Knute Wouldn’t Rely Purely on Luck of Irish

Bob Oates, in his recently released book, “60 Years of Winners,” recalled that when Notre Dame traveled west by train to play a strong USC football team in 1930, Knute Rockne, the wily Irish coach, had some tricks up his sleeve.

“First, on a stopover in Arizona, he called a rare early-morning drill, then sneakily told the hotel operator to cancel all wake-up messages to his players,” Oates wrote. “When they wandered out an hour late, Rockne, at his tongue-lashing best, tore into them for their tardiness, whipping the team into a frenzy.

“Next, at game time, Rockne dressed his fastest fullback, Bucky O’Connor, in the uniform of a slow-moving reserve who had been announced as [suspended] Joe Savoldi’s replacement, and O’Connor ran wild.”

The result was a 27-0 victory for Notre Dame at the Coliseum. It was Rockne’s last game. He died in a plane crash the following March in Kansas.

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Trivia time: What is the longest uninterrupted college football series in Division I-A?

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Tough neighborhood: Willie Burton, an NBA journeyman, told this story of his playground days in Detroit:

“Sometimes it got real violent. I remember one day we’re playing and this guy’s bringing the ball up court, dribbling with one hand, got a pistol in the other hand and he says:

“ ‘OK, who is going to foul me now? I want somebody to foul me.’ ”

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The magic number: For a while it looked as if Brian Kingman’s claim as the last pitcher in the 20th century to lose 20 games was in jeopardy. However, the Angels’ Jim Abbott was sent to the minors for a while and, when he returned, he had time to lose only 18.

“Everyone kept saying he’d definitely lose 20,” Kingman, who did it for the Oakland Athletics in 1980, told Jayson Stark of the Philadelphia Inquirer, “but I had confidence, because I know how hard it is.”

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Charge! Mark Kriegel in the New York Daily News: “How about those fans in right field [at Yankee Stadium]? Do they go to the game saying, ‘Should I bring a couple of nine volts, or will the Duracell AA do just fine?’ ”

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Reason enough: Former USC wide receiver Curtis Conway, now the Chicago Bears’ top receiver, on his relationship with Coach Dave Wannstedt:

“Early on, I felt he didn’t really come off as a coach that liked me. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve looked at it . . . where he saw the talent in me, but there were some minor things--like me not wanting to be here--that were holding me back.”

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Trivia answer: Kansas vs. Oklahoma, 94 games since 1903.

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And finally: Tampa Bay linebacker Hardy Nickerson on Minnesota Viking quarterback Warren Moon: “He doesn’t like going to the ground. He doesn’t like getting his uniform dirty.”

Age has its privileges. Moon will turn 40 in November.