Vitale Keeps Heat on Bruins; Hazzard Is Getting Steamed

After UCLA had won the National Invitation Tournament in 1985, basketball commentator Dick Vitale said: “They have a new cheer in Westwood, ‘We’re No. 65.’ ”

Vitale has been riding UCLA ever since, at least according to Coach Walt Hazzard.

Hazzard in turn has said his goal is to shut up Vitale.

These two old friends will meet again Saturday, when ABC televises the Bruins’ game against St. John’s at 11:30 a.m.

Vitale’s name came up during Hazzard’s press lunch this week. “He likes to say my name because it gives him some more notoriety,” Hazzard said.

Vitale, told of Hazzard’s comment, said: “Be serious. My job is to be honest. Walt’s job is to beat schools like Temple and St. John’s on his own floor.

“When I say Pac-10 basketball is mediocre, I’m just being honest. Am I making that up?

“When I see that UCLA can draw only 2,800 for Oral Roberts, that blows my mind.

“I love Walter. I’ll sing his praises when he deserves it. Did you hear all the great things I had to say about Lute Olson when Arizona beat Syracuse in the Great Alaska Shootout?”

Vitale, who had begun the conversation by saying he didn’t want to get into this, was rolling.

“I read in the Sporting News that Hazzard’s goal is to shut up Vitale,” he said. “Come on, his goal should be recruiting Scott Williams (the 6-foot 10-inch center from Wilson High in Hacienda Heights, who went to North Carolina) and winning ballgames, not shutting me up.

“Hey, I don’t play. I can’t run, jump or shoot. I’m an old Italian who is blind in one eye. Walt shouldn’t be worried about me.”

Hazzard, asked if he and Vitale were going to go out for dinner while Vitale was in town, said: “Dick hasn’t invited me to dinner. But we might have a little private conversation to evaluate the relative merits of his comments.”

Add Vitale: Vitale splits assignments among three employers: ABC, ESPN and the Indiana Pacers.

“There are some weeks I literally come out of one plane and into another,” Vitale says. “I’m spending a lot of time at the airport. But I’m not complaining. I love college basketball. The travel is only bad because it takes me away from my wife, who is a 15 on a Bo Derek scale of 10.

“Without her, I wouldn’t be anything. There are a lot of wives out there who might not put up with a Dick Vitale and my craziness the way she does.”

New team: Can you imagine Chick Hearn announcing a game with Boston’s Johnny Most? It will happen Feb. 7 when these two legends work the National Basketball Assn. All-Star Game for ABC Radio.

During the first half, Most will be the play-by-play announcer and Hearn the commentator. They will switch roles for the second half. The order was determined by a coin flip.

Of his commentating role, Hearn said: “I’ll just lay back and give Johnny a breather every once in a while.”

Vitale was the radio commentator for last season’s game, but he was not available for this season’s game because of an ABC commitment. So John Kosner, the NBA’s broadcast coordinator, suggested getting Hearn and Most, and it went from there.

It should be interesting.

A bad word: Brittney Ryan, new co-host of Channel 56’s “Inside Football” show, asked Bo Jackson if he had any New Year’s resolutions.

“Yeah,” Jackson said. “To never again use the word hobby. “

A bad idea: Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev and Villanova basketball Coach Rollie Massimino bear a slight resemblance.

So Channel 5’s Keith Olbermann, in another of his unsuccessful attempts at humor during his Wednesday night telecast, claimed they were the same person.

The whole thing was dreadful.

Some big hits: Memorable moments in boxing history will be presented in a one-hour HBO special, “Boxing’s Greatest Knockouts,” which will be televised Tuesday night at 8, and repeated Dec. 18, 20, 23 and 26.

The hosts are heavyweight champion Mike Tyson, who is a boxing historian, and HBO’s Larry Merchant.

Jimmy Jacobs, Tyson’s manager who has an extensive collection of boxing films, suggested the show to HBO and supplied much of the historical material.

Rick Bernstein, the producer of HBO’s “Inside the NFL,” is producing this show.

“It will be more than just a montage of knockouts,” Bernstein said. “We have done a lot of interviews and will tell the stories behind some of the great knockouts.”

The show is divided into five segments--controversial, such as Muhammad Ali’s phantom knockout punch that floored Sonny Liston in the first round in 1965; one-punch knockouts, come-from-behind knockouts, brutal knockouts and humorous knockouts.

Teeing off: Last July, Golf Digest asked its readers to rate golf announcers and the networks that cover golf.

More than 18,000 responded, and the results will be in the January issue.

Pat Summerall of CBS, who got 30.8% of the votes, and Gary McCord of CBS, 25%, were selected as the best.

Picked as the worst were, somewhat surprisingly, Jim McKay, 29%, and Vin Scully, 14.1%. But Scully also finished fourth on the “best” list.

Asked which network does the best job of covering golf, a whopping 62% picked CBS. ESPN finished second with 17.5%.

When asked, “If you ruled the world, which network would never cover golf again,” readers made ABC the big loser with 40% of the votes. NBC was next with 38%.

TV-Radio Notes It’s a big weekend for basketball, beginning with tonight’s Lakers-Boston Celtics game. It can be seen live at 5:05 on TBS, with Bob Neal and Rick Barry, or delayed at 6 on Channel 9, with Chick Hearn and Stu Lantz. One reason for watching it on Channel 9 would be to see the pregame show with Roy Firestone at 5:30. The Celtics’ Dennis Johnson is profiled and there is a feature entitled, “The New Life of Riley.”

CBS will begin its NBA coverage Saturday at 12:30 p.m. with the surprising Chicago Bulls playing host to the Houston Rockets. . . . CBS will begin its 1987-88 college basketball coverage with Louisville-Kentucky Saturday at 10:30 a.m., the same time NBC opens with Notre Dame-DePaul. . . . For the second consecutive year and third time in four years, Dick Enberg has been named sportscaster of the year by the American Sportscasters Assn. . . . Jim Healy has been on vacation this week, and nobody is subbing for him. KMPC simply expanded Jim Lange’s show. Does that mean Healy is irreplaceable?

Besides Prime Ticket’s tape-delayed coverage of the Big Five and Southern Conference high school football championship games this weekend, Comcast Cablevision in Orange County is covering Saturday night’s Central Conference title game between Valencia of Placentia and Anaheim. The telecast, with announcers Lon Brunk and Russ Bolinger, a former Ram and Detroit Lion, will be televised in North Orange County, Newport Beach and Seal Beach Sunday at 4 p.m. It will repeated in those areas, plus in Anaheim on Channel 22, Tuesday night at 7. . . . Brunk and Bolinger are also the hosts of the popular “Sunday Night Sports Wrapup” show on KIK-FM. This week’s guest on the show that runs from 7 to 9 p.m. will be the Rams’ Mike Guman.

Televised National Football League games Sunday will be Dallas at Washington at 10 a.m. on CBS, with Pat Summerall and John Madden reporting, and the Raiders at Kansas City at 1 p.m. on NBC, with Charlie Jones and Jimmy Cefalo. . . . Will McDonough, scheduled to work last Sunday’s Ram game at Detroit with Jack Buck, couldn’t make it because of another commitment. Dan Jiggetts did an admirable job as McDonough’s replacement. . . . Raider announcer Bill King will be featured on “This Is the NFL” on Channel 2 Saturday at 5 p.m. Included in the piece are about a dozen of King’s most memorable calls. . . . ESPN’s “NFL GameDay” show Sunday mornings at 8:30 is excellent, but CNN also offers a good preview show at 8:30. The star of the CNN show is witty handicapper Jimmy Vaccaro.