Their Goal: First Triple Triple-Double

Basketball fans in the community of Galva, Ill., aren’t seeing double, they are seeing triple.

Galva High is on a fast break. Kraig Gale passes to Kyle Gale, who shoots. There for the rebound is Kevin Gale. Or was that Kraig on the rebound?

Even their father, Bob Gale, has a hard time keeping track as the triplets run down the court.

The three 6-foot juniors have led Galva’s basketball team to a 20-4 record and the Lincoln Trail Conference championship. All three have been starters the past two seasons and they also compete in football and track.

“They’re not the whole athletic department, but they do contribute,” their father says. “When they were little, I never could tell them apart. Even now I sometimes have a problem.”

Coach Brad Hulick claims that he has no trouble. “I’ve had them in classes for four years,” he says, “and their style of play is different. I put the style with the face.

“They bring a special competitiveness to our team. As triplets, they have had to compete all their lives. They play tough defense, and on the break they always know where the other two are.”

Trivia time: What university has the most golfers on the PGA Tour?

First choice: Which O’Bannon will be drafted first? It won’t be either Ed or Charles, who play basketball for UCLA. It will be their older brother, Turhon, a wide receiver at New Mexico, who is expected to be chosen in the NFL draft April 24-25.

Merely wondering: Times veteran Mal Florence says that until recently he thought the luge was something your car had along with an oil change.

Basket cases: A late, late basketball result the other night:

The Carthage (Ill.) High Blueboys 108, Dallas City 103--in eight overtimes. The game lasted 3 hours 10 minutes. There were 77 fouls and 92 free-throw attempts. Ten players fouled out.

“If it wasn’t such a disappointing loss for us,” Dallas City Coach Lee Purchatze said, “you’d have to say it was an amazing basketball game.”

Trivia answer: Oklahoma State with 11, followed by USC with eight.

Lead-footed crybabies: Picabo Street didn’t read Sports Illustrated before skiing the women’s downhill at Lillehammer to earn an Olympic silver medal.

It’s probably a good thing.

In its Olympic preview, the magazine derided the U.S. Alpine team as a bunch of lead-footed crybabies who would need a miracle to win a medal in the Winter Games.

The team’s response? So far: two golds and two silvers.

Street said she heard about the article, but decided not to read it.

“I didn’t want any of that extra negative energy around,” said the 22-year-old from Sun Valley, Ida. “I had a job to do. I was nervous enough.”

Quotebook: Former New York Knick guard Walt Frazier, on the Washington Bullets’ 7-foot-7 center, Gheorghe Muresan: “He’s got two moves, folks. Backward and forward.”