For Chaney, Coaching Clippers Was Real Learning Experience

The Rockets were in the playoffs for all of four games before the Lakers dumped them, but Houston Coach Don Chaney isn’t about to feel sorry for himself. After all, nothing could be worse than what coaching the Clippers was.

With a year left on his Houston contract and no extension being offered, speculation already has Chaney bolting the Rockets and replacing Mike Fratello in Atlanta, although Willis Reed is believed to be at the top of the Hawks’ list.

One thing’s for sure, though, he won’t be coaching the Clippers.

Chaney was fired after the Clippers went 12-70 in 1986-87, a season so woeful that Clipper Mike Woodson once said of it: “All of us on that team were mentally unbalanced that year.”

Chaney credited his Clipper experience for at least something.

“I learned a lot from that job,” he said. “I learned how to cope under the most stressful situations imaginable. Anything after that doesn’t look so bad.”

Want to look younger?: Woodson, who played for Chaney at Houston this year, said not coaching the Clippers seems to have worked wonders for his boss. “Don looks younger now than he did back then.”

Run to daylight: Gene Lang, a running back with the Atlanta Falcons, ran the wrong way during a minicamp workout--around right end, out of bounds and over team owner Rankin Smith Sr.

The owner smiled and was unhurt, but linebacker Marcus Cotton, formerly of USC, rushed toward Lang and said: “Get your last check and go home.”

Coach Jerry Glanville: “I cut anybody who’s dumb enough to run over the owner.”

Smith told Glanville to get rid of Lang: “He can’t see. How can you put a blind man on the field?”

He was kidding, wasn’t he?

Trivia Time: What did Babe Ruth do on this day in 1915 in the Polo Grounds?

Because it’s there: Want to climb Mount Everest? You can forget it if Norbu Tenzing has his way. The son of Tenzing Norgay, one of the first two men to scale Everest in 1953, is calling for a five-year ban on climbing to save the world’s highest peak from a litter problem.

He suggested a $100 conservation levy for every climber, because there are trails of rubbish up the mountain and deforestation is widespread.

Calling Dr. Reggie: Jose Canseco, the Oakland Athletics slugger who has gotten into hot water for speeding and carrying a gun, is getting advice from another hard-hitting sometimes-erring former Oakland A’s slugger--Reggie Jackson.

“I’ve told him he can be baseball’s first $5-million man,” Jackson told Dave Anderson of the New York Times. “I’ve told him that ‘You are something special. You need to play special. It’s your responsibility. It’s your obligation.’ ”

So has Dr. Reggie done any good with Jose?

“I’ve talked with him but I haven’t gotten into his head yet.”

Trivia Answer: Ruth, then a pitcher with the Red Sox, hit his first major league home run, off the Yankees’ Jack Warhop.

Quotebook: From race car driver Neil Bonnett, recuperating from a concussion that left him with a severe case of amnesia, telling a room full of reporters and friends at Talladega: “It’s not only good to see you, it’s good to know you for a change.”