He’s an Expert When Talking Words of War

Linebacker Kevin Greene of the Pittsburgh Steelers, a former Ram, boasting of his blitzing style to Tim Panaccio of the Philadelphia Inquirer:

“I have flat-out knocked the . . . out of Phil Simms, Joe Montana and John Elway. I mean a flat-out, steel on-target, sabot round in the throat.”

Sabot? A sabot is a soft, armor-piercing shell shot from a tank. Greene is an Army reserve captain who happens to drive tanks when he isn’t driving through quarterbacks.

*

Add Greene: “We’re coming from everywhere. We play with 15 guys in the huddle. We’ve got guys parachuting in from airplanes, people coming out of the stands to help go after people.”

*

Trivia time: What was unusual about the 1922 Rose Bowl game between California and Washington & Jefferson?

*

Home game: The Associated Press reports that Texas Tech fans snapped up their 20,000-allotment of tickets for the Cotton Bowl on Jan. 2 so fast that school officials began hoping for leftovers from USC.

It’s estimated that USC will sell about 5,000 of its allotted 11,242 tickets and then send the remainder to Texas Tech.

*

Transaction: The Good Doctor in Inside Sports:

Q: The first Super Bowl must have had an opening coin flip. What happened to the coin?

A: Bruce McNall sold it to somebody for $1 million, claiming it was from ancient Greece.

*

Simple solution: Woody Woodburn in the Ventura Star-Free Press: “Despite his retirement from basketball, Michael Jordan reportedly earned $30 million from endorsements this year, according to Forbes magazine.

“Why doesn’t he just buy a major league baseball team and put himself on the roster?”

*

Long wait: New Balance is donating sneakers to Big Brothers/Big Sisters after each victory by the Clippers, prompting Mark Kriegel of the New York Daily News to write: “That’s a lot of shoeless kids.”

*

Unimpressed: Oliver Miller of the Detroit Pistons, who was released by the Phoenix Suns, scored 12 points and also had 10 rebounds, six blocks and a pair of steals against his former team.

“I went out and proved the Suns wrong,” he said.

Replied Charles Barkley: “If he played with that kind of enthusiasm every night, he’d still be in Phoenix.”

*

Wake ‘em up: Lacy J. Banks of the Chicago Sun-Times writes that 72-year-old Tex Winter, assistant coach of the Bulls and a longtime college head coach, should be in the Basketball Hall of Fame.

“Basketball doesn’t owe me anything,” Winter said. “It has been very good to me. It’s just that most folks who remember me are dead.”

*

FYI: When originally awarded in 1935, the Heisman Trophy was for the best college football player east of the Mississippi.

*

Trivia answer: It was scoreless.

*

Quotebook: NBC announcer Don Criqui on Ron Humphrey of the Indianapolis Colts, who was shaken up on a play: “They almost knocked his earring out.”