Willoughby Has Lesson for Garnett

Bill Willoughby, who in 1975 went from high school directly to the NBA, has followed the Kevin Garnett story with some interest.

Garnett, a 6-foot-11 Chicago high schooler, was picked No. 5 by the Minnesota Timberwolves in Wednesday’s NBA draft.

Today, Willoughby, 38, is a freshman at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, N.J., his small fortune earned in an eight-year pro career a distant memory. He lives with his parents.

Willoughby, who spent eight seasons with six teams, talked about his undistinguished career in a recent Newsday interview.

“I was always treated like a high school guy,” he said. “They never used me. Never gave me any minutes. Then, every time I went in for a [new] contract, they’d point to my numbers.”

Nevertheless, he recently advised Garnett to turn pro.

“The money’s too good,” Willoughby said. “The only thing I regret is not holding onto my money.”

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Trivia time: What was unique about the 1935 Notre Dame-Northwestern football game?

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Fast relief: The NBA expansion draft should have been sponsored by Advil, what with all the headaches (Benoit Benjamin, Oliver Miller, Acie Earl, Doug Smith) teams unloaded.

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How soon they forget: The Christian Science Monitor reported Tuesday that if the NHL champion New Jersey Devils move to Nashville, it would be the “first such flight by a championship team.”

In hockey, maybe.

Shortly after the Cleveland Rams won the 1945 NFL title, they moved to Los Angeles.

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No more oranges: Recent revelations about the Kings being in dire financial condition brought back memories.

Twenty years ago, the Pittsburgh Penguins filed for protection under Chapter 11 a day after the IRS had seized the team.

The players knew trouble was afoot.

“We didn’t have oranges to eat in the dressing room between periods anymore, and they cut back on the number of towels,” Dave Burrows told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

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Add cutbacks: Cincinnati Red owner Marge Schott has ordered her publicity department to scale back the daily game notes distributed to the media, to save paper and copy machine use.

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Expensive scrum: Rupert Murdoch recently paid $550 million for exclusive TV rights to a new Rugby Union deal involving South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

Trivia answer: Notre Dame had a back named William Shakespeare and Northwestern an end named Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

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Quotebook: Author Hunter Thompson on Al Davis: “Any society that will put [Hell’s Angels chieftain Sonny] Barger in jail and make Al Davis a respectable millionaire is not a society to be trifled with.”