You Can’t Get in, Something Might Get Out

Dallas Cowboy Coach Jimmy Johnson zealously guards his private life, yet he granted a rare interview in his home to Barry Horn of the Dallas Morning News.

“Most people think they know me,” Johnson said. “I like it to be that way. Let them think. But I can’t let people know me. I don’t want people to ever know me well enough to predict what I will do. That way I always remain in control.”

Add Johnson: His hobby is maintaining the seven saltwater fish tanks he has in his home.

“The fish--they may be the perfect things for him to have around the house,” said Johnson’s son, Brent. “If he had a dog or a cat they might bug him, expect something from him in return. The fish--they don’t want to know him. They leave him alone.”

Trivia time: Name the last Pacific 10 Conference football team to finish first in the final Associated Press poll.

Bring on the clowns: Atlanta Falcon Coach Jerry Glanville is not popular among some of his peers because of his public feuds.

The latest coach to lash out at Glanville is Cleveland Brown Coach Bill Belichick.

“(Glanville) is too busy promoting himself to have a lot of production in his career from a team standpoint,” Belichick told Pro Football Weekly. “After coaching, he’ll be a prime candidate to take over Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus.”

Priorities: Lou Duva, heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield’s co-trainer and co-manager, told the Boston Globe:

“We have options on all the top heavyweights but Mike Tyson. The state of Indiana has options on Tyson.”

Tyson is serving a six-year sentence for rape.

Pen(n) State? In recent weeks, five Penn State football players have been jailed, prompting a campus joke:

“How many Penn State players does it take to screw in a light bulb? None. They have to get a guard to change it for them.”

Give me a C . . . : James E. Sefton, professor of history at Cal State Northridge, recalls January, 1958, when the student body submitted nominations for the school nickname:

“Among the nominees were Atom Splitters, Aeolians, Chmultapultapecs, Desert Rats, Fernandoes, Roughriders, Sundogs, Sun Worshipers, Valkyries, Yogis, Friars, Helians, Hustlers, Llamas, Minotaurs, Outcasts, and Phaetons.”

The school chose Matadors, reasoning that newspaper headline writers couldn’t deal with Chmultapultapecs.

Geronimo: John Robinson, former Ram coach, on the difference between broadcasting and coaching: “As a broadcaster, all you hope for is a close, exciting game, go to the airport, hop on a plane, ask for a drink and dinner and that’s it.

“As a coach, you think about all those things, except now you are on the plane, looking for the best place to jump from once you are in the air.”

No respect: CBS-TV announcer Tony Trabert called Jim Courier’s straight-set U.S. Open victory over John McEnroe a “shellacking of a senior citizen.”

Trivia answer: USC, in 1972.

Quotebook: CBS-TV commentator Ben Wright, on Duffy Waldorf’s red-and-white striped shirt at an earlier golf tournament: “He’s wearing a rugby shirt, which I applaud him for, but it looks like he’s about to deliver a pizza.”