On This Day, Anyway, Rudy’s Song Will Be ‘On Wisconsin’

The Badgers’ locker room in Madison, Wis., is not where you would expect to find Rudy Ruettiger, the ultimate Notre Dame man, but that’s where he’ll be Saturday afternoon.

Wisconsin Coach Barry Alvarez was trying to think of a way to take his players’ minds off the grandstand tragedy of last week before Saturday’s Big Ten clash against Ohio State when his former mentor, Lou Holtz, suggested he show them the movie “Rudy” about Ruettiger’s one-play career at Notre Dame.

“I told Barry it was a great inspirational film,” Holtz said.

Alvarez contacted Ruettiger, who said he would fly into Madison on Friday for a screening of the film and then give the Badgers a pep talk before the game Saturday.

P.S. In case you wondered, Notre Dame is idle this week.

Trivia time: What Pacific 10 Conference football team has played the most consecutive games without being shut out?

All in a name: Paul White of USA Today Baseball Weekly is rooting for Milwaukee Brewer prospect Josh Zwisler to move up to the majors. “If he makes it,” White wrote, “he’ll be as famous as Henry Aaron, because he would replace Dutch Zwilling as the last player in the Baseball Encyclopedia. Aaron is first.”

Human fly swatter: Manute Bol, the new Miami Heat center, has more blocked shots in his NBA career (2,061) than the Heat has as a team in its five-year existence (1,906).

The college game: Jack Fertig, USC assistant basketball coach, made an interesting comment to columnist Chuck Benedict of the Glendale News-Press:

“College presidents are not qualified to run the athletic departments, but they have to do so because we coaches have screwed it up and now we must live with unlivable rules.”

Ain’t complaining: Earlier in the season, Auburn Coach Terry Bowden received a letter from an elderly Tiger fan chiding him for continually using the word “ain’t.” The woman complained that his poor grammar didn’t reflect well on the university.

Bowden wrote back: “Ain’t it grand to be 5-0?”

Wonder what he’d say about 8-0? That’s where the surprising Tigers are now.

Giant’s Gaucho: Millard Baker, Dusty’s 6-foot-9 son, will play for the UC Santa Barbara basketball team this season.

Second opinion: Sid Hartman of the Minneapolis Star Tribune recently wrote of Lou Holtz: “He is as ethical and clean in all phases of the coaching business as any coach in the country.”

Which prompted letter writer Willard L. Thompson of St. Paul to comment: “This doesn’t necessarily speak highly of the other guys in the business.”

Trivia answer: Washington, 142 games.

Quotebook: Arizona State Coach Bruce Snyder on watching films of the Sun Devils’ 32-17 upset victory over Washington: “It was like the stew my mom used to make. It was even better the second day.”