These Coaches Have Heart-to-Heart Talk

Rick Majerus, the University of Utah’s basketball coach, was understandably nervous before undergoing coronary bypass surgery Thursday.

Majerus said he called a friend, Indiana University assistant coach Don Donoher. “I told Don, ‘I’m really apprehensive,’ ” Majerus said. “ ‘I don’t know what I’m getting into. I wonder if Bob (Knight, Indiana’s coach) could give me Bo Schembechler’s phone number.’ At 7 o’clock the next morning, Schembechler was on the phone to me.”

Schembechler, the University of Michigan coach who will retire after the Wolverines play USC in the Rose Bowl, underwent open heart surgery in 1970 and 1987.

“He talked to me a long time and explained everything,” Majerus told the Herald-Times of Bloomington, Ind. “And he said, ‘You’re going to be better than ever, and you’re going to feel better. You’re going to be more productive.’ ”

Majerus, who coached at Ball State in Indiana, still is in intensive care at a Salt Lake City hospital. He said he plans to change his diet.

“I am a cured man,” he said. “I’m never going to that Choo-Choo Train and eat a bucket of ribs again. I don’t know if I can go with a carrot souffle, but I can’t eat every rib in the house like I used to.”

Trivia time: On Dec. 18, 1964, who scored 56 points, including 18 in the final quarter, in a 111-107 victory over the Lakers?

Camera shy: Don’t expect any interviews with Philadelphia Coach Buddy Ryan during the Eagles-New Orleans Saints telecast on ABC tonight. Ryan still is fuming over some comments by the ABC crew during Philadelphia’s loss to the Bears at Chicago Oct. 2 and said he isn’t going to talk to them.

“They put down Buddy Ryan,” he said. “They put down (Eagle quarterback) Randall Cunningham. They put down our football team. I don’t have any respect for them. We don’t need these guys. They need us.”

He touched ‘em all: There’s only so much good a pregame pep talk from Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda can do.

Lasorda, in Indiana for a visit, gave a brief talk to the Valparaiso Crusaders basketball team Saturday night before their nonconference home game against Xavier.

The Crusaders appeared fired up as they emerged from the locker room after Lasorda’s talk and, despite their 0-6 record, they took a 12-5 lead against the Musketeers. But the magic wore off, and Xavier improved to 3-1 with a 95-63 victory.

Trivia answer: Oscar Robertson of the Cincinnati Royals.

Quotebook: John Brockman of Spring Valley, Ohio, who saw his first race at Hialeah in 1939, on rumors that the Florida race track will be turned into a cemetery: “It’s like a champion that’s over the hill. Time has passed it by, that’s all.”