Community Colleges Have a Super Record

A National Football League owner searching for the coach to take his team to a Super Bowl victory might do well to check the California community college ranks.

Five coaches with California community college backgrounds have coached in the Super Bowl, and the only Super Bowls any of them lost were to other coaches who also came out of what is widely considered the best community college system in the nation.

--Bill Walsh, who played at College of San Mateo and coached at Monterey Peninsula College, coached the San Francisco 49ers to three Super Bowl victories before retiring after the 49ers beat the Cincinnati Bengals for their latest title in January.

--Tom Flores, who played quarterback at Fresno City College, coached the Raiders to Super Bowl victories in 1981 and 1984.

--Joe Gibbs, who coached at Cerritos College, has coached the Washington Redskins to two victories in three Super Bowl appearances, losing only to Flores and the Raiders in 1984.

--John Madden, an offensive lineman for College of San Mateo and later coach at Hancock College, coached the Raiders to their first Super Bowl victory against the Minnesota Vikings in 1977.

--Dick Vermeil, who played at Napa College and later coached at Napa and San Mateo, coached the Philadelphia Eagles in their only Super Bowl appearance, losing to the Raiders and Flores in 1981.

Community affairs: College of San Mateo leads the nation in producing Super Bowl coaches with three--Walsh, Madden and Vermeil.

Trivia: When California won the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. basketball title in 1959, who did the Golden Bears beat in the Final Four?

Home away from home: Michigan will have the home-court advantage for today’s NCAA semifinal game against Illinois at the Kingdome in Seattle.

The floor, 6,720 square feet of hardwood maple, was made in Dollar Bay, Mich., by Horner Floor Co.

Joked Bill Gappy, the company’s director of portable sales: “We painted the lane blue, because Michigan’s going to win.”

Trivia answer: Coach Pete Newell’s Bears beat Oscar Robertson and Cincinnati in the semifinals, 64-58, and held off Jerry West and West Virginia in the championship game, 71-70.

Quotebook: Retiring Laker center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, when presented with a set of golf clubs by the Phoenix Suns: “Golf is a scary game. The ball is too small.”