Afterward, His Fear Turned Into Loathing

Bob Verdi of the Chicago Tribune ran into Bill Murray last week after the comedian played the Pebble Beach Golf Links for the first time. Verdi found a tormented soul.

“I’ve always been afraid to play here,” said Murray, a 16-handicapper. “Now I know why. What I should do is go back to the hotel room and find some religious literature.”

Asked to provide a score, Murray replied: “Score? I’ve got none to report. My first impression of this place is that I hate everything about it and everybody who has anything to do with it.”

Trivia time: What school has produced more Pro Bowl players than any other in each of the last five years?

Take his act . . . please: Terry Nelson, a member of the University of Cincinnati basketball team, aspires to do stand-up comedy, and he has already presented his act in several clubs. He has found his coach, Bob Huggins, to be a tough audience, however.

“He’s so tense,” Nelson told Bill Koch of the Cincinnati Post. “He’s such a competitor. I try to break the tension a little bit so he’ll ease up on us in practice. It works sometimes. I can make him laugh, but I still have to run.”

Perhaps Huggins loses his sense of humor when he sees that Nelson, a forward from Long Beach Poly High School and Long Beach City College, is averaging 2.7 points and 1.9 rebounds for the Bearcats.

Not ready for prime time: While UCLA has returned to national prominence in college basketball, the Bruins are proving to be something less than bewitching to television viewers. Sunday’s 78-64 victory over Louisville on Channel 7 drew a 2.4 rating, according to preliminary figures released Monday by the A.C. Nielsen Co. With each local rating point being equivalent to 48,751 households, the 2.4 figure means about 117,000 households were tuned to the Bruins.

Opposite UCLA-Louisville on Channel 13, reruns of “Bewitched” and “Head of the Class” got 4.1 and 4.8 ratings, and the 1955 version of “Robin Hood” on Channel 5 drew a 3.7.

Sunday’s best-watched sporting event was the Lakers’ 103-97 loss to the Chicago Bulls on Channel 4, which received an 8.6.

Counting the minutes: For those who put a lot of stock in those “blue-chip” lists of high school football prospects, Jack Wilkinson of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution recalls the case of Norm Balentine, an offensive tackle from St. Louis who was a Parade magazine high school All-American in 1987.

According to Wilkinson, Balentine went on to a career at Notre Dame that can be measured in minutes--3 1/2, to be precise.

After failing to appear in a game for the Irish as a freshman, Balentine got in one game (for 36 seconds) as a sophomore and three (for a total of 2 minutes 54 seconds) as a junior. He then quit football.

“Nice kid, but I couldn’t imagine him blocking anyone,” an unidentified Notre Dame official told Wilkinson. “That’s the fallacy of those recruiting lists. They’re not always perfect or indicative of success at the next level.”

Add counting: No problem, however, finding out whatever happened to the No. 1 player on the 1987 Parade all-America list. Emmitt Smith of Pensacola, Fla., went on to become the University of Florida’s all-time rushing leader, the first-round pick of the Dallas Cowboys in the 1990 draft and the NFL rushing leader last season.

Trivia answer: USC. In this year’s game, four of the eight safeties were former Trojans--Ronnie Lott, Dennis Smith, Tim McDonald and Mark Carrier. The other three Pro Bowl players from USC were offensive tackle Anthony Munoz, center Don Mosebar and linebacker Junior Seau.

Quotebook: Redskin offensive line coach Jim Hanifan, on his plans to move Joe Jacoby from right tackle to left guard in place of Raleigh McKenzie and put Ed Simmons in Jacoby’s old spot next season: “It makes us a bigger line. And for us, big is beautiful.”