Caveat Aikman: Way to Top Can Be Rocky

UCLA’s Troy Aikman, the highest-touted quarterback to come out of college since John Elway went from Stanford to the Denver Broncos in 1983, might open the season for the Dallas Cowboys, Coach Jimmy Johnson says.

“Troy has been everything we’ve expected and more,” Johnson said of the first pick in this year’s draft. “Mentally, he has a good grasp of what we’re trying to do, and we already knew how physically talented he is. He is right on schedule for where we want him to be. He may be ahead of schedule. I have no reservations about Troy possibly being the starter in that first game.”

Does this sound familiar? Elway also opened his rookie season as the starter. He lasted five games until--his play inept and his confidence shot--Coach Dan Reeves mercifully benched him, realizing he had rushed him.

Is there a pattern here?

Hold the cheese and mustard: Aikman’s contract calls for $11 million over six seasons, but after mini-camp practices he eats $3 sandwiches and sits on the locker room’s carpeted floor, brown-bagging it with offensive linemen.

“He hasn’t come in here with an attitude like, ‘Clear out, I’m the big cheese,’ ” said linebacker Garry Cobb, formerly of USC. “He’s working as hard as anybody. There’s no hotdog in him.”

Piston persona: The point-stingy Detroit Pistons might be the basketball team people love to hate, but center Bill Laimbeer says it’s not because of the tough defense they play, which makes for low-scoring, dull games. “No,” Laimbeer said. “I think it’s more because we have a bunch of personalities that people just can’t stand.”

Trivia time: The legendary ring at Madison Square Garden will be dismantled and stored--perhaps for good--when the Garden closes for two years of renovations soon. Which two famous current boxers never appeared there?

The VIPs strike out: Mike Tyson and his mentor, Don King, preparing to open training for a July 21 title defense against Carl Williams at Atlantic City, N.J., were unsuccessful in an attempt to get what a Trump executive called “the same treatment afforded Donald Trump”--namely, full-time maid and butler service, immediate and unlimited room service and unlimited use of Trump Air, a helicopter service between Atlantic City and New York.

“They will be treated as they always have in the past, in first-class Trump fashion,” the executive said. “Neither Mike Tyson nor Don King has bought Trump Plaza yet.”

Trivia answer: Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns, who will fight in Las Vegas June 12.

Quotebook: Georgs Kolesnikovs greeted a Los Angeles reporter in San Francisco as Kolesnikovs stepped off his boat after sailing 14,000 miles around Cape Horn from New York: “Thanks for coming all this way.”