Riley and Abdul-Jabbar Held Court in High School

The date was Dec. 29, 1961, and Linton High School of Schenectady, N.Y., was playing Power Memorial of New York City.

The star of the Linton team was an aggressive 6-foot-3 junior forward by the name of Pat Riley.

And Power had a 6-10 freshman by the name of Lew Alcindor, who would become Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Riley scored 19 points to share high-point honors for Linton, and Alcindor had eight points for Power Memorial.

Power led at halftime, 43-35, but Linton scored the first eight points of the second half, led most of the way and won, 74-68.

Bill Boehm, 6-5 center for Linton, said Alcindor was a gawky kid. “But there was one play, down around the south end of the Linton high gym,” Boehm recalled. “There was a loose ball and I reached down for it with some other players. By the time I could turn around he had picked it up and dunked it. . . . You could tell that he was going to be the next big player in the game.”

Trivia: hat player has the record for most points in a National Basketball Assn. playoff game?

Fighting footballers: Talk of Mike Tyson possibly fighting 315-pound offensive tackle Tony Mandarich brings back memories of Ed (Too Tall) Jones’ brief ring career in 1979.

One-time Dallas Cowboy teammate Tom (Hollywood) Henderson recalled: “Too Tall was the best defensive end in pro football, but the worst fighter I’ve ever seen.”

Maybe veteran fight trainer Freddie Brown best summed up Jones’ boxing talent. “Too Tall’s problem was he wasn’t getting any better, and if you don’t get better, you can’t improve,” Brown said.

More on Mandarich: The Green Bay Packers’ top draft pick says: “I wish the Packers would get off their rear and sign me and get this Tyson thing out of the way. But if they’re not going to quit screwing around, then . . . I’ll fight Tyson. The longer they wait, the closer I get to Tyson.”

Location is everything: The first flip of the coin for the Ram-San Francisco 49er exhibition game in Tokyo Aug. 6 has already been held. The 49ers won the flip, but their players lost.

The flip was to decide which team got the better rooms in the new wing of a hotel where both teams will be quartered. But when the 49ers won, they chose the old wing.

Why? The players will have a shorter walk to the entrance where the buses load.

Wouldn’t want to get ‘em tired out.

Trivia answer: Michael Jordan set the record of 63 points against Boston on April 20, 1986, breaking Elgin Baylor’s record of 61 against Boston on April 14, 1962.

Quotebook: Former Angel Mickey Rivers, once playing a game of trivia on the team bus, started by asking, “What was the name of the dog on ‘Rin Tin Tin?’ ”