Making Up Names for Themselves

How about this staff?

Girls’ gymnastics Coach Flora Exercize, boys’ gymnastics Coach Jim Knastic, girls’ softball Coach Rick Hardslide, girls’ drill team Coach Joe Blackendecker, girls’ badminton Coach Birdie Shuttlecock, boys’ rifle coach Roy Winchester and girls’ archery Coach Jane Krossbow.

Kearsley High School of Flint, Mich., submitted the list to the Clell Wade Coaches Directory, published in Cassville, Mo. A company spokesperson told the Associated Press the company tries to guard against this sort of prank.

But Kearsley athletic director Mike Hamilton told AP this is the second consecutive year his people have pulled the stunt. He added: “All of our coaches in the sports we have are correct.”

Add Kearsley High: Hamilton explained that the joke names were a way of having fun with companies that use the directory to build mailing lists. Said Hamilton: “It’s just a case of us handling junk mail.”

Trivia time: Name the only National Leaguer to play all 162 games in 1990.

Further review: The Arizona Republic and Phoenix radio station KMXX called the league’s New York headquarters to ask why its employees were working Monday, Martin Luther King Day.

Last fall, the NFL announced it would reconsider holding Super Bowl XXVII in Tempe, Ariz., if voters turned town a paid state holiday to homor King. Two ballot measures to create the holiday were defeated.

KMXX hosts “Drew and Zip” spoke on the air with Joe Browne, NFL vice president of communications, who explained that because of the league’s busy pre-Super Bowl week, it has postponed observance of the King holiday until Feb. 15.

Another story: Jan Hubbard of Newsday recently pointed out that of the nine players who have made “Stay in School” public service tapes for the NBA, seven left college early--Charles Barkley, Clyde Drexler, Michael Jordan, Karl Malone, J.R. Reid, Doc Rivers and Isiah Thomas.

Granted, Thomas and Jordan have since returned to complete work for their degrees, but Barkley told Hubbard: “An education is a wonderful thing--unless you can run and jump over houses.”

Mr. Wizard: Hartford Courant columnist Alan Greenberg wrote in Sunday’s editions: “I am here to tell you that the (New York) Giants have no chance of beating the San Francisco 49ers in today’s National Football Conference championship game.”

No resemblance: An item in Sunday’s Morning Briefing incorrectly noted that in 1944, Coach Jimmy Phelan’s St. Mary’s College football team, which went 0-5, played under the name St. Mary’s Pre-Flight.

Reader Dewey Wade correctly points out that there were separate teams, St. Mary’s and St. Mary’s Pre-Flight.

In a four-year period, St. Mary’s Pre-Flight, a U.S. Naval facility on the Moraga campus, trained 15,000 cadets, among them Gerald Ford.

The Pre-Flight football teams took advantage of college and pro players who enlisted, among them former Stanford and future San Francisco 49er quarterback Frankie Albert. Among the Pre-Flight coaches were former Portsmouth Spartan and Detroit Lion Coach George (Potsy) Clark and future Notre Dame Coach Frank Leahy.

Trivia answer: San Diego Padre outfielder Joe Carter.

Quotebook: Darrell Walker of Washington after Seattle, led by Olden Polynice’s 27 points, beat the Bullets, 111-89: “I thought we played against Kareem.”