Raveling Always Has Had USC on His List

George Raveling is coming to USC, and you could call it a matter of forgive and forget. Raveling, a master of the one-liner, once made the Trojans the target of a well-aimed zinger.

When he was at Washington State, he said: “I understand the TV show, ‘That’s Incredible,’ has been filming on the USC campus. They shot 12 football players attending class at the same time.”

Other Raveling gems:

--”When I went to Catholic High School in Philadelphia, we just had one coach for football and basketball. He took all of us who turned out and had us run through a forest. The ones who ran into the trees went on the football team.”

--”When the athletic director said I should recruit more white players to keep the folks in Pullman happy, I signed Rufus White and Willie White.”

--On a trip to Alaska: “When you’re from Pullman, you’re happy to be going anywhere.”

--On shot-happy forward Guy Williams: “His shooting percentage was phenomenal. We had 40 shots, and he took 35 of them.”

What would the coaches in the Final Four be doing if they weren’t coaching? Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post got these answers from three of them:

--Dale Brown, LSU--”I’ve already been a shoeshine boy and a taxi driver. I don’t know.”

--Larry Brown, Kansas--”I got into coaching so I wouldn’t have to work for a living.”

--Mike Krzyzewski, Duke, a graduate of West Point--”I’d be leading troops in Libya.”

Add Dale Brown: Asked how making the Final Four helped a school in recruiting, he said: “It’s like having the U.S. government stamp meat with ‘Government Inspected.’ ”

For What It’s Worth: Kansas first went to the Final Four in 1939-40, scoring a 43-42 win over USC in the semifinals. This was before the news service polls, but USC, with a 20-2 record, had been rated by many as the best team in the country. The Trojans beat Big Ten champion Purdue and snapped a 34-game winning streak by Eastern power Long Island University at Madison Square Garden, a victory that put USC All-American Ralph Vaughn on the cover of Life magazine.

After upsetting USC, Kansas was crushed in the final by Indiana, 60-42. The Hoosiers had finished second to Purdue in the Big Ten but got the bid because they had beaten the Boilermakers twice.

Note: A member of that Kansas team was Ralph Miller, now the coach at Oregon State.

Manager John McNamara of the Boston Red Sox said he’d never seen anything like it after Wednesday’s 27-10 exhibition win over the Chicago White Sox, but Johnny Pesky had.

Said Pesky, now a special assistant with the Red Sox and former infielder with the club: “It reminded me of 1950, when we had such great hitters as Ted Williams, Vern Stephens, Billy Goodman, Dominic DiMaggio and others.

“One day we beat the Browns in Fenway Park, 20-4, and the next day we beat them, 29-4. The day we scored 29 runs, though, we got 17 in one inning. I remember Stephens got three hits in that one inning alone, and I had a triple on a bad-hop grounder that went only about 150 feet. Nobody bothered to go after the ball on the grass, and I just kept running.”

Quotebook

Duke guard Tommy Amaker, who leads the team in assists, on guard Johnny Dawkins, who leads the team in scoring: “Johnny’s the Pony Express. I’m just the mailman.”