An Uncourtly Stature for Michigan

Less than 24 hours before their biggest game of the season, the sixth-ranked Michigan Wolverines were relegated to a basketball court tucked away in the back of the school’s intramural building for a final practice.

The Wolverines, who lost the next day to Illinois, were kept out of Crisler Arena by a wrestling meet and a women’s basketball game, and the team couldn’t get a court for practice until a forfeit in one of the intramural games opened up the floor.

Do you think Bobby Knight has problems like this at Indiana?

Trivia time: Who was most valuable player for the Raiders in Super Bowl XV, when they beat the Philadelphia Eagles, 27-10, at New Orleans? (Answer below).

When Notre Dame’s football team held its first meeting since winning the national championship, Coach Lou Holtz suddenly realized how tough it may be to repeat.

“We covered a variety of things,” Holtz said of the meeting. “Then I excused the seniors and we addressed next season. A lot more guys walked out than what the papers said we were losing. Reading the papers, I figured the whole team was back.

“We had a better team when we started the meeting because a lot of guys were not there when we ended it.”

Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Boomer Esiason has a clause in his contract that prohibits him from doing a television show or writing a book or newspaper and magazine articles.

“I’m not allowed to write books,” Esiason told reporters at the Super Bowl in Miami this week. “I’m not allowed to host my own television show. You have the Dan Marino Show down here; we’re not allowed to have the Boomer Esiason Show. I’m not allowed to sponsor a newspaper article or ghostwrite a magazine article.

“I am allowed to go skiing. I’m allowed to go sky diving. What that shows us is they’re more afraid of me hurting myself with my mouth than they are with my skis or my parachutes.”

When shooting broke out in Miami Monday night, Joe Wellisch, who has season tickets to the Miami Heat’s basketball games, was warned by his wife not to go to the game against the Phoenix Suns, which was eventually called off.

“My wife called me from Chicago and said, ‘Don’t go.’ ” Wellisch said. “I said, ‘I’m here and you’re there.’ Then she said, ‘Don’t take the BMW, take the Honda.’ ”

Trivia answer: Quarterback Jim Plunkett, who passed for 261 yards and 3 touchdowns, including a record-setting, 80-yarder to Kenny King.

Quotebook

Wide receiver Jerry Rice of the San Francisco 49ers, when told that Cincinnati cornerback Eric Thomas said the Bengal secondary is faster than Rice: “This is not a track meet.”