Daly Credits Ex-Cowboy for Progress

John Daly credits former Dallas Cowboy Thomas (Hollywood) Henderson with being a stabilizing factor in Daly’s battle with alcoholism.

In an interview with Ann Liguori of Prime Ticket, Daly said: “I think a very important person in my life, who I’ve only known for about a year now, is Thomas Henderson. I just learned a lot from him on how to deal with situations. I hooked up with him at Sierra Tucson (a recovery center where) he goes in and speaks.

“It just made so much sense, hearing it from another athlete. It’s hard to talk to someone who hasn’t been there, who doesn’t really know how you feel. But when you talk to other athletes about how you feel, it just makes it a lot easier.”

Add Daly: On his suspension from PGA tournaments, Daly said: “I got a little time off and it’s going to be very good for me. I’d been on the go for the last two years, just nonstop. Everything’s worked out in a blessing.”

Trivia time: Who is the only American to have won an individual medal in cross-country skiing in the Winter Olympics?

The name game: Zoos in Ft. Worth and Buffalo have a rather exotic bet on Sunday’s Super Bowl.

There was a similar bet last year, before the Cowboys’ 52-17 victory over the Bills, which is why there’s now an exotic cat in the Buffalo Zoo named “Emmitt Smith,” after the Cowboys’ NFL rushing leader.

This time, if the Cowboys win, the Buffalo Zoo will name an African lion after Cowboy quarterback Troy Aikman. If the Bills win, the Ft. Worth Zoo will name a buffalo after Bill defensive end Bruce Smith.

Olympic spirit: Jean Pierre Renzi figured if four men from the tropical island of Jamaica could make it to the Winter Olympics on a bobsled, so could he and his friends.

So the four men from Rochester Hills, Mich., with dual citizenship in the tiny republic of San Marino, will take time off from their construction business to travel to Norway for their chance.

“We are nobody and we’re competing with the best in the world,” Renzi said. “We don’t have a coach, we don’t have a trainer. We are learning every time we go on the track.”

Who will dunk next?Heidi Gillingham is one of women’s basketball’s tallest players at 6 feet 10 inches and she is also Vanderbilt’s homecoming queen. But can she dunk?

“Dunking hasn’t been a goal, since dunking will just happen if I get strong enough and if I become agile enough,” she says. “It’s not as important to me as it is to a lot of people.”

The only recorded dunk by a woman was by Georgeanne Wells of West Virginia against Charleston in December of 1983.

Trivia answer: Bill Koch of Guilford, Vt., who won a silver medal in 1976 at Innsbruck.

Add Koch: When a reporter asked if he had lived all his life in Vermont, Koch replied, “Not yet.”

Quotebook: The Lakers’ Vlade Divac, after scoring a season-high 26 points Wednesday night against the Indiana Pacers: “When I make the first couple of shots in a game, it’s like nothing can stop me.”