Versace Has Trouble Breaking Own Team’s Full-Court Press

Coach Dick Versace of the Indiana Pacers has been feuding with Indianapolis reporters David Brenner and Steve Brunner, and according to the San Francisco Examiner, he called a team meeting, in which he told the players how to handle them.

“Dave and Steve are nice guys, but they’re from the country. They don’t know any better. So watch what you say to them,” was the gist of Versace’s message.

Says Benner: “Within 30 minutes after the meeting, two of the players told me everything that went on. Within four days after the meeting, eight players came up and told me what happened.”

Hair-raising: Heavyweight champion Buster Douglas, on Don King: “I’m not sure where he stands. He’s been working on me. I see him in my dreams saying, ‘Buster, Buster, come to me.’ ”

Now-it-can-be-told Dept.: Marvin Godwin, a two-way back from Camden, N.J., forsook Ohio State at the last minute and signed with UCLA because his mother liked Bruin recruiter Jacob Burney.

Godwin told the Philadelphia Inquirer that his mother had known Burney when he was an assistant at Wisconsin, where another of her sons is playing.

Said Godwin: “She liked him a lot. She really didn’t like the recruiter from Ohio State.”

Trivia time: What do Reggie Williams of the San Antonio Spurs, Muggsy Bogues of the Charlotte Hornets and Reggie Lewis of the Boston Celtics have in common? (Answer below.)

Add Williams: He flopped with the Clippers after they had made him the No. 4 pick in the first round of the draft, and he quickly wore out his welcome in Cleveland.

Said Peter May of the Hartford Courant: “He didn’t endear himself with anyone with his pathetic work habits (last to arrive, first to leave). He ranks as one of the biggest draft boondoggles since Bill Garnett, who also was taken No. 4, by the Dallas Mavericks.”

Grrrr: From Philadelphia forward Charles Barkley: “I can’t stand Bill Laimbeer. I’d just love to bait him into a fight one time, but he won’t fight. He plays dirty but he doesn’t want to fight.”

Add Barkley: Laughing at attempts by the Detroit Pistons to intimidate former teammate Rick Mahorn when they played the 76ers, Barkley said, “God gave Mahorn the sense of a billy-goat. You can’t intimidate him.”

More Barkley: Says CBS analyst Hubie Brown: “He rebounds like Wes Unseld and jumps like Julius Erving. How can you beat that?”

Woof, woof: Said Arkansas basketball Coach Nolan Richardson when asked why he stomps up and down, screaming at his players in practice: “I always believe we will take our practices to games with us. I make practices 40 minutes of hell. I’ve always said I want my players to be savage dogs with rabies when they play.”

Trivia answer: They were teammates at Baltimore Dunbar High School.

Quotebook: Free-agent pitcher Bob Knepper, waiting at his Oregon ranch for job offers: “If there is no interest, then I’ll go to career No. 2--professional manure-shoveler.”