As a Player, He Earned Praise, Too

The greatest player in the history of University of Kentucky basketball? The late Adolph Rupp said it was Aggie Sale, an All-American in the early 1930s who died this winter at age 74.

Earl Cox of the Louisville Courier-Journal said he asked Sale last September who the best player he ever faced or saw was. The answer was John Wooden.

Said Sale: “John had finished at Purdue, where he was an All-American, and I had finished at Kentucky, where I was an All-American. He was coaching at Dayton High School in Northern Kentucky. He called me and said we could make some money by playing in a pro league on the weekends at Indianapolis.

“John could play. He was so quick.”

Golf-is-a-humbling-game dept.: After shooting a 65 that put him one shot off the lead in the TPC Friday, Dave Rummells said of his six straight birdies: “It could have easily been 10 in a row. As the day went on and I saw my name moving up the leader board, I thought to myself, ‘I can play with these guys even though I’m a rookie.’ I don’t have a fear anymore.”

He also doesn’t have a chance. On Saturday, he shot a 79. He’s 14 shots back.

Trivia Time: Who was Mahdi Abdul-Rahman? (Answer below.)

Dept. of Irony: Gerry Wright, who left USC to play for the University of Iowa, suddenly finds himself caught in a reverse switch.

Wright, the man they called Sir Jamalot at San Gorgonio High School, will be dunking for somebody new next season at Iowa City. George Raveling has moved West.

Add Raveling: From a recent edition of the Chicago Tribune: “Iowa Coach George Raveling needs to add only three more books to his collection to possess every volume on college basketball registered with the Library of Congress.”

Anyone notice that there are now three former University of Iowa coaches in the Pacific 10? Besides Raveling, they are Lute Olson at Arizona and Ralph Miller at Oregon State.

Texas Rangers executive Paul Richards, who has seen most of them, had this to say about rookie Pete Incaviglia, who has been named to start in right field on opening day: “He probably hits the ball farther than anybody with the exception of Frank Howard and Jimmy Foxx.”

From Saturday’s column by Tony Kornheiser of the Washington Post: “For those of you keeping score at home, in the space of 30 minutes Friday Dale F. Brown, who can, as they say, really fill it up notebook-wise, touched briefly, and in a rather interplanetary manner, on the following subjects: Imelda Marcos, Muhammad Ali, oriental mysticism, the Donner Pass, Job, Joan of Arc, wolverines and badgers, the Pope, Mormon testimony, comedian Steve Martin, David and Goliath, ESPN, Auburn basketball Coach Sonny Smith, Mother Teresa, the Ship of Hope floating hospital, Lawrence Welk, Cinderella, Bear Bryant, the Tatra Mountains in the Balkans, John Wooden, Roger Maris, Rasputin, Dick Vitale and the Berlin Wall.”

Kornheiser, on Brown: “Without taking sides, there are times when it seems like he’s out there where the buses don’t run.”

Trivia Answer: Walt Hazzard. Quotebook

Frank Luksa of the the Dallas Times Herald, trying to explain the ramblings of LSU Coach Dale Brown: “Does his brain pan really leak or is it just that his shorts are too tight?”