Getting Technical About It

I would like to call a timeout here to talk things over before taking a last shot.

--Personal to John Wooden:

Please advise these otherwise well-intentioned people who pass out that basketball award bearing your name that Wednesday is what is traditionally known in university circles as a school day and that student-athletes such as Calbert Cheaney already have to miss enough exams and classes without being obligated to travel from Bloomington, Ind., to Indianapolis to Chicago to Los Angeles and back, simply to say “thank you” for the award, or without their asking to be excused in the middle of a lecture or test simply to go wait by a telephone because they might be given the award.

God invented a perfectly lovely day to hand out awards to scholastic jocks. This day is called Saturday.

--Well, that controversy over who should be named captain of our Davis Cup tennis team rages on. Who among us will be able to get any sleep tonight?

--With 160 Dodger games remaining, Todd Worrell still was showing no sign of arm trouble.

--Funniest sight of the baseball season so far was Dodger scout Mike Brito standing behind the backstop with a radar gun aimed at Florida knuckleball pitcher Charlie Hough. Clocking Charlie Hough with a radar gun is like cooking a turkey with a microwave.

--Raise your hand if you understand three out of every five of Chris Berman’s rock ‘n’ roll references.

--Hey, don’t bug Bill Walton about being “wrong” about Michigan. Be thankful for anybody with enough guts to express an actual opinion. They are brave and they are few.

--I’d also like to take a timeout here to say that Chris Webber is a class act and he can play basketball for my team any time, anywhere.

--It is now four days since the championship game. Quick, name five North Carolina basketball players.

--If he ran the department, would he be Dean Dean Smith?

--James Brown did a fine job for CBS at the Final Four--especially the part where they wrapped his cape around his shoulders and you thought he was done, only to have him come back and sing a few more bars.

--Another timeout here to ask if that woman from Ohio State’s team with that pretty red bow in her hair wasn’t violating some goofy NCAA rule about headwear.

--I suppose the men could start wearing bows in their hair, if any of them ever started wearing hair.

--If Iowa Coach Vivian Stringer had used half as much energy in calling for a timeout as Chris Webber did, she wouldn’t have been ignored.

--Having seen men’s basketball in the Pac-10, all I can say is, Sheryl Swoopes could play for about five of them.

--Only 49 more shopping weeks until Arizona is eliminated in the first round of the 1994 NCAAs.

--I went to see “Jack the Bear” because I thought it was about the 1986 Masters.

--If they told me that hell was a place where for 24 hours a day they played the music that CBS uses during its coverage of the Masters, I would immediately begin trying to lead a better life.

--One day, Jack (the Golden Bear) Nicklaus, Greg (the Great White Shark) Norman and Craig (the Walrus) Stadler will walk down the 18th fairway together and have their round protested by animal-rights activists.

--Yo, Reggie White: Green Bay doesn’t need a minister. Green Bay needs a miracle.

--Seeing Joe Montana playing for Phoenix or Tampa Bay would be like seeing Al Pacino on a TV game show.

--The Angels opened the season to the cheers of 48,654. Too bad it took two games.

--The L.A. Times reported J.T. Snow and B.J. Surhoff sharing a BLT at T.G.I. Fridays on the QT before taking BP.

--Jim Abbott is 0-1 and pitching in New York. Be afraid, Jim. Be very afraid.

--Hockey reportedly will replace the divisional names Smythe, Norris, Patrick and Adams with the names Lightweight, Welterweight, Middleweight and Heavyweight.

--A timeout (my last one) to ask: What does the University of Michigan basketball team have in common with the University of North Carolina football team? Answer: They both have about five good players.