This Genius Is Not All That Smart

Buffalo Bills Coach Marv Levy is a Phi Beta Kappa who earned a master’s degree in history at Harvard, but he cringes when they call him an intellectual.

Levy told the Sporting News: “I’m intellectual enough to read William F. Buckley Jr.’s column, but I’m not intellectual enough to finish it.”

Add Sporting News: From its pro football notes: “Oilers General Manager Ladd Herzeg apologized to Houston Chronicle columnist Fran Blinebury for hitting the writer twice on the side of the head after a 5-hour lunch Jan. 9. A waiter at the restaurant said 6 bottles of champagne were consumed during the meal.”

4 Years Ago Today: On Jan. 26, 1985, Edmonton’s Wayne Gretzky scored his 50th goal in the 49th game of the season, a 6-3 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins.

In 49 games for the Kings this year, Gretzky has 33 goals.

For What It’s Worth: California teams have won 12 of the 27 titles up for grabs in professional baseball, football and basketball during the 1980s. The Dodgers have won two, the San Francisco 49ers three, the Oakland-Los Angeles Raiders two and the Lakers five.

There have been no hockey titles, but Gov. Deukmejian says, “Can the Great Gretzky and the Los Angeles Kings be far behind?”

Trivia Time: What was the name of the movie in which Ronald Reagan portrayed George Gipp? (Answer below.)

Have USC students tired of reading about their basketball team? In Tuesday’s Daily Trojan, there were stories on men’s volleyball, women’s basketball, men’s swimming, Pac-10 players of the week and the triumphant return of the 49ers to San Francisco, but nary a word on George Raveling’s club.

Poor Cincinnati. Even when San Francisco fouls up, the Bengals can’t beat the 49ers.

Sunday’s snafu by the 49ers (see story at top of page) recalls the memorable goal-line stand they made in beating the Bengals, 26-21, in the 1982 Super Bowl. On one of the plays, the 49ers had only 10 men on the field.

Missing was linebacker Keena Turner. Explained 49er defensive coordinator Chuck Studley: “What happened is that I called for our goal-line defense to go in, but Keena thought I said ‘giant’ defense and didn’t go in.”

The Times’ headline read: “48ers Have Enough to Win It All.”

Ben Henkey of the Sporting News, in an obituary on former New York Giants first baseman Bill Terry, the last National Leaguer to hit .400, revived this ditty by poet-humorist Ogden Nash:

“T is for Terry

The Giant from Memphis

Whose 400 average

You can’t overemphis.”

Trivia Answer: “Knute Rockne--All American.”

Quotebook

San Francisco 49ers Coach Bill Walsh, on the stresses of coaching: “Friends have told me to relax more, and maybe play more golf. But if you play golf the way I play golf, that’s pretty stressful, too.”