In the Middle of Conversation, He Simply Put the Guy on Hold

Notre Dame Coach Lou Holtz is getting some ribbing for applying a headlock to referee Thomas Thamert during last Saturday’s game with Brigham Young.

At home after the game, he opened the door to some friends from high school days.

“The first thing they did is get in a wrestling pose,” Holtz said.

Then, he received a postcard his daughter mailed from Japan a week before the game. The picture shows a pair of sumo wrestlers.

Trivia time: Who holds the Pacific 10 Conference record for most yards rushing in a game?

Macho man: Phoenix Coach Joe Bugel didn’t score any points--either for his team or for originality--when he called seven running plays inside the Philadelphia Eagles’ three-yard line last Sunday--benefiting from three offside penalties.

“It’s the NFC East,” Bugel said. “They laugh at you if you throw it down there.”

They’re laughing even harder now.

High finance: Coach Larry Brown of the Clippers told this story at Thursday’s preseason Clipper luncheon:

“The only reason I got to even play in the old ABA was because Doug Moe was a friend of mine and he told them I had to be on the team. He was making $20,000 and, one day in a meeting with the team owners, he told them they had to pay me $12,500. I just sat there and listened.

“Then he told them that, if I started, I’d have to get $2,500 more. They agreed to that, then asked me if I’d work some clinics and camps for them in the off-season. Moe told them they’d have to pay me $7,000 for that. They agreed and I left the room, not having said a word and making more money than Doug was.”

Add luncheon: “I was drafted in the fourth round out of North Carolina by the (then-Baltimore) Bullets,” Brown said. “I got no contract. They came to visit me there, took one look at me and said, ‘Hey, you’re even smaller than we thought. How are you going to guard guys like Oscar Robertson and Jerry West?’ I told them I didn’t think anybody was guarding them now.”

Movin’, movin’, movin’: With the San Francisco Giants contemplating a move to St. Petersburg, Fla., Mayflower Transit has signed a three-year deal to become the “official mover of major league baseball,” according to Team Marketing Report.

Mayflower has the necessary experience, having moved the Baltimore Colts of the NFL to Indianapolis in the dark of night after the 1983 season.

Tongue twister: Track & Field News commiserates with broadcasters who had to identify Zambia’s Nogozi Ngozi Mwanamwambwa in the Barcelona Summer Games.

She ran in all three sprints.

Trivia answer: Rueben Mayes of Washington State with 357 yards against Oregon in 1984.

Quotebook: Stanford football Coach Bill Walsh, commenting on the beating quarterback Steve Stenstrom has taken this season: “I’ve gotten so I can recognize the bottom of his shoes.”