Dear Diary: Recruiting Trip Hard to Swallow

There probably aren’t too many Irish eyes smiling after reading what a football recruit had to say about a visit to Notre Dame.

Ron Dickerson--no relation to Eric--is the son of Penn State assistant coach Ron Dickerson. Young Dickerson is an all-state running back from State College High School and wrote a diary for the Centre (Pennsylvania) Daily Times while being recruited by many of the nation’s top football schools.

Here are some excerpts:

“I watched some of the Notre Dame highlight film. Boy, was that boring! Most of the recruits fell asleep. I know I did.

“That night we went to dinner and from there on I knew this was going to be a fun trip. We had so much food I don’t know how we could move after dinner. We went to clubs and danced the night away. At 3:30 a.m. we went to Denny’s for something to eat.”

The next night, Dickerson played pool and watched more highlight films. “I was getting very sick of highlight films. Then we went on a tour of the campus and went to talk with some professor. He was so boring that all but two of us went to sleep.

“We ate at some dining hall and had some of the grossest food I have ever had. And I’m from the North. The guys from the South were sick as dogs from just looking at it so no one, not even the coaches, ate the dinner. After dinner we went party hopping and some of the recruits had parties in their suites.”

A recruit left his keys in his room, so he kicked the door down.

“I don’t think Notre Dame will want us after that weekend.”

Dickerson said he will attend Arkansas.

Trivia time: Which baseball Hall of Famer went to Notre Dame as a freshman, but signed a pro contract after getting 21 hits in 22 at-bats against collegiate pitching? Answer below.

Dean Kennedy of the Kings gets no respect.

Earlier this season, he was traded by the Kings to the New York Rangers, and made such an impression that he recently was traded back to the Kings.

Kennedy, who has been in the National Hockey League for seven seasons, says he never has had his picture on a bubblegum card.

While with the Rangers, Kennedy was named the most average defenseman in the NHL by the Hockey News. But the picture the newspaper ran on its cover was not of Kennedy, but of Ranger farmhand Ken Hammond.

The Hockey News tried to make up for it by knocking a picture of Wayne Gretzky off the cover of its current issue for one of Kennedy, but his trade back to the Kings came after the paper went to press. The picture is of Kennedy in a Rangers uniform.

Robin Givens, who recently said she would make no more public statements about her personal life with heavyweight champion Mike Tyson, in an interview with Woman’s Own magazine, blames Tyson’s relationship with promoter Don King for their divorce.

“I really don’t want to be in the same room as (King), or to be photographed with him or have anything to do with him,” Givens said. “So, because I feel that way about him, it makes our relationship impossible. The problem is that Michael and I are very similar--we’re both fighters.”

Trivia answer: Carl Yastrzemski.

Quotebook

Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda: “I have only two goals for this year. One is for the Dodgers to repeat as world champions, the other is to get my name in Morning Briefing more than Lou Holtz.”