Top Draft Pick Specializes on Thirst Downs

Last year, Willie McGinest was a big man on campus at USC. This year, he’s a 6-foot-5, 252-pound gofer.

It’s all New England Patriot Coach Bill Parcells’ way of welcoming the team’s first-round draft choice to the NFL.

“During our off-season conditioning program, (Parcells) told me he had some special tasks in mind for me that I’d better be ready to perform at training camp,” McGinest said. “He told me it would be my job to bring him his Gatorade and that he didn’t like the orange stuff. He likes the green stuff with ice. What am I going to do?”

Exactly as he’s told, and in a time that would rival the 4.7 clocking he has had in the 40-yard dash.

The scene is repeated twice daily, during the Patriots’ double sessions at their Rhode Island training camp. A coach blows his whistle, players pause to catch their breath, and McGinest dashes for the Gatorade. He quickly returns with two cups in hand.

Trivia time: Who was the first American to win a world motorcycle road racing championship?

Golden memories: Fremont High’s class of ’44 will hold its 50th reunion tonight at the El Prado Country Club in Chino.

The student-body president that year was Gene Mauch, who went on to manage 26 years in the major leagues. Classmate Doug Hays of Glendale recalls that Mauch could not play baseball or football for the Pathfinders his senior year because he had signed a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers in the summer of 1943 and played minor league baseball before his senior year in high school.

Coming soon: Relax, NFL fans. The regular season is only six weeks away.

Logical choice: Actor Bradford Dillman, a football fanatic, is coming out with a series of books published on each NFL team. The first, “Inside the New York Giants,” will be available in September.

Why were the Giants the first? “Because they’re 3,000 miles from where I live,” said Dillman, a Santa Barbara resident.

Looking back: On this day in 1974, the Dodgers’ Steve Garvey--a write-in starter--singled and doubled to lead the Nationals to a 7-2 victory over the Americans in the All-Star game in Pittsburgh.

Some whine with that?Former British Open champion Mark Calcavecchia was not happy at the price of food during his recent stay at the Turnberry Hotel in Scotland.

“You eat a nice dinner and it costs you 100 pounds,” he said. “When you’re charged that kind of money, the food doesn’t taste so good. You’re thinking, ‘One bite of duck will cost me seven pounds.’ ”

Changing sports: Jack Clark, who generated a lot of power as a home run hitter, hopes to generate a lot more when he makes his top-fuel drag racing debut this weekend in Denver. After hiring drivers such as Tom McEwen and John Andretti to drive his “Taco Bell Express,” Clark decided he wanted to drive the 300-m.p.h. dragster himself.

The car’s number is 340, which is the number of home runs Clark hit in his major league career.

Trivia answer: Kenny Roberts, 1978, the first of three in a row.

Quotebook: John Daly, after hitting one of his 350-plus yard drives: “Every time I look at the ball, I see my (ex-)wife.”