Mutombo’s Camp Experience Is Not Fun and Games

The Denver Nuggets’ Dikembe Mutombo, a native of Zaire who has lived in the United States for five years, spent nine days in Africa this summer, much of that time in the Kenya-Somalia border area where hundreds of thousands of Somali refugees have fled famine and civil war.

“I went to a camp housing 180,000 desperate and poor people forced from their homes,” Mutombo said. “It was so large you couldn’t see it all in one day. And it was located in the middle of nowhere.”

*

Add Mutombo: The 7-foot-2 Mutombo said he was unable to visit his home country because of political turmoil there.

“I was advised not to go to Zaire this year,” he said. “They were afraid if I went in I wouldn’t be able to get out.”

*

Trivia time: How many North American cities have played host to the Olympic Games?

*

Don’t believe it: You might get an argument from tennis referees, but John McEnroe is shy, according to his wife.

“John is really much more temperamental in his work than at home,” Tatum O’Neal says in Parade magazine. “Privately, he’s shy. It’s endearing to me that he keeps something to himself.”

*

Room at the top? Clipper Coach Larry Brown has said on radio that his new center, Stanley Roberts, could be “one of the five best in the NBA.”

Who is Roberts going to elbow aside, David Robinson, Patrick Ewing, Brad Daugherty, Hakeem Olajuwon or Shaquille O’Neal?

*

Special teams: Twenty-six touchdowns were scored on returns in the first three weekends of the NFL season, the most at this point since the league began keeping statistics in 1932.

The scoring returns included nine fumble recoveries, eight interceptions, six punts, a kickoff, a blocked field goal and a blocked punt.

*

Loyal friend: When Walter Hoefflin was president of the Tournament of Roses in 1965, he chose Arnold Palmer to be his grand marshal on New Year’s Day. Hoefflin also was president of the Methodist Hospital in Arcadia and Palmer agreed to conduct a clinic and play an 18-hole exhibition to raise money for the hospital.

On Oct. 19, Palmer will make his 16th trip to Pasadena for what has become a golfing tradition with Hoefflin in the name of Methodist Hospital.

*

Apt analysis: The Mets’ Vince Coleman was recently quoted in Morning Briefing as saying that the condition of the surface at Shea Stadium was keeping him out of the Hall of Fame.

That promoted the following comment from a baseball person, quoted anonymously in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “You have to be inactive five years to get in. He only has three left.”

*

Whatizit, indeed: John Powers of the Boston Globe had this to say about Whatizit, Atlanta’s Olympic mascot: “Lots of puzzlement--and controversy--over Whatizit, Atlanta’s unidentifiable mascot. Critics say Whatizit--which looks like a mutant insect or a crayfish on steroids--is silly, confusing and decidedly un-Olympian. But the Atlanta organizers insist Whatizit is a smashing success--because everybody’s talking about it.”

*

Is Elvis still alive? If you check the Jockey Club’s list of registered names for thoroughbred horses, his memory certainly lives on. Among them are Elvis, Elvis Pelvis, Blue Suede Shoes, Jailhouse Rock, Hound Dog, Love Me Tender, Graceland, and The King.

*

Not a contortionist: Professional golfer Elaine Johnson’s reaction after her tee shot hit a tree and caromed into her bra: “I’ll take a two-stroke penalty, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to play the ball where it lies.”

*

Trivia answer: Seven--St. Louis, Lake Placid, Los Angeles, Squaw Valley, Mexico City, Montreal and Calgary.

*

Quotebook: Frank Marocco, football coach at Aliquippa, Pa., High, Mike Ditka’s alma mater: “Mike Ditka has more pull in this town than the Pope. He’s the Pied Piper and the Wizard of Oz rolled into one.”