Walton Down; Celtics Kicking

Bill Walton has yet to play this season because of an ankle injury, and it’s gnawing at him. So is he getting a lot of sympathy from his Boston teammates? Forget it.

Kevin McHale has suggested that Walton be traded to the New York Knicks for Bill Cartwright. Either that or be sent back to the Clippers. Larry Bird told him, “Who’d want you?”

McHale, during a Celtic workout, told Peter May of the Hartford Courant: “You have to understand this is normal for Bill. Last season, he was asking in January when summer vacation begins because he’d already played his usual quota of 30 games.

“Heck, all he has to do is get his check out of the mailbox. And the mailbox is attached to his house. If he lived in a house like mine, where the mailbox is at the end of a long driveway, he’d probably have to retire. He just sits home and watches basketball on his dish and tries to remember when he was a player.”

At that point, Walton plodded by, trying to put more weight on the ankle. Still no sympathy.

Said McHale: “There goes a guy who may have suffered the first career-ending injury in NBA history on a stationary bike.”

From James Donaldson of the Dallas Mavericks, who stands 7-2 and weighs 277: “Let’s see, who’s stronger than I am? Possibly Hercules, possibly Godzilla. Superman is always tough. Goliath had a good reputation, but he was stuffed by a point guard.”

Said Dave Corzine of the Chicago Bulls, hearing that teammate Michael Jordan put away 29 Chicken McNuggets in one sitting: “Eating 29 McNuggets is more impressive than scoring 63 points. It’s amazing.”

Trivia Time: Jay Berwanger, the first Heisman Trophy winner, never played in the Rose Bowl, but he figured in one of the biggest controversies in the game’s history. What was it? (Answer below.)

Now-it-can-be-told Dept.: When San Diego upset Denver, 9-3, to give Al Saunders his first win as head coach of the Chargers, he called it the greatest thrill of his life.

“When I got home,” Saunders said, “my wife and three children were lined up at the door. She said, ‘Didn’t we mean anything?’ So now that victory has gone from first to fifth. It’s my marriage, the birth of my three kids, and then the game.”

56 Years Ago Today: On Dec. 6, 1930, Notre Dame beat USC, 27-0, at the Coliseum, in the last game Knute Rockne coached. Before 73,967 fans, Bucky O’Connor, a second-string halfback moved to fullback when his injured friend, Larry Mullins, couldn’t play, scored twice, including an 80-yard run. The Irish won their last 19 straight under Rockne, who died March 31, 1931, in a plane crash near Baazar, Kan. He was 43.

How good is Redskin quarterback Jay Schroeder? Said New York Giants linebacker Harry Carson: “In Washington, all the little kids are trading in their No. 7 jerseys.”

No. 7 was worn by Joe Theismann.

Trivia Answer: In the 1949 Rose Bowl game between California and Northwestern, he was the field judge who ruled that Northwestern’s Art Murakowski scored on a two-yard run, although Cal players protested that he had fumbled before going into the end zone. Northwestern won the game, 20-14. Quotebook

Dexter Manley of the Washington Redskins, on New York Giants running back Joe Morris, who has gained 118 yards and 181 yards in their last two meetings: “We really haven’t stopped him. I think he’s still running. I saw him going down I-495.”