Cos Would Have Effect on the NFL

Bill Cosby, comedian, multimillionaire and bon vivant , called The Times’ sports department the other day, offering writer Chris Dufresne an idea the quarterback-starved NFL might consider.

Noticing the lack of quality quarterback play this season, and that Steve DeBerg, currently the Miami Dolphins’ starter, seems to have played for about every team in the league, Cosby observed:

“You’ve got Jacksonville, Charlotte, that makes 30 teams (after expansion). Out of the 30 teams, how many quarterbacks are playing?

“Here comes the funny part: Steve DeBerg will have to play Monday night and Sunday afternoon, and Sunday morning. Steve DeBerg will become the NFL quarterback.

“It won’t be a problem, he’s just about played for every team. Sometimes Steve DeBerg will play in both games. He’ll run across the field, play quarterback for both teams in both games.”

Later, Cosby’s agent called with an additional thought from the comedian: “There should also be special rules for (DeBerg): You can only tag him.”

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Trivia time: What was the Secret Service’s code name for golf enthusiast Dan Quayle while he was vice president?

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Center of attention: Kansas center Greg Ostertag seems to elicit mixed emotions from Roy Williams, his strait-laced coach.

Williams on Ostertag’s lack of condition when practice began: “I hope somewhere in there is a muscle.”

And on Ostertag’s good-natured personality: “He’d even hug the referees if I let him.”

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Add Ostertag: He met his wife, Heidi, when she was assigned by Kansas’ academic support system to monitor his class attendance. On their first date, he took her to the movie “White Men Can’t Jump.”

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Harping on Holtz: In Mike Lupica’s annual column in Esquire predicting what will happen next year, he suggests Notre Dame Coach Lou Holtz will become an author.

“Stung by the criticism in ‘Under the Tarnished Dome,’ Holtz decides to write his own tell-all tome,” Lupica writes. “In ‘Dieting Irish,’ the feisty little bantamweight explains how you can run yourself ragged recruiting the best football players in the country, walk all those miles on the sidelines, and hardly ever get weighted down with the national championship trophy.”

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Nine is not enough: Golf Digest, while commenting on the greatness of Michael Jordan’s NBA career, notes that had he had the same career on the LPGA Tour, he wouldn’t be eligible for the Hall of Fame.

Why? The LPGA Hall, which requires a minimum of 30 victories on tour, including two different majors, also mandates a career of 10 years.

Jordan retired before the start of his 10th NBA season.

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Chump change: On Monday, Alonzo Highsmith says he took money from agent Mel Levine in 1986 while he was a running back with the Miami Hurricanes. Tuesday, he denied it.

“You tell me a kid is supposed to survive on $20 a week?” Highsmith told the Sun-Sentinel of Ft. Lauderdale. “By my junior year, I’m saying to myself that we play on national TV, we do this and we do that, and all I get out of the deal is just a chance to play for the national title and college education?”

“I never said that,” the Miami Herald quoted him on Tuesday. “He offered me money, but I turned it down.”

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Trivia answer: Scorecard.

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Quotebook: Miami Dolphin safety Louis Oliver on Coach Don Shula: “He’s loosening up a little bit. He’s getting a little hip, I think. If I could get him to come to a couple of our parties, he’d be all right.”