SAN DIEGO COLLEGE NOTEBOOK : Amituanai Doing His Part for Palomar

Most of the praise going to the Palomar College football team this year has centered around record-breaking quarterback Brett Salisbury.

Palomar (6-4) plays Antelope Valley (8-2) in the annual Hall of Fame Bowl 1 p.m. Saturday at Balboa Stadium, and Salisbury, a transfer from Brigham Young, has certainly been a major factor. He is the state’s leading passer at 332 yards per game and has established a pair of national records for completions (273) in a season and touchdowns (eight) in a game.

But the Comet defense deserves some of the credit as well, and not many would deny that credit after a visit with defensive lineman Tamasi Amituanai.

Amituanai is one of those guys that isn’t quite sure of his weight, because there aren’t many cattle scales around the Palomar campus. Just say he’s heavier than 300 pounds.

A highly recruited All-American from Vista High, where he was the San Diego Section defensive player of the year, Amituanai signed a letter of intent with Colorado. He never quite got untracked in Boulder, though.

He was declared academically ineligible last year as a freshman for not meeting Proposition 48 requirements, but he could live with that.

The illness and death last fall of his first cousin, Sal Aunese, was a bit harder on him.

“(Sal) was the reason I went over there in the first place,” Amituanai said. “After he died, everything kind of fell apart for me. The thought of Sal not being there really began to gnaw at me.”

Later, in February, a dormitory fighting incident led Colorado Coach Bill McCartney to suspend Amituanai for the upcoming season.

Rather than sit out another year, Amituanai decided this summer to transfer to Palomar.

And so far, he has been quite happy with the decision. He and Palomar have had fine seasons, and he expects more of the same next year with eight freshman defensive starters expected back.

It doesn’t even bother him to look in the paper and see Colorado ranked No. 1 and nipping at a national championship.

On the contrary, he said, “I root for them every game.”

Another former San Diego player built like Capitol Hill is Lincoln Kennedy of Washington.

Kennedy, a Morse High graduate, is a 6-9, 310-pound offensive tackle for the Rose Bowl-bound Huskies.

Did you know?: In the San Diego State men’s basketball media guide, player’s Division I statistics are listed below a brief biographical sketch. For first-year players, a graphic entitled “Did you know . . . “ takes the place of the stats.

Did you know the “Did you know . . . “ graphics outnumber the stats graphics, 9-5?

One of the “Did you know . . . “ graphics informs us that Tony Gwynn, a former Aztec point guard before he went on to terrorize National League pitchers, is the Aztecs’ record holder for assists in a game (18), season (221) and career (590).

What about Penzoil or Chico’s Bail Bonds?: The Illawara Hawks of Australia’s National Basketball League, in town last week for exhibition games against SDSU and USD, wore numerous advertising logos on their uniforms and warmup suits like a NASCAR driver or the players in the movie Bad News Bears.

Examples: State Bank; Tile Power; BHP Steel; Cooper Tools; and Wollongong Toyota.

Do as I did: Ben Foster, Point Loma Nazarene men’s basketball coach who played for the Crusaders from 1964-68, is fourth on the schools’ all-time scoring list and second on the all-time rebounding list. Foster, who stands about 6-feet-6, also holds the school mark for rebounds in a game with 33 during the 1965-66 season.

Add coaches’ stats: Gus Magee, an assistant coach and former player (1966-70) at USD, holds the Toreros’ records for rebounds in a career (948) and game (24) and is second in season rebounds (344). Randy Bennett, another USD assistant, is fifth on the UC San Diego career assist list with 216 in 52 games.