They’re Pushing Too Far

Butch van Breda Kolff, who has coached Picayune High School in New Orleans and the Lakers, with a women’s pro basketball team in between, is in the second year of his second stint as coach at Hofstra University. He is more disillusioned than ever.

“The NCAA has made it so the game is played for the spectator,” he told Newsday. “The NCAA wants to put on a show, TV, hoopla, hype. It’s ceased being a sport. It’s a sham.

“Let’s be honest. They don’t want to blow the whistle. The game’s too physical. Bully-ball is what it’s become. The fundamentals of the game are being completely forgotten.

“All the kids want to be Dr. J, but nobody can throw a two-hand pass anymore.”

Add van Breda Kolff: He last coached Hofstra in 1962, before moving on to the National Basketball Assn. Since then, he admits, there have been changes.

“The biggest change I’ve had to go through is the change in bureaucracy,” he said. “When I started at Lafayette, I had no assistants. I did everything myself, plus I coached soccer and lacrosse. I was a good soccer coach. But lacrosse? Terrible. The first game I coached was the first I ever saw. We went 0-9 that year and I said, ‘Well, we can’t do any worse next year,’ and then the A.D. went out and scheduled 10 games.”

Department of what goes around, etc: According to Duane Thomas’ biography, “Duane Thomas and the Fall of America’s Team,” Tony Dorsett was once heard remonstrating about his unceremonious demotion in favor of Herschel Walker.

This was well in advance of Coach Tom Landry’s own demotion, which was at least as unceremonious.

“A guy shouldn’t have to read it in the papers,” Dorsett complained. “(Tom) Landry or the general manager owes it to us. We should hear it first from them.”

Hall of Famer Whitey Ford got to calculating when Roger Clemens’ contract with Boston was announced.

“As I figure it, and I think I’m right, the Red Sox are paying Roger Clemens $600 a pitch,” he said.

This, the former New York Yankees star said, contrasts with his $16.60-a-pitch season, when he earned $78,000.

Continuing to calculate, Ford worked out figures that showed Kirby Puckett will earn $4,000 an at-bat this season. Fellow Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle, meanwhile, made $200 per at-bat in his highest-salaried year.

Not ready for prime time: Others may have noticed it, but it took Phil Jackman of the Baltimore Evening Sun to point it out.

“On the same day the NBA announced that 14 games will be broadcast in the Soviet Union beginning next month, a station in Los Angeles said it was cutting back on Clipper games,” Jackman wrote.

There’s a lesson there somewhere.

Attention, Whitey Ford: It might be comforting to all the old-timers to know that Joe DiMaggio, though he never made more than $100,000 as the Yankee Clipper, is now pulling down $5,000 an hour at baseball card shows.

What goes around, continued: UCLA Coach Jim Harrick, whose team scored its biggest victory this season after a controversial goaltending call against Louisville, was nevertheless complaining about the officiating recently.

“I haven ‘t seen them give us any breaks this year,” he said, then paused. “Well, except for one.”

Quotebook

Fighting Irish football Coach Lou Holtz, after the shortest Morning Briefing off-season ever, had this to say about Miami Coach Jimmy Johnson’s moving on to the Dallas Cowboys. “Better that than at Notre Dame.”