Nothing Junior About a Team With Staubach, O.J. and Rozier

Junior college transfers are becoming increasingly important to major college football programs, but Hank Ives, founder of J.C. Grid Wire since 1960, says it shouldn’t come as a surprise.

“Roger Staubach went from New Mexico Military to Navy in 1962 and won the Heisman Trophy,” Ives said.

Two other Heisman winners, O.J. Simpson of San Francisco (USC, 1968) and Mike Rozier of Coffeyville, Kan. (Nebraska, 1983), are in the Grid Wire’s all-time junior college backfield.

Jackie Robinson of Pasadena is the other back. His broken-field running attracted Friday night crowds of as many as 40,000 to the Rose Bowl in 1938 to see Pasadena JC play.

All in a name: Rankin Smith owns the Atlanta Falcons and the corporate name is “The Five Smiths.” Can that be why Jerry Glanville selected three players named Smith during the NFL draft?

Tony Smith (Southern Mississippi) was taken during the first round, Chuck Smith (Tennessee) during the second and Frankie Smith (Baylor) during the fourth.

Trivia time: The Dodgers have had 11 National League rookies of the year since the award was initiated in 1947. Who was the first Dodger selected?

Memory lane: Deron Johnson is best remembered for his major league baseball career, but old-time high school fans recall his play as end and linebacker for San Diego in one of Southern California’s greatest high school football games, a 20-20 tie with Mickey Flynn and Anaheim in the 1955 CIF semifinal game. Johnson caught one touchdown pass and made most of the tackles as San Diego advanced on first downs, 17-14.

Logo lunacy: The U.S. Golf Assn. has ruled that amateurs competing in national championships cannot wear hats and visors with commercial names or logos.

However, the ban does not apply to shirts, bags, umbrellas or shoes. Only to headgear.

What were the odds? When the golfing resorts at Myrtle Beach, S.C., took out rain insurance for their guests, it was a bit of a joke when the word snow was added to the policy.

But it was no joke when two inches of snow hit Myrtle Beach in January. Forty-eight golfers at the Sands Oceanfront had paid-up policies and collected $7,100 from the resort.

Doggone it: When the Houston Astros heard that Monica Seles was in town, and that she had a dog named Astro, they invited the tennis star to throw out the first ball. Seles not only declined, she said she had never heard of the Astros.

Turns out the dog was named after the pooch in “The Jetsons.”

Trivia answer: Jackie Robinson, in 1947.

Tougher than Dodgers? If the Dodgers are thinking about challenging Norm Charlton, one of their most hated foes, they’d better think twice. The Cincinnati left-hander’s hobby is catching rattlesnakes near his home in Ft. Hood, Tex.

“Some guys ride motorcycles, some guys jump out of airplanes. I like to hunt and fish and catch big rattlers,” he said.

Quotebook: Kansas City pitcher Kevin Appier, after starting the season 0-1 despite an 0.86 earned-run average in his first three games: “I’ve come away with nothing. No, I’ve come away with less than nothing, because I’ve got a loss.”