New IOC Rules Could Make Eagles Extinct

The days may be numbered for the Walter Mitty Olympians.

Under prodding by Juan Antonio Samaranch, president of the International Olympic Committee, competitors with no chance of winning are being weeded out of competition and are expected to be merely tourists by 1996.

In other words, no more characters such as Britain’s Eddie (the Eagle) Edwards, the comic ski jumper of the 1988 Games in Calgary.

Trivia time: How old was Sonja Henie when she competed as a figure skater in the 1924 Olympic Games?

Pet peeve: Don Nelson, coach of the Western Conference team in the NBA All-Star game, got bad news when he returned to his home in the Bay Area.

Nelson was raising a pet pig, Ms. Piggy, in his back yard. Greeting him on his front door was a summons from the county telling him that he must get rid of the pig.

“I’m sick about it,” Nelson said. “She is a great pet. I don’t know what will happen to her.”

Since when? ESPN’s Lee Corso doesn’t believe that Washington defensive tackle Steve Emtman will be the first player selected in the NFL draft.

“I don’t think Emtman will be No. 1. Desmond Howard will,” Corso told USA Today. “You can block Emtman.”

Snow, what’s that? Lamine Gueye and Alphonse Gomis compose the entire Olympic team from Senegal. However, Gueye, who finished 22 seconds behind winner Patrick Ortlieb of Austria in the downhill race Sunday, says that his countrymen don’t relate to winter sports.

“First, I have to explain to them what is snow,” Gueye said. “Then, what is a big mountain. The highest hill in Senegal is 250 meters.”

Drink up: Houston Oiler Coach Jack Pardee, who played at Texas A&M; when the late Bear Bryant was the coach, said that Bryant’s methods wouldn’t work today.

“I don’t treat people like he did. I don’t think you could get away with that anymore,” Pardee told Blackie Sherrod of the Dallas Morning News.

“It was tough. In those days you were a sissy if you needed a drink of water. The coaches were lucky they didn’t kill all their players. We’d work out four hours, lose 25 pounds and not get a drink of water. I expect to get as much out of my players as he did, but I go about it in a different way.”

Runaway: On Feb. 13, 1972, the Lakers beat the Baltimore Bullets, 121-110, to improve their record to 50-8 on their way to an NBA-record 69 victories.

Trivia answer: She was 11. Henie won gold medals in figure skating in the 1928, 1932 and 1936 Olympic Games.

Quotebook: Ulf Samuelsson, Pittsburgh Penguin defenseman, on his rugged style of play: “It’s really simple. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep opposing players from putting the puck in the net. Sometimes it’s illegal.”