first name, Clarence.

Quotebook

A.B. (Happy) Chandler, 86, former commissioner of baseball, on why he employs a chauffeur: “I quit driving in ’36 ‘cause I thought there were too many people on the road.”