Budding Star Goes Houston, er, Hollywood

Contrary to his image, George Foreman doesn’t just sit around eating burgers and fries between fights. He is a very busy man, particularly in the entertainment field.

According to W.H. Stickney of the Houston Chronicle, Foremen recently signed a deal with Columbia Pictures to star in a weekly television sitcom. Foreman told Stickney that he will play “a guy like myself” on the show, which will be set in Houston, Foreman’s home town, but filmed in Hollywood.

“I guess they’re going to move the Astrodome to Los Angeles,” Foreman said.

Add Foreman: He is also due to appear in an upcoming segment of “Home Improvement,” the sitcom about the host of a TV show for do-it-yourselfers.

“They asked me what I build,” Foreman told Stickney. “I told them ‘sandwiches.’ ”

Trivia time: Guard Terrell Lowery of Loyola Marymount and forward Brett Roberts of Morehead State are two of the top five NCAA Division I scorers in college basketball this season. They also have something in common off the court. What is it?

One regret: At the 1960 Winter Olympics, television celebrities from Los Angeles came to the site of the Games, Squaw Valley, Calif., to help CBS promote its coverage of the event. One such celebrity, Art Linkletter, used the occasion to learn how to ski.

“He kept urging me to get out on the slopes, but I didn’t have time,” recalled Walter Cronkite, who anchored CBS’ coverage. “He became a superb skier before the Olympics were over. I’ve been envious of that ever since.”

Add 1960: Carol Heiss Jenkins, the women’s figure skating champion at Squaw Valley, recalled a television interviewer asking her: “Were you very cold out there in short skirts?”

More 1960: According to Alex Cushing, organizer of the Squaw Valley Olympics, a major crisis was averted just before the Games were to begin. It seems federal officials wanted to obtain the fingerprints of competing athletes.

“Because of the McCarthy era, athletes refused to come if they were fingerprinted,” Cushing said. “That had to be eliminated.”

It’s no Garden, but . . . The name of Brandeis University’s new basketball facility: Red Auerbach Arena.

Vaulting for dollars: The tab for bringing Segei Bubka, the world-record holder in the pole vault, to the Sunkist Invitational indoor track meet at the Sports Arena will run about $50,000 (appearance fee, travel expenses, bonus money, etc.)--a figure roughly equal to the meet’s entire budget in its first year, 1960.

Above the fray: The latest rage in professional golf? Sky boxes. The Oakmont Country Club in suburban Pittsburgh, site of the U.S. Women’s Open this year, will build 24 such boxes above the stands surrounding the 18th green. Each box will be big enough for about 24 people to eat, drink and-- maybe--watch the golf below.

Wrong words, wrong time: The firing of Buffalo assistant coach Chuck Dickerson, who colorfully--and publicly-- poked fun at Washington’s offensive linemen prior to the Super Bowl, prompted Blackie Sherrod of the Dallas Morning News to dredge up the old Alex Hawkins quote about Dick Butkus: “The Bears once awarded him the game ball. He ate it. But he is learning. I noticed him using a knife and fork. Both in the same hand.”

Noted Sherrod: “At the Super Bowl, those words would have gone right into ‘Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations.’ But this was a mere Pro Bowl, so it was hardly noticed.”

One that got away: Shea Morenz, the hotshot high school quarterback from San Angelo, Tex., who rejected UCLA and Stanford to sign with the University of Texas, seems almost too good to be true. Not only did he pass for 3,316 yards and 41 touchdowns last season, but he found plenty of time to study (SAT score: 1070) and work on his golf game (handicap: seven).

Trivia answer: Both spent last summer playing professional baseball in the minor leagues-- Lowery, an outfielder, in the Texas Rangers’ organization and Roberts, a pitcher, in the Minnesota Twins’ organization.

Quotebook: Oklahoma State basketball star Byron Houston, on his role as an enforcer: “I like villains. Villains are cool people. I cried when the monster got killed in ‘Aliens.’ ”