Favorite Show of Top Coaches: Sixtysomething

Consider it the graying of college basketball. According to the NCAA News, there are 18 Division I coaches age 60 or older, four more than last season. And the list includes some impressive names: Dean Smith of North Carolina, Jerry Tarkanian of Nevada Las Vegas, Lou Carnesecca of St. John’s and Jud Heathcote of Michigan State.

The oldest member is Hofstra’s Butch van Breda Kolff, 69.

Add over 60: Van Breda Kolff is expected to earn a niche in NCAA history next season by coaching against his son, Jan, currently in his first season at Cornell.

Should Hofstra and Cornell play--the game is in the planning stages--it would be only the third matchup of father and son coaches at the Division I level.

Ed Diddle, who spent 42 years coaching at Western Kentucky, faced his son, Ed Jr., who was coaching at Middle Tennessee, 12 times between 1957 and ’62. Ray Meyer of DePaul faced his son, Tom, coaching at Illinois Chicago, once, during the 1981-82 season.

More over 60: The elder Van Breda Kolff does not say much to his current players about his colorful coaching past, which includes consecutive 50-victory seasons with the Lakers of Jerry West and Elgin Baylor.

“But I will say that Jerry West, when he came back on defense, would take a peek over his shoulder and know where everyone was,” Van Breda Kolff said. “These kids look straight ahead. So I’ll use West’s name, but they don’t know who he is. All they know is Michael.”

Trivia time: CBS is televising the Winter Olympics for the first time since 1960. Who anchored the 1960 Games for CBS?

From out of the bushes: Jim Drucker’s work as an on-camera legal analyst for ESPN during the network’s coverage of the Mike Tyson rape trial prompted Newsday’s Stan Isaacs to recall a less serious time in Drucker’s life--his days as commissioner of the Continental Basketball Assn.

As CBA commissioner, Drucker, son of former NBA referee Norm Drucker, was famous for his promotional schemes, including one in which spectators were selected at random and given the chance to win $1 million by sinking a shot from the opposite free-throw line--a distance of 69 feet 9 inches. The CBA purchased a $1,200 insurance policy to cover the prize money in case someone made the $1-million shot, but no one was able to connect.

“When my mother, Shirley, complained that an ordinary person like her could not be expected to make such a long shot, we instituted a simple foul shot where (the prize for making it was) a ton of pennies, which was a little less than $2,000,” Drucker told Isaacs.

Add Drucker: A 1976 Duke law graduate, Drucker became ESPN’s expert on legal issues after he left the post of CBA commissioner and started producing telecasts of the league’s games for the cable network. He worked with ESPN reporters on legal stories behind the scenes at first and then asked to go on the air.

“I was no stranger to the camera,” Drucker said. “As CBA commissioner, I was a household name in places like Casper, Wyo., and LaCrosse, Wis.”

That’s our boy: Officials with the Sunkist Invitational indoor track meet have found one sure way to boost ticket sales--invite a member of the Curran family to compete in the pole vault.

Anthony Curran, one of six brothers who vaulted for high schools in the San Fernando Valley, will compete against world record-holder Sergei Bubka in the meet Feb. 15 at the Sports Arena, and members of the Curran family have already purchased 73 tickets, according to meet promoters.

Not a good sign: In a move that seemingly sums up the state of track and field these days, TWA, which has filed for bankruptcy, has been named the official airline of the Sunkist meet.

Trivia answer: Walter Cronkite.

Quotebook: Cleveland Indian Manager Mike Hargrove, after it was announced that the outfield fences would be moved in at Cleveland Stadium: “We’ll be able to tell what color the fences are without getting out binoculars.”