Recruit’s Diary Offers Different Point of View

The Feb. 6 signing date for high school football recruits draws near. Soon, readers of the Houston Chronicle will be without correspondent Sam Adams, the Cypress Creek (Tex.) defensive lineman whose weekly “Recruiting Diary” has revealed information such as this excerpt from a visit to Texas A&M;:

(Scene: The office of Texas A&M; President Dr. William Mobley.)

“We were talking about the type of student as well as athletes they wanted to come into the university. (Mobley) said they wanted not only a good athlete, but a well-rounded person. He said I would be typical of what they wanted.

“Dr. Mobley’s office was cozy and nice. He has a gorgeous view of the city from his office, and he was polite and cool. He was very cool.”

Add recruit: Adams’ host for the visit was Texas A&M; running back Greg Hill.

Adams wrote: “Greg is obsessed with winning the Heisman Trophy. Every time we went by it in the coaches’ office, he would hug it. I thought that was funny.”

Last add recruit: Peter Brewington of USA Today reported Friday that Adams told a Houston television station that before his visit to Texas A&M;, someone called Aggie Coach R.C. Slocum at 5:30 a.m. “posing as me . . . woke him up and asked him a couple of questions . . . and hung up.”

Adams also said that he had received articles in the mail that told of “bigotry and the prejudice” at Texas A&M; and Texas.

Trivia time: Which Texas A&M; player won the Heisman Trophy?

They’re excused: Don Nelson, coach of the Golden State Warriors, recently had his rookie players over for dinner.

Nelson told the Associated Press: “I wanted them to know I can be their friend. I don’t really hate rookies. I just wish they were smarter.”

Shaquille who?The folklore keeps pouring out of the University of New Orleans, now a household name after its basketball team, ranked No. 22, scored a national television coup with an 11:08 p.m. game on ESPN recently.

Austin Wilson of the Associated Press joined the media blitz, reporting that the Privateers’ 6-foot-11 center, Ervin (Baby Magic) Johnson, a 63% shooter averaging 13.8 rebounds a game this season, was once a clumsy, skinny, 213-pound, walk-on with a different nickname, bestowed on him by the Privateers’ student section:

Voodoo.

Good balance: In a recent 55-27 basketball loss to Princeton, Yale players John Brodsky, David Brown and Ed Peterson were their team’s scoring leaders with five points each.

The system works: The Feb. 26 scheduling conflict between the Arizona-Stanford basketball game and the Arizona gubernatorial runoff election has been resolved.

No, not by postponing the election.

The polls close at 7 p.m. The game, which had been scheduled for a 7 p.m. tipoff, will begin at 8 p.m., allowing late voters to put aside their fears of missing the first half.

According to AP, Pima County Democratic Chairman Bill Minette, who said earlier this week that several people had told him they would rather skip the election than part of the game, said there was “ample precedent” for moving starting times of events “of smaller concern to the citizens of Tucson and Arizona.”

Trivia answer: Fullback John David Crow, in 1957.

Quotebook: Washington Bullet forward John Williams, on having gone from 280 to 302 pounds in the off-season: “Looking at myself in the mirror, I really couldn’t tell.”