Thank You, Mr. Lloyd, for Being a ‘Jerk’

Greg Lloyd, a Pittsburgh Steeler linebacker, wears a T-shirt with the message on the back, “I wasn’t hired for my disposition.”

Lloyd also scolds children for calling him by his first name when asking for his autograph, and for failing to say please and thank you.

“I won’t sign for kids who can’t be polite,” Lloyd told Ron Cook of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “The parents think I’m a jerk, but if they taught their kids decent manners, we’d all be better off.”

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Trivia time: Who holds the USC single-game record for rushing?

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Crowd behavior: Steve Schoenfeld of the Arizona Republic, quoting Bruce Allen, son of George Allen, the late NFL coach, on the difference between pro football fans at Anaheim Stadium and the Coliseum:

“At Ram games, you have frozen daiquiris. If you ordered frozen daiquiris at Raider games, they’d beat the hell out of you.”

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Honest: Lyndon Byers has scored only 71 points while amassing 1,061 penalty minutes in his NHL career.

“I’ve never kidded myself,” he said. “I’m a goon.”

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Clip and save: ESPN’s Beano Cook predicts: “Ron Powlus will win the Heisman two times and be the greatest quarterback in the history of Notre Dame.”

Better than Joe Montana, Angelo Bertelli, Johnny Lujack, Paul Hornung, John Huarte, or even Rick Mirer?

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FYI: Gene Stallings has the same winning percentage after 50 games as Alabama’s coach as Bear Bryant had at the same point: .810.

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Real life: Montreal coach Tim Johnson, asked about the pressure of managing the first-place Montreal Expos while Manager Felipe Alou attended his father’s funeral before the baseball strike, said:

“Pressure was growing up in Los Angeles with five dollars in your pocket and walking down an alley.

“A guy with a zip gun comes up to you and demands $25. Now, that was pressure.”

Simple solution: NBC’s Mike Ditka suggests that if Deion Sanders really wants $32 million, “he can sell off some of his jewelry.”

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Premature: Bruce Jenkins, writing in the San Francisco Chronicle recently on the U.S. Open: “Nothing short of a miracle can keep (Pete) Sampras away from the final.”

Considering Sampras’ five-set loss to Peru’s Jaime Yzaga, apparently miracles still happen.

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Enterprise: Monte Clark, Stanford offensive line coach, once said of his hometown of Kingsburg, Calif.: “It’s a very small town. So small in fact, that the No. 1 industry is taking bottles back to the store.”

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Looking back: On this day in 1974, Jimmy Connors easily defeated Ken Rosewall for the U.S. Open title, 6-1, 6-0, 6-1.

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Trivia answer: Ricky Bell, with 347 yards against Washington State in 1976.

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Quotebook: Michael Irvin, Dallas Cowboy wide receiver: “We’re going to win a third straight Super Bowl. I don’t care who coaches on the sideline or who owns the team.”