49er Coaches Find Halftime Is No Time to Be With Players

The San Francisco 49ers’ coaching staff has a thing or two to say about the NFL’s new hurry-up halftime.

Special teams coach Lynn Stiles, commenting on the league’s shortening of the intermission from 15 minutes to 12, told Jim Jenkins of the Sacramento Bee: “Everyone is aware why they’re doing it. TV has to fit in those prime-time movies or shows after games.”

At halftime of the 49ers’ exhibition against the Denver Broncos Monday night, offensive coordinator Mike Holmgren and defensive coordinator Bill McPherson voted, or didn’t vote, with their feet. Neither man went from the press box to the locker room. Instead, they sent a delegate, linebackers coach Bob Zeman.

Zeman said that at most, he had two minutes to talk with the players. “The way it used to be, a position coach would be able to spend time with his own players,” he said, “but there was no time for that.”

Trivia time: Who was the last major league player to win a batting title in the season after he was traded?

Perilous fight: Christian Holgard, an assistant football coach at North Dakota State, said last week that during his entire high school football career he never heard his school’s fight song.

The reason, Holgard said, was simple: His team never scored a touchdown.

Holgard added: “I was always under the impression that our school song was ‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’ ”

One big family: In 1973, the year George Steinbrenner and his partners purchased the New York Yankees from CBS, the Yankees’ starting pitcher on opening day was Mel Stottlemyre.

Monday, when Steinbrenner stepped down as the team’s general partner, Stottlemyre’s son, Todd, started for the Toronto Blue Jays against the Yankees.

Verbal salvos: Jerry Glanville, the Atlanta Falcons’ new coach, dresses in black. This year, the Falcons are switching to black uniforms. The Atlanta Journal recently invited readers to suggest slogans that would suit the uniforms, the coach and his tough-guy attitude.

Some of the 1,168 responses:

“Every Sunday is Black Sunday.”

“The fighting Falcons: More TKOs than TDs”

“Suwanee swat team.”

“Back in black and not cutting anybody any slack.”

“The NHL returns to Atlanta.”

Life, liberty and disco: Argentine soccer star Diego Maradona took a free kick at Italian reporters this week. He said that becoming a coach after he retires would give him “an opportunity for arguing with the media and the fans also in the future.”

Maradona, 30, whose contract with Napoli of the Italian major league expires in 1993, would not discuss his recent unauthorized overnight trip with a group of teammates to a night club on the Adriatic coast.

Said Maradona: “We have the right to go to the disco. This is something we have discussed with (Coach Alberto) Bigon. Certainly, we are not going to debate it with the media, which is trying to give us lessons about morals and professionalism.”

Trivia answer: Al Oliver of the Montreal Expos in 1983.

Quotebook: New Michigan football Coach Gary Moeller, comparing himself to his predecessor, Bo Schembechler: “A lot of people think I’m softer, probably. I guess I’m slower to boil. But when I get mad, I stay mad.”