Explanation Sounds Like a Canned Answer

How did New England Patriot Coach Bill Parcells get the nickname “Tuna”? Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe writes that there are many versions of the story.

Here’s one told by former Patriot offensive lineman John Hannah, from when Parcells was an assistant coach with the team in 1980:

“We started calling Bill ‘Tuna’ when he first coached here. He had that tuna body, you know--small shoulders and sloping outward, like a tuna fish.”

Sounds fishy.

Trivia time: Where did Lenny Wilkens, all-time winningest NBA coach, play college basketball? Lighting the fuse: A few weeks ago, Buffalo Bill Coach Marv Levy used his cable TV show to knock Chuck Dickerson, a talk-show host on a Buffalo radio station, who was a one-time Bill assistant coach and calls himself “Coach.”

“He was regarded as a buffoon by our players,” Levy said of Dickerson, a critic of Levy and his staff. “He hasn’t changed. That’s why he has been fired more times than a Civil War cannon, to tell the truth.”

No hang time: The recent storm in the Bay Area prompted the San Francisco 49ers to practice in Tempe, Ariz., Wednesday and Thursday for Sunday’s NFC championship game with the Dallas Cowboys at Candlestick Park.

A practice facility that was rejected--the Moffett Field hangar in Sunnyvale, Calif.

Add 49ers: Bill Buckley, chief groundskeeper at Candlestick, who has the job of getting the rain-soaked field in shape for the NFC title game:

“No one ever hears about me except for a week every year.”

Growing up: Muggsy Bogues of the Charlotte Hornets stands only 5 feet 3, but he is five stories tall on a mural painted on the side of a bank building.

Full-court press: Mike Schmidt’s election to baseball’s Hall of Fame recalls how the Philadelphia Phillie third baseman regarded his treatment by the media during his playing days:

“Philadelphia is the only city in the world where you can experience the thrill of victory and the agony of reading about it the next day.”

Add Schmidt: He said he would invite Pete Rose to the induction ceremony on July 30, adding, “He may have to sit beyond the fence. I’m not sure if he’s allowed in the city limits of Cooperstown.”

Anchors aweigh: Mike White of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that Chris Reed, a highly recruited defensive lineman from Port Arthur, Tex., runs the anchor leg on his high school’s 400-meter relay team.

Nothing unusual about that except that Reed stands 6-4 and weighs 265 pounds.

Say what?Yogi Berra on being asked if he wanted his pizza cut into four or eight slices: “Better make it four. I don’t think I can eat eight.”

Trivia answer: Providence.

Quotebook: Bryan Cox, the Miami Dolphins’ hot-tempered linebacker, on his image: “I don’t really care about what my public perception is, because I look at myself as not having a lot of class.”