CS Sacramento Team Is One for the Road

When Cal State Sacramento joined the Great Northern Conference, which stretches all the way to Anchorage, Alaska, some creative scheduling was necessary.

The last home game for the Hornets was Jan. 18. After that, they were off for 10 days. Now they are finishing up with eight straight games on the road.

Said Coach Joe Anders: “January was a great month to be a Hornet. February is a great month to be a Hornet travel agent.”

If Kiki Vandeweghe is traded from the Portland Trail Blazers to the New York Knicks, he will join the team his father, Ernie, played for in the early 1950s.

Marty Glickman, who was the Knick radio announcer, told the Hartford Courant:

“Ernie was a tremendous guy. A medical student who joined the Knicks out of Colgate. His med school schedule was such that he would arrive at the game just in time to play. He would get dressed in the restrooms of airplanes and come to the arena ready. I can see him now, coming onto a court still lacing his sneakers.”

Add Ernie: He was born in Canada, where his father was a furrier.

“I was a spoiled little boy, “ he told Zander Hollander in “The Modern Encyclopedia of Basketball.”

“I had everything I wanted, especially when it came to sports equipment. I had a hockey rink in my back yard, a basketball court, a motorboat, skates, hunting gun and a horse. That’s when I thought I would be a jockey.”

Trivia Time: Who was the last defenseman to score four goals in a National Hockey League game? He played for the Kings. (Answer below.)

From Wallace Matthews of Newsday: “Is this ridiculous or what? Bruce (the Mouse) Strauss, who in the words of Randy Gordon of the New York State Athletic Commission has more aliases than most fighters have bouts, was approved to fight Harry Arroyo in Rochester as a substitute for Donald Gwinn, who was under lifetime suspension. Gwinn’s crime? Fighting under an assumed name.”

Add Matthews: “Overheard at the Leonard-Hearns news conference, one fight guy talking about another: ‘He was a moron. He took the test for imbecile and failed.’ ”

Said Edmonton Coach Glen Sather, responding to reports that the Oilers were having difficulty filling the stands since trading Wayne Gretzky to the Kings: “We’ve had 97% and 98% capacity. I’d have used 99, but we’re not using that number anymore.”

The basketball teams weren’t the only ones putting up big numbers Tuesday at Loyola Marymount. Before the basketball game, in which Loyola beat USIU, 181-150, the schools met in baseball. Loyola won, 20-12.

Trivia Answer: Ian Turnbull. He scored 4 goals against Vancouver on Dec. 12, 1981.

Quotebook

Former NBA player and coach Johnny Kerr, now a Chicago Bulls announcer, on coaching: “If a coach starts listening to the fans, he winds up sitting next to them.”