There’s a World of Difference for This Former Bruin Player

Former UCLA basketball player Nigel Miguel has been performing in movies and on television for several years. Now, he’s an ambassador.

Miguel, 31, who played for the Bruins from 1981-85, has been appointed an ambassador by his homeland, Belize, a Central American country with a population of 230,000. He was honored last week at a formal ceremony giving him rights and responsibilities of goodwill ambassador.

“This is sort of like a training ground and steppingstone,” Miguel said.

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Trivia time: What was the largest crowd ever to attend a Rose Bowl game?

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Coincidence? Saturday’s Ram-Redskin game in Anaheim may be the last for the Rams in Southern California. Their first opponent after moving to Los Angeles from Cleveland in 1946 was also the Washington Redskins.

The Rams won, 16-14, on Bob DeLauer’s field goal in a Times Charity Game at the Coliseum.

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No worry: During a discussion of attacks on sports figures, such as Monica Seles and Nancy Kerrigan, Lee Trevino was asked if he ever worried about his safety.

“I’ve got 14 clubs and a 318-pound caddie. Are you kidding?”

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Who’ll be first? Mario Lemieux, the Pittsburgh Penguins’ legendary center, is getting three massages a week in an attempt to restore his ailing back, but says he still hasn’t made up his mind about returning to hockey for the 1995-96 season.

Neither has the NHL.

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The other side: Forward Kirk Maltby would have earned $160,000 with the Edmonton Oilers this season. Instead, because of the NHL lockout, he’s pulling down $9 an hour loading and unloading furniture at a friend’s store in Guelph, Canada.

He told the Hockey News, “It’s a little taste of reality, I guess. Now I understand what my family and friends have to deal with every day.”

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Career counseling: Heavyweight champion George Foreman, asked by Penny Daniels on “A Current Affair” what he would like his sons to become: “I would prefer that they become managers. That way, if they win, lose or draw they get paid.”

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Add career counseling: Marv Levy, the professorial coach of the Buffalo Bills who started as an assistant in a St. Louis prep school long before making it to the NFL, told sports editor Mark Dukes of Iowa’s Cedar Rapids Gazette:

“One of the things that turns me off is some young high school coaches who write me and say, ‘How do you get to be a coach in the NFL?’ He ought to be thinking, ‘How can I be the best high school coach who ever lived?’ ”

Levy played and coached in Cedar Rapids at Coe College.

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Trivia answer: 106,869 attended when USC defeated Ohio State, 42-17, on Jan. 1, 1973.

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Quotebook: Seattle Seahawk Cortez Kennedy, a former Miami University All-American, on allegations that Miami players were paid for big plays: “You reporters shouldn’t be digging dirt. I don’t think it’s right--reporting some false stuff and some stuff that may be true.”