Trainer Helps Coach to Decide

His talent obviously wasn’t the best, and the losses were piling up, but Monmouth (N.J.) College basketball Coach Ron Kornegay figured with a little more dedication on the part of players and coaches, they might get the season turned around. Forget it.

“One day last week,” said the New York Times, “Kornegay called a practice at which he had only nine players available, the rest indisposed because of exams or injury. So he suited up Jim Murdock, the team’s 29-year-old trainer.

“Murdock is 5 feet 10 inches tall, weighs 230 pounds and had never played a minute of organized basketball. During the ensuing 20-minute scrimmage, matched against two reserve forwards who were both nine inches taller, he led both squads in rebounds.”

The next day, Kornegay resigned.

“The program needs to go in another direction,” he said.

Would-you-believe-it dept.: The Alabama athletic department has sold only 201 tickets for the Sun Bowl game against Washington today in El Paso, Tex.

One of the buyers was Tony Brandino of Birmingham, who said he has attended 368 straight Alabama games.

“I’m going by myself,” Brandino said. “My wife went with me last year, but she decided to sit this one out.”

Last year, Alabama played in the Aloha Bowl.

From Todd Phipers of Denver Post: “Haven’t the New York Jets given a whole new dimension to the term ‘backing in.’?”

Trivia Time: Reggie Jackson will still wear No. 44 with Oakland although he was offered the number he wore before with the A’s. What was it? (Answer below.)

Add Forgettable Quotes: Said University of Pittsburgh forward Jerome Lane last week after wins over Xavier and West Virginia: “I don’t care about those rinky-dink teams. I want to play somebody with talent.”

On Tuesday night, Pitt played Brigham Young. BYU won, 93-73.

Life-isn’t-fair dept.: Here’s the lament of Gerald Wilkins of the New York Knicks, who face the Chicago Bulls today: “I have to guard Michael Jordan on national TV on Christmas Day in front of a million people.”

The Cleveland Browns will train for the playoffs at Dodgertown in Vero Beach, Fla., and some of the players, noting the lack of night life, already have dubbed it Zero Beach.

“I can understand the fact that the area isn’t exactly jumping,” said Coach Marty Schottenheimer, “but we’re going down there to work and not for vacation.”

15 Years Ago Today: On Christmas Day in 1971, the Miami Dolphins and Kansas City Chiefs, meeting in an AFC divisional playoff game at Kansas City, played the longest game in NFL history. The game lasted 82 minutes 40 seconds. With 7:40 gone in the second overtime, Miami won, 27-24, on a 37-yard field goal by Garo Yepremian.

The game’s individual star was Kansas City halfback Ed Podolak, who totaled 350 yards in all-purpose yardage. He rushed 17 times for 85 yards, caught 8 passes for 110 yards, returned 3 kickoffs for 153 yards and returned 2 punts for 2 yards.

Trivia Answer: No. 9. Explaining why he didn’t want to wear his old number, Jackson said: “Because it would mean changing several phone numbers, lots of jewelry and hundreds of license plates.”

Quotebook

Tony Kornheiser of the Washington Post, on how ties will be broken in the NFL playoffs: “If it remains tied after two overtimes, the first team to name every product John Madden endorses wins.”