Spirit Was Willing, but Text of Shoe Firm’s Ad Was Weak

Mourning glory it was not.

Last Thursday, the day after the Charlotte Hornets had drafted Alonzo Mourning with the No. 2 pick, Nike, the shoe the former Georgetown star will be endorsing, bought a full-page advertisement in the Charlotte Observer. It read:

“A three-trillion dollar deficit.

“New holes in the ozone layer.

“Unemployment at an all-time high.

“The Hornets draft Alonzo Mourning.

“On balance, it’s been a pretty good year.”

Smaller print at the bottom added, “Congratulations to the Charlotte Hornets on drafting Alonzo Mourning.”

The Hornets received several irate calls and quickly pointed out that the ad had been placed by the shoe company, not the team.

“Appallingly poor taste,” said Bill Miller, a local resident who recently lost his job.

“The Hornets made an excellent choice in Alonzo Mourning, and he may be the key ingredient they need for the playoffs. But to place drafting him in the same category as serious issues like the national debt, the ozone layer and unemployment is in poor taste.”

Not only that, the script was inaccurate. Labor market analyst Robert Burns, citing Bureau of Labor Statistics reports for the United States, said more people were out of work in 1983 and the percentage of unemployed also was higher that year.

Trivia time: Richie Adubato, now with the Dallas Mavericks, got his first NBA job as a head coach with the Detroit Pistons. Whom did he replace on an interim basis?

A true league of their own: A spokesman for the Amateur Softball Assn. estimates that about 16 million women and girls are playing the sport, which will become an Olympic medal sport at the 1996 Games in Atlanta. And even more exposure for women on the ballfield comes with the release of the movie “A League of Their Own.”

But to those who played in the professional baseball league featured in the film, that is not the real source of pride. That recognition was accorded the women in 1988, when the Hall of Fame opened a “Women in Baseball” exhibit featuring uniforms, bats, baseballs, gloves, shoes, trophies, posters, scorecards and tickets.

“That was the biggest thrill for all of us,” said Dottie Collins, a former pitcher. “The movie is second place as far we are concerned. Being accepted by Cooperstown was the greatest thing that happened to any of us.”

Making the rounds: At USC, where tradition is everything, a strange one has continued.

Each of the last four times a Trojan basketball player has been drafted during the first round, there has been no football player to match. It started with Paul Westphal in 1972, continued to John Lambert in 1975, then Cliff Robinson in 1979 and Harold Miner in 1992. The first football player chosen this year was Kurt Barber in the second round by the New York Jets.

The other Express: Sunday, when 45-year-old pitcher Nolan Ryan won his first game of the season, a 2-year-old quarter horse named Nolan Ryan won his first race at Los Alamitos.

Nolan Ryan was a 9-5 favorite in the eighth race and returned $5.80. Winning jockey Joe Meier, an avid baseball fan, had wanted to be in the saddle ever since he found out about the name.

Good thing it wasn’t football season. Nolan Ryan beat First Down John by a neck.

Trivia answer: Dick Vitale.

Quotebook: Golfing legend Jimmy Demaret, after once playing with Bob Hope: “Bob has a beautiful short game. Unfortunately, it’s off the tee.”