They Don’t Make Them Like They Used To

It’s been a rough year on quarterbacks, but they aren’t getting any sympathy cards from Art Donovan, who thinks they’re a bunch of pantywaists.

“Most of them look like they belong in Malibu,” said Donovan, former Baltimore Colts defensive tackle.

“It’s a different breed,” he told Ray Didinger of the Philadelphia Daily News. “Back in the ‘50s the quarterbacks were some of the toughest guys in the league. Johnny Unitas was tough as hell. If a lineman hit John late, John hit back. If a guy intercepted a pass, John made sure he was in on the tackle. He took his lumps, but he gave a few, too.

“Most of the quarterbacks were like that--Bobby Layne, Y.A. Tittle, Charlie Conerly. If you gave Norm Van Brocklin a cheap shot, he’d throw the next pass right in your face. And we didn’t have big face masks like players today. Van Brocklin had a lot of guys rushing with their heads down.”

Said Michigan Coach Bo Schembechler after the Wolverines clinched the Rose Bowl bid: “We won’t look ahead to the Rose Bowl. The players are going to look at one game--Ohio State. We’re playing the biggest game of the year next week. The Rose Bowl doesn’t mean as much to me as playing at Ohio State.”

Does that explain why he’s 1-7 in the Rose Bowl?

Trivia Time: Doug Flutie, who has played for Chicago and New England in the National Football League, was drafted by what NFL team? (Answer to follow.)

Medium-Rare: From John Eisenberg of the Baltimore Sun: “Viktor Korchnoi, Soviet emigre chess master, says he is winning a long-running game against Hungarian grand master Geza Maroczy, who died in 1951. Korchnoi told an Icelandic newspaper they have been playing the game through a medium since 1984.”

Does Bobby Fischer get the winner?

From Seattle Seahawks Coach Chuck Knox, questioning the competence of NFL replay officials: “Maybe what we have to do is go out there and hire some guys who have been watching a lot of TV, who are interested in football and want to make $600 a game.

“We’ll help unemployment in this country. We’ll get some couch potatoes--guys who watch--and put them up there.”

Pam Shriver, on president-elect George Bush, a sometime tennis partner: “You see Bush toss a football around left-handed on TV but he plays tennis righty. His backhand is so weak, though, that I’m thinking of telling him to hit his backhand lefty--in other words, hit two forehands.”

Phoenix fullback Ron Wolfley, on the comeback win over San Francisco: “It was a steambath. You could see it taking its toll on the 49ers’ faces. We’ve become climatized to it by now. But the 49er guys, their faces looked like melting wax.

“We want to use the weather to our advantage as much as we can. This is the Valley of the Sun. We’d like it to be Death Valley. We tell other teams, ‘Yeah, c’mon down and go into a total body cramp.’ ”

Trivia Answer: The Rams. In 1986, they traded him to Chicago for two draft choices--cornerback Clifford Hicks and tight end Jon Embree. Hicks was the club’s rookie of the year in 1987.

Quotebook

John Eisenberg of the Baltimore Sun: “I would rather undergo dental surgery than be the next man to step into the ring with Mike Tyson.”