The Life, Hard Times of Fryar

Last season, Irving Fryar of the New England Patriots missed the AFC championship game after cutting his hand. Last Sunday, he missed a game after suffering a concussion in an automobile accident.

The day after the auto accident, a Providence, R.I., newspaper had a story that started: “First it was a knife in the kitchen. Now it’s a fork in the road.”

Said Hubie Brown, after being hired to coach the New York Knicks in 1982: “I want to be a coaches’ coach, a coach for the purists, and I think that’s my reputation. Bobby Knight and I are the leading basketball clinicians in this country. I don’t want to be a players’ coach. Who’s the last players’ coach to win a championship? Players’ coaches and comedians always fall.”

Funny thing is, Brown’s old roommate at Niagara, Frank Layden, took over the Utah Jazz the same year and survives. Layden is a comedian.

Add Brown: Ex-Knick Truck Robinson was amused that Brown brushed off the media after being fired.

Robinson, who now resides in Phoenix, told Newsday: “Imagine that? Hubie didn’t face up. He’s the guy who always told us to face up. Can you believe that? I guess the guy doesn’t have any guts.”

Trivia Time: Steve August, Tom Lynch and Terry Beeson are the answer to what trivia question? (Answer below.)

How good was Bobby Layne? Writes Ken Denlinger of the Washington Post: “At Texas, he was special enough for still another future Hall of Famer, Y.A. Tittle, to leave Austin and transfer to LSU.”

Layne had his greatest game in the 1946 Cotton Bowl. He figured in every score as Texas beat Missouri, 40-27. He ran for three touchdowns, passed 15 and 48 yards to Bill Baumgardner for two others, caught a 49-yard pass for another and kicked all four extra points.

From Randy Cross of the San Francisco 49ers, who meet the New York Jets Sunday, after Monday night’s 21-17 loss to the New York Giants: “Hopefully, our white-wine-sipping crowd will decide to get off its collective butt and cheer. They didn’t make much noise Monday night.”

Would-you-believe-it Dept.: Jim Dent of the Dallas Times Herald reports that defensive linemen Randy White, John Dutton and Jim Jeffcoat of the Dallas Cowboys all have lost an inch of height since their rookie years.

Dent said that Dallas defensive coordinator Ernie Stautner, listed at 6-2 when he played defensive tackle for the Pittsburgh Steelers, is now 5-11 1/2.

Said Stautner, who played for the Steelers in their not-so-glorious days: “That’s what happens when you play for a team that doesn’t have an offense, and the defense spends 40 minutes every game on the field.”

Trivia Answer: They were the three players the Seattle Seahawks drafted in 1977 with selections they obtained from the Dallas Cowboys for a first-round choice. The Cowboys used their pick to draft Tony Dorsett. August was an offensive lineman from Tulsa, Lynch an offensive lineman from Boston College and Beeson a linebacker from Kansas.

Quotebook

Boomer Esiason of the Cincinnati Bengals, asked if he is a left-handed John Elway: “If I’m a left-handed John Elway, I’m underpaid and underpublicized. I would say that he’s a right-handed Boomer Esiason, but that would mean he would be overpaid and overpublicized.”