Some Motherly Helmet Butts Got Him Going

Marvcus Patton, a former walk-on at UCLA and now a linebacker with the Buffalo Bills, doesn’t have to explain football to his mother.

Barbara Patton once played outside linebacker for the Los Angeles Dandelions, a women’s professional team.

So it’s linebacker-to-linebacker talk when mother and son get together.

“I’ll say, ‘Remember, Marvcus, football is just like you’re in a war zone,’ ” she told NFL Game Day magazine. “ ‘You’re protecting your territory.’ He’ll say, ‘Yeah, yeah, Mom, I’m a pro football player.’ And I’ll say, ‘Don’t forget, I was one, too.’ ”

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Trivia time: When did USC’s football team last play to a scoreless tie?

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Stare down: Stanford will play Notre Dame today in South Bend, Ind., and Cardinal Coach Bill Walsh says he has a “friendly” relationship with Irish Coach Lou Holtz.

“(However) I don’t think of opposing coaches. I try to hate them the week of the game and like them when the game is over,” Walsh told the San Francisco Chronicle. “I’ve never looked at anybody other than Marv Goux (former assistant coach with USC and the Rams), who’d stare at me when USC was ahead much of the game.

“Then, when he was with the Rams (when Walsh was the 49ers’ coach), he couldn’t be found. He was talking to the second-string offensive linemen about holding for kicks.”

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Looking back: Roberto Clemente got his 3,000th and final hit on Sept. 30, 1972.

The Pittsburgh Pirates paid only $4,000 to draft Clemente from the Brooklyn Dodgers on Nov. 22, 1954. The value of the 19 Roberto Clemente Topps baseball cards (1955-73), in near-mint condition, is $3,500.

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Graveyard humor: Roger Kingdom, the world record-holder in the 110-meter high hurdles and an Olympic champion in 1984 and 1988, underwent a unique knee operation last year.

A tendon from a cadaver was used to repair his injured anterior cruciate ligament.

“I hope the guy had fast-twitch muscles,” Kingdom joked.

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No free swinger: Henry Mathieu of South Ogden, Utah, got a hole in one last Monday in Ogden. It was his 12th ace--and a bit unusual.

He was wearing handcuffs--a gimmick for all players on the second hole of a police charity tournament.

“(Wearing handcuffs) doesn’t really affect you if you swing fundamentally,” Mathieu said.

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Epitaph: Tom Callahan of the Washington Post commenting on the recent Jimmy Connors-Martina Navratilova tennis match:

“In the understated elegance of Caesars Palace, where the body of Joe Louis was once laid out in a boxing ring, the remains of Jimmy Connors were served cold on a tennis court. He will never be a serious competitor again.”

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Trivia answer: In 1961, against Washington. The teams also had a scoreless tie in 1942. Both games were played in Seattle.

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Quotebook: Columnist Mike Lupica while on ESPN’s Sports Reporters show: “One of the saddest things is to see Lawrence Taylor (of the New York Giants) play. All he has left is the growl.”