By His Reckoning, Race Is Over for USC, UCLA

Washington Coach Jim Lambright, unwittingly I’m sure, has all but eliminated USC and UCLA from the Pacific-10 football race.

“If you’re going to have a chance in this conference, you return your starting quarterback,” Lambright said when Pac-10 coaches gathered in Los Angeles last week to discuss their teams with the media.

Exit USC, which lost Brad Otton.

Another daunting challenge, Lambright said, is a schedule starting with a conference game on the road.

Exit UCLA, which opens Aug. 30 at Washington State.

Starting his second season as Bruin coach by welcoming freshmen to campus today, Bob Toledo does have his starting quarterback returning.

He noted, if not quite accurately, that UCLA must face five of the nation’s top six quarterbacks, as ranked by Lindy’s Pac-10 Football magazine.

“I hope the sixth one is Cade McNown,” Toledo said, referring to his quarterback.

In fact, Lindy’s ranks six of the Bruins’ opposing quarterbacks among the top 13, including Tennessee’s Peyton Manning first, Washington State’s Ryan Leaf second, Stanford’s Chad Hutchinson fifth, Washington’s Brock Huard seventh, Texas’ James Brown ninth and Arizona’s Keith Smith 13th. McNown is 17th.

Talk about quarterbacks makes USC Coach John Robinson nervous, understandable because he doesn’t have a veteran to open the season Sept. 6 at the Coliseum.

When the Trojans report next week, sophomores Quincy Woods and John Fox will have a slight edge over redshirt freshman Mike Van Raaphorst. If one doesn’t emerge, Robinson said he will use two, as he did in 1995 with Otton and Kyle Wachholtz.

“We have an easy opener so we should get started in a nice rhythm,” Robinson said, tongue in cheek.

I think he’d trade openers with Toledo, let UCLA stay at home against Florida State.

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It might have been bewildering on Basketball Road in North Carolina when Marion Jones announced after last season she would bypass her senior year as the Tar Heel point guard to concentrate on track and field. . . .

For those of us who watched her sprint at Thousand Oaks High, there was no question she made the right decision. . . .

You didn’t have to be Dwight Stones to know she could win a world championship in the 100 meters some day, although I thought at one point she might do it for her mother’s native Belize. . . .

Jones was upset with USA Track & Field officials during her senior year of high school in 1993. In a misunderstanding, she failed to report for a random drug test and was suspended for four years. . . .

She was quickly reinstated when the USATF lawyer proved no match for hers, Johnnie Cochran. . . .

UCLA assistant John Smith has joined Tom Tellez and Bob Kersee as the world’s premiere sprint coaches. . . .

Smith coached Steve Lewis and Quincy Watts to Olympic 400-meter titles in 1988 and 1992 and Marie-Jose Perec to Olympic 200 and 400 titles in 1996. . . .

But Smith couldn’t say he had ever coached the world’s fastest man, not until Maurice Greene won the 100 Sunday. . . .

Perec, who trains in Westwood, is becoming less popular at home in France, according to a London newspaper, The European. . . .

”. . . America’s spoilt brat syndrome has taken its toll,” says the writer. . . .

If there were such a syndrome, one athlete I never thought would succumb to it is Ken Griffey Jr. . . .

Among his numerous complaints recently is that he’s under too much pressure. . . .

Seattle Times columnist Ron Judd sympathizes, especially when Griffey opens his garage door. . . .

“Which car, the Rolls or the Ferrari? And, worse yet, how will I explain my decision to the Porsches?” . . .

Leave it to Ross Porter to come up with this stat: “The U.S. Constitution has been amended 11 times since the Cubs last won the World Series in 1908.” . . .

“Any team can have a bad century,” says Hall of Fame shortstop Lou Boudreau, the former Cub manager and broadcaster. . . .

With too many good young prospects in the farm system, Dodger exec Fresco Thompson ordered the Ogden, Utah manager in 1966 to cut a player who appeared to have no future with the organization. The manager believed otherwise and resisted. . . .

The manager? Tom Lasorda. The player? Bill Russell.

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While wondering if this isn’t the season for USC to become Tailback U again, I was thinking: I agree with the Pac-10 media poll that Washington will finish first, Stanford second and USC third, then I like Arizona State, UCLA, Washington State, Oregon, Arizona, California and Oregon State.