Just Address His Fan Mail to: ‘Jim Cheffers, L.A. Coliseum’

The words friendly and Los Angeles Coliseum haven’t been seen in the same sentence for some time, so it might be refreshing to review Jim Cheffers’ special relationship with the building.

As a 10-year-old, Cheffers attended the 1932 Olympic Games at the Coliseum with his father. As a football player at Huntington Park High, he played in the Milk Bowl there. On weekends, he was an usher at USC and UCLA football games.

Later, he coached Roosevelt High in the City playoffs at the Coliseum and officiated both high school and Pacific 10 games for several years. And during Super Bowl I, Cheffers held the down box on the Coliseum sideline.

Add Cheffers: His 58-year love affair with the Coliseum also includes 20 years as Director of the CIF Los Angeles City Section, during which he supervised football playoffs and City and State championship track meets.

He served as a track steward at the 1984 Olympics, and for several years has been an observer of officials for Pac-10 football games at the Coliseum.

And since the Raiders arrived in 1982, Cheffers has been their only home game-clock operator. Time appears to be on his side.

Trivia time: Who holds the NBA career record for fouling out of the most regular-season games?

Mr. Attitude: If you’re sitting around wondering why the San Diego Padres finished fourth in the National League West and you can’t stop saying to yourself, “But they had all that talent, “ think about what Padre first baseman Jack Clark had to say about Padre right fielder Tony Gwynn Friday:

“We don’t have to be friends, we don’t have to hang out together, we don’t have to talk to each other, but on the field we can play together.”

They play, therefore they are: The Philosophic Society for the Study of Sport held its 18th annual conference last week in Ft. Wayne, Ind. In attendance were 36 philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, coaches, trainers and physical educators.

Among the topics: “The Moral Status of Intentional Fouling in Basketball” and “The Locus of Authority, Coercion and Critical Distance in the Decision to Play an Injured Player.”

Add Philosophic Society: New President David Fairchild, discussing media reaction to Cincinnati Coach Sam Wyche barring a female reporter from the Bengals’ locker room, said:

“I’m concerned that the media hovered on every word and dignified this insensitive, ignorant position for mass consumption like it was a well-formed, philosophically defensible, theoretically sound argument.

“Largely, I think that happened because there are so few philosophers of sport in the public eye. We’re willing to call anything that we hear from any avenue, from any corner, a philosophically significant pronouncement.”

Let’s get real: Obscure baseball statistic update: The Montreal Expos’ Otis Nixon recently broke the official major league record for most stolen bases in fewest at-bats, 50 in 228.

Maybe Nixon can go after Herb Washington of the Oakland Athletics, who stole 30 bases (28 in 1974, two in 1975) in no at-bats.

Trivia answer: Vern Mikkelsen of the Minneapolis Lakers, 127 times between 1949-50 and 1958-59.

Quotebook: Pittsburgh Pirate center fielder Andy Van Slyke: “It’s a pretty sad day when the Pirates can outscore the Steelers on any given Sunday.”