Shriver a Solo Host, but It Could Change

Michael Weisman, NBC Sports executive producer, after announcing that Maria Shriver would be one of the hosts of the Sunday morning coverage during the Seoul Olympics, said: “We aren’t planning to use a husband-wife team, but if Arnold insists, we may have to reconsider.”

Shriver is married to Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Wallace Matthews of Newsday, on the Mike Tyson-Tony Tubbs fight promotion: “Sources say that Don King was reduced to a mere errand boy by the Japanese promoters, who don’t find King’s oratory, hairdo or manslaughter conviction amusing. They’re funny about things like that. Anyway, the Japanese prohibited King’s name from appearing on any fight posters or advertisements.”

How dull was the Howard Davis-Shelton LeBlanc fight last Friday at Madison Square Garden’s Felt Forum?

According to the New York Times, one fan shouted, “We want a Rocky movie.”

Trivia Time: If Oklahoma wins the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. title, it will join what three other schools as winners of national championships in both basketball and football? (Answer below.)

Now-it-can-be-told Dept.: From the Minneapolis Star Tribune: “When Pete Maravich was a prep player, his father Press coached at North Carolina State. At the time, the ACC required incoming freshmen to score 800 on their SATs.

“Pete topped out near 760, and his father decided that coaching his son was more important than staying in the ACC. So father and son went to LSU.

“During that time it was widely assumed that the 800 score was the ACC’s way of perpetuating segregation. Ironically, it wound up costing the conference the most famous white college player of the decade.”

Duke’s Billy King, who has shut down such names as Notre Dame’s David Rivers, North Carolina’s Jeff Lebo and Temple’s Mark Macon this year, was asked about his meeting with Arizona’s Sean Elliott earlier in the season.

“I learned some lessons that night,” King told John Feinstein of the Washington Post. “The main thing I learned is that Sean Elliott can play.”

Elliott scored 31 points.

Add Elliott: Says Arizona guard Steve Kerr: “It isn’t that tough to run an offense when you’ve got someone like Sean. If worse comes to worst, you just give it to him and clear out.”

Would-you-believe-it Dept.: In City Section football last fall, Grant beat Poly, 7-6. In City baseball last week, Poly beat Grant, 29-14.

Pittsburgh Pirates General Manager Syd Thrift, asked about Jose Lind, the acrobatic second baseman from Puerto Rico who made Johnny Ray expendable last year, told the Pittsburgh Press: “He’s already redefining the range a second baseman is supposed to have.”

Said Manager Jim Leyland: “I’m the most reluctant man in the world to brag on a player, but I honestly have never seen anything like him.”

Trivia Answer: UCLA, Ohio State, Michigan State.

Quotebook

Billy Tubbs, Oklahoma basketball coach, asked after his hiring about being the second choice for the job: “It doesn’t bother me. I was also my wife’s second choice, and we’ve been married 25 years.”