Whether Beathard Ever Plays Is Irrelevant

Jeff Beathard, the 333rd player picked in the National Football League draft, doesn’t figure to ever play for the Rams, but as the last player chosen, the running back from Southern Oregon State will be honored during Irrelevant Week in Newport Beach June 19-26.

Irrelevant Week, a brainchild of former USC and San Francisco 49ers end Paul Salata and sponsored by the Balboa Yacht Club, the Harbor Area Chamber of Commerce and the NFL, annually rewards the last player picked by holding golf and tennis tournaments in his name and feting him at Disneyland and other Southland spots.

Beathard, son of Washington Redskins General Manager Bobby Beathard and nephew of former USC and NFL quarterback Pete Beathard, will receive the Lowsman--as opposed to Heisman--Trophy.

The Lowsman Trophy is a bronze sculpture depicting a football player fumbling.

Add Beathard: At Southern Oregon State, he played for Chuck Mills, former coach at Wake Forest, who once said: “Some coaches pray for wisdom. I pray for 260-pound tackles. They’ll give me plenty of wisdom.”

From the Boston Globe: “ESPN, Sports Illustrated, Inside Sports, the Sporting News, USA Today and Newsweek all picked the Red Sox to win the American League East. Meanwhile, Diehard, the official magazine of Red Sox fans, picked the Sox third.”

The San Jose Mercury News reports this exchange between San Francisco Giants announcers Ron Fairly and Duane Kuiper in an item headed, “Would You Repeat That Please?”:

Kuiper: “It doesn’t hurt as much when you get beat as it does when you beat yourself.”

Fairly: “I know just what you’re saying. In other words, what you’re saying is that you can get beat, and then on the other hand you can beat yourself.”

Trivia Time: Name a player who played against Sandy Koufax and Nolan Ryan in games in which they pitched no-hitters. (Answer in column 3.)

From Michael Wilbon of the Washington Post: “If anybody else had taken Ohio State’s Eric Kumerow in the first round as Miami did, or a kicker named Chip Lohmiller with the team’s first pick as Washington did, the self-proclaimed talent experts would have cried, ‘Dumb, stupid, ridiculous.’ But because Don Shula and Bobby Beathard--two of the sharpest men in the business--were instrumental in making the picks, many people assume they are on to something.”

The Raiders can only hope Tim Brown’s first Coliseum start approaches his last. In the 1986 USC-Notre Dame game, Brown got a head start on the 1987 Heisman Trophy campaign when, after USC took a 30-12 lead late in the third quarter, he set up three scores with a 57-yard kickoff return, a 49-yard reception from Steve Beuerlein and a 56-yard punt return as Notre Dame pulled out a 38-37 victory.

From promoter Don King: “I think that Mike Tyson doesn’t know how good he is himself. Time will tell if Tyson can refrain from hedonistic pleasure and drink the heady wine of success without becoming intoxicated.”

Trivia Answer: Cookie Rojas. He was the Philadelphia Phillies’ center fielder against the Dodgers when Koufax threw a no-hitter in 1964, and he was the Kansas City Royals’ second baseman against the Angels when Ryan threw one in 1973.

Quotebook

University of Minnesota kicker Chip Lohmiller, drafted by the Washington Redskins, claiming he’s not a typical kicker: “I think I’m normal people.”