Navy Has Impressive Victories

Notre Dame takes on Navy today, and Irish Coach Lou Holtz feels a little better about the assignment than he did when he was coaching at William & Mary.

“We used to play Navy at Marine Corps Stadium in Annapolis,” Holtz recalled. “It’s a beautiful place, and on the face of the upper deck they list some of the great battles from history--places like Midway and Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima.

“We were on the field warming up before the game, and a couple of my players came up to me and said, ‘Coach, there’s no way we can beat these guys.’

“I said, ‘Why not?’

“They said, ‘Well, look at the schedule they play.’ ”

For What It’s Worth: According to Hal Haynes of Glendora, if Tim Brown of Notre Dame wins the Heisman Trophy, his high school, Woodrow Wilson of Dallas, will become the first to produce two winners. Davey O’Brien of Texas Christian, the 1938 winner, also attended Woodrow Wilson.

San Fernando High School has come close. Charles White won the Heisman in 1979, and Anthony Davis was the runner-up in 1974 when Archie Griffin won the first of his two awards.

Trivia Time: Emmitt Smith of Florida is bidding to become the first freshman to win the Heisman Trophy. What freshman has come the closest? (Answer to follow.)

A lot of people had never heard of Tom Lawless before the World Series, including ABC interviewer Reggie Jackson, but Boston Manager John McNamara said he’ll never forget him.

“He got me fired at Cincinnati in 1982,” McNamara told the Boston Globe. “Dick Wagner told me to play him at second base. Those were the days when they wanted Johnny Bench to catch two days a week and Ron Oester to play third. Writers asked me if that was our best team we had on the field, and I told them, ‘No.’ And I got fired for it.’ ”

Wagner, who also fired Sparky Anderson at Cincinnati, recently was fired as the general manager at Houston. McNamara, at Boston, and Anderson, at Detroit, have won the last two American League East titles.

Add Globe: From its notes on Game 5: “St. Louis Manager Whitey Herzog said he lifted catcher Tony Pena for a pinch-runner because Pena was limping. He later learned Pena was faking and planned to steal second on the next pitch.”

Tom Brown, the only major league baseball player who also played in a Super Bowl, said he wouldn’t be surprised if Bo Jackson gives up baseball.

“It’s impossible to do both,” said Brown, who was a first baseman for the Washington Senators and a defensive back for the Green Bay Packers in the 1960s.

Brown, who lasted only one year in the majors, said baseball was his favorite sport, but he continually was getting football offers.

“That was really a bad thing for me, and I can see it’s going to be a bad thing for Bo Jackson,” he said. “Because now you use football as a cop-out. If you have a bad day playing baseball, you say, ‘I can always play football.’ And that’s what happened to me. I lost my intensity.”

Trivia Answer: Herschel Walker of Georgia. He was third in 1980 behind George Rogers of South Carolina and Hugh Green of Pittsburgh. He was second as a sophomore behind Marcus Allen of USC. He won it as a junior, then turned pro.

Quotebook

Allison Roe of New Zealand, on why she runs the marathon: “I’m too slow to run anything else.”