Give Thanks That Chick Goes On and Dawson Has Gone

Some things to be thankful for . . .

--That ESPN, in its ninth year, provides mostly quality sports programming, including 123 regular-season college basketball games, all live.

--That Chick Hearn is going as strong as ever, still staying ahead of the Lakers’ fast break.

--That Jim Lampley has come to town.

--That Ted Dawson has left.

--That Jerry Doggett has retired.

--That Vin Scully hasn’t.

--That Don Drysdale will join the Dodger broadcast team next season.

--That Fred Roggin continues showing it to you with a good blend of serious sports and off-beat material.

--That this town has only one Keith Olbermann.

--That CBS hired Ken Stabler, who appears on his way to stardom as a football commentator.

--That Billy Cunningham has replaced Tom Heinsohn as CBS’ No. 1 NBA commentator.

--That Bill Russell is coaching again and out of broadcasting.

--That Brent Musburger doesn’t announce every sporting event on CBS, although it sometimes seems that he does.

--That Pat Summerall and John Madden are still together.

--That the networks don’t use sideline reporters such as Mike Adamle and Steve Alvarez on NFL games.

--That Jim Healy is still hammering away, even if he does mess up every once in a while, such as the other night when he called KMPC colleague Bob Steinbrink Bob Steinbrenner.

--That knowledgeable sports fans don’t take KIIS-FM’s Charleye Wright seriously.

--That Joel Meyers works in this town as a play-by-play announcer.

--That Ron Fairly doesn’t.

--That Bill King and Rich Marotta are the Raiders’ radio announcers.

--That ABC hired Dan Dierdorf.

--That HBO does boxing.

--That NBC attempts to do horse racing only once a year.

--That ABC does more horse racing than auto racing, considering the problems it had in Indianapolis last May.

--That the Clippers are using Ralph Lawler on both radio and TV.

--That Bob Miller has remained with the Kings.

--That Prime Ticket was formed, giving viewers home Laker games, home and road King games, and much more.

CBS will televise three college football games over the next two days--Auburn (8-1-1) vs. Alabama (7-3) today at 11:30 a.m., Florida State (9-1) vs. Florida (6-4) Saturday at 9 a.m., and, the best of the bunch, No. 10 Notre Dame (8-2) vs. No. 2 Miami (9-0) Saturday at 12:30 p.m.

John Dockery, who will serve as the sideline reporter at the Notre Dame-Miami game, says: “Look out for the Irish.”

The last time these two schools met, in 1985, Miami poured it on and won, 58-7, in Gerry Faust’s final game.

Lou Holtz, Faust’s replacement as Notre Dame coach, wasn’t there. But, according to Dockery, Holtz nevertheless is fired up. “The week Notre Dame played USC (in mid-October), Holtz was already talking about the Miami game,” Dockery said.

It was forgivable that ABC missed the USC-UCLA kickoff last Saturday, since the Ohio State-Michigan game ran long.

It was not forgivable that ABC chose to air about a dozen commercials and promos before switching to the game at the Coliseum.

The network lucked out because neither UCLA or USC did anything on their first possessions. But, still, not going immediately to live action was a real slap in the face to viewers.

An unusual, big-money event this weekend is the Skins Game, now in its fifth year. It will be televised on NBC Saturday at 3:30 p.m. and Sunday at 4 p.m.

Four golfers--Fuzzy Zoeller, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Lee Trevino--will compete over the TPC Stadium Golf Course at PGA West in La Quinta, for $450,000 in prize money.

Each hole is a tournament in itself with prize money broken down to $15,000 for each of the first six holes, $25,000 for the next six, and $35,000 for the final six.

Prize money is awarded when one player wins a hole outright. Otherwise, the money carries over, thus building tremendous jackpot opportunities.

Last year, Zoeller defended his Skins Game title, winning a record $370,000. He won $225,000 in 1985.

Today at 11:30 a.m., ESPN will televise the second day of the $360,000 Skins Game pro-am, which pairs club pros and amateurs. Competition began Sept. 8 with regionals throughout the country.

Another unusual, big-money sports event this weekend is a first-ever $1 million stakes tennis match at West Palm Beach, Fla. ABC will televise it Saturday at 10 a.m. and Sunday, delayed, at 3 p.m.

Ivan Lendl, John McEnroe, Pat Cash and Stefan Edberg will compete in a round-robin tournament. Each player is staked $250,000 before the tournament starts, and the stake increases or decreases according to games won or lost, aces and double faults and strokes per rally.

Saturday’s matches: Lendl vs. Cash, McEnroe vs. Edberg, Edberg vs. Cash and Lendl vs. McEnroe. On Sunday, there will be a final match between the two players who amassed the most money on Saturday.

Iron man: Channel 2’s Lampley may currently be the busiest man in sports broadcasting. He’s in Birmingham, Ala., today to do the play-by-play for CBS on the Auburn-Alabama game, with Tim Brant handling the commentary.

Sunday, he and Stabler will announce the blacked-out Ram-Tampa Bay game at Anaheim.

Monday, he begins his role as a sports reporter for CBS’ new “This Morning” show, which will be televised weekdays at 7 a.m. The co-anchors of the new show are Kathleen Sullivan and Harry Smith.

Lampley also does the weekly “John Robinson Show” for Channel 2, and he still finds time to do special features. His first for Channel 2, “Lakers: The Drive to Repeat,” will be televised next Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. and repeated Saturday, Dec. 12, at 3 p.m.

TV-Radio Notes CBS originally planned to show its main game, the New York Giants vs. the Washington Redskins, in Los Angeles at 1 p.m. Sunday. But because NBC chose to show Denver-San Diego here at 1 p.m., CBS opted instead to show Green Bay-Chicago at 10 a.m. CBS can’t show two games here because the Rams are home. . . . John Elway and Dan Fouts will be featured on NBC’s “NFL Live” Sunday at 9:30 a.m. . . . The announcers for the Green Bay-Chicago game will be Tim Ryan and Joe Theismann. The announcers for the Denver-San Diego game will be Charlie Jones and Jimmy Cefalo. . . . Add Jones: Brian Bosworth, chatting with the NBC announcer off the air last week in Seattle last week, showed a little humility. Of Seattle fans, Bosworth said: “Their expectations of me are so high there isn’t a ladder high enough to reach them.” . . . ESPN’s guest commentator for Cleveland-San Francisco Sunday will be Jim Brown. Brown had a successful stint as a commentator with CBS in the mid ‘70s, when he worked with Vin Scully and George Allen on the network’s No. 1 NFL team.

The U.S. Olympic hockey team faces the Canadian team at the Forum Saturday at 1 p.m., and Prime Ticket will televise the game at 7:30 that night. . . . With the recent additions of Orange County cable companies Rogers Cablesystems and Yorba Linda Cable, Prime Ticket now reaches more than 2 million homes. . . . Prime Ticket offers “This Week in Hockey” every Monday night. The host is former Boston coach Don Cherry. . . . ESPN has hired Don Chevrier as a boxing announcer. Chevrier, a radio and TV announcer for the Toronto Blue Jays, has called fights for both ABC radio and ABC TV. . . . Channel 56 has a weekly boxing show Wednesday nights at 8, featuring fights held at the Irvine Marriott Hotel. . . . FNN/SCORE, the sports arm of the Financial News Network, will televise 15 Major Indoor Soccer League games, beginning Jan. 8.