His Latest Gang of Players Hasn’t Even <i> Seen </i> the Hill

George Allen, 72, hired last December as football coach at Cal State Long Beach, recently revisited Washington to be inducted into the Touchdown Club’s Hall of Fame. Some highlights from his banquet speech, reported by Dave Sell of the Washington Post:

--On producing a winner: “I think the second year, third year, we can turn it around. We didn’t have enough players to play the spring game. We only had three defensive linemen. The most we had at any practice was seven, and we’re going to use a four-man line.”

--On NCAA rules: “It seems like whatever is logical, you can’t do it.”

--On recruiting: “The first home I went to . . . people were coming in from around the neighborhood. The young kids had never heard of George Allen. The parents and grandparents had.”

Add Allen: Former Redskin tackle Diron Talbert, a member of the Over-the-Hill Gang in the 1970s, was interviewed by former Washington Post reporter Gary Pomerantz, who is writing a book on Allen. “(Pomerantz) asked how old I thought George would be when he dies,” Talbert said. “I said I thought he was one of the few people I know who could live to 100. But when he took the Long Beach job, it knocked him down to 90.”

Trivia time: Who was the youngest boxer ever to win a world title?

Buyer beware: Marty Blake, chief scout for the NBA, figures, along with nearly everyone, that LSU’s Chris Jackson will be a high pick in today’s draft. But he told Jan Hubbard of Newsday that he has his doubts.

“I don’t dislike Chris Jackson, but I’ve got to take into consideration that he can’t guard anybody,” Blake said. “And the biggest thing is that he played for a team with eight draftable players, four lottery picks, and they finished third in their league. And when he played somebody tough, like (Georgia Tech’s) Brian Oliver, he was five of 16 from the field.”

Cruise control: The movie ads say, “You can’t outrun the thunder.” In Monday’s testing for the 400-mile race July 7 at Daytona Beach, Fla., no one could outrun Greg Sacks, who reached 193.590 m.p.h. in a Chevrolet Lumina. In “Days of Thunder,” Sacks is one of actor Tom Cruise’s stand-ins.

Downhill from there: On this day in 1973, 18-year-old left-hander David Clyde, a $125,000 bonus baby, pitched his first game for the Texas Rangers before a crowd of 35,698, the Rangers’ first home sellout at Arlington Stadium. Clyde went five innings, striking out eight and giving up one hit as Texas beat the Minnesota Twins, 4-3.

It might have been the high-water mark of Clyde’s five-year major league career. After surgery on his left elbow in 1976, he spent two years in the minors and in 1978 was traded to Cleveland. Clyde retired with a record of 18-33 and an earned-run average of 4.63.

Trivia answer: Wilfred Benitez, who won the WBA junior-welterweight title in 1976 at 17 years 176 days.

Quotebook: Pam Shriver, on pay scales in men’s and women’s tennis: “If it was up to the men, they’d be playing for $25 million and we’d be playing for 25 cents.”