He’s Playing a Starring Role Off the Football Field Too

Hello, DreamWorks?

Is that you, Katzenberg?

Do I have a sequel for you!

Remember “Three Men and a Baby”?

This is “Four Aggies and a Baby.” It’s the story of Sirr Parker, the Texas A&M; junior running back from Locke High and his 22-month-old daughter, Alashea.

Alashea’s mother--Parker’s former girlfriend--had difficulty handling life last year in Los Angeles as a single mom. Parker intervened, bringing Alashea to the off-campus apartment he shared in College Station with three other players.

There were some laughs. He and his teammates, D’Andre Hardeman, Toya Jones and Michael Jennings, learned how to change diapers, marveled as she spoke her first word, hovered cautiously as she took her first steps. They also taught Alashea how to eat a Texas specialty, barbecued ribs.

“She didn’t have teeth, so she just gnawed at the bones until she cleaned the meat right off,” Parker says.

There also were nights with little sleep. Maybe that’s one reason Parker, projected as a star at Texas A&M;, didn’t play much of a role for the Aggies late last season, a development that led him to consider transferring to USC.

Texas A&M; Coach R.C. Slocum talked him out of it. He’s glad he did because Parker gained 800 yards this season even while sharing carries with Dante Hall.

“Having her around, she taught me a lot about not taking things for granted, about responsibility,” Parker says.

“I didn’t have my father around when I was growing up. I didn’t want my daughter to have to go through the same thing. It made me grow up faster than I anticipated. I think it all worked out for the best.”

Alashea returned to her mother when she moved to Mississippi last December, enabling Parker, 20, to focus on football and his studies this season.

But, according to a joint custody arrangement, he gets her back after the Aggies’ game in the Cotton Bowl on Thursday against UCLA and will have her through the summer.

“I can’t wait,” he says. “She’s a lot of fun. Her first toy was a football. You’d say, ‘Hike,’ and she’d run right to you.”

See, Jeffrey, I told you it had promise.

No, Parker doesn’t have an agent. Nor can he sell the rights. You know the NCAA.

But maybe you could send Alashea some of your old Disney videos.

Every so often, the NCAA should lose its rule book. . . .

The Aggies were bewildered when the NCAA prohibited them from wearing No. 59 decals on their helmets during the Cotton Bowl game in honor of former teammate Reggie Brown. . . .

According to the NCAA, the Detroit linebacker who suffered a severe spinal cord injury would qualify for such a tribute only if he had been a player on this season’s Texas A&M; roster who died. . . .

“It’s a stupid policy,” Aggie guard Steve McKinney said. “The NCAA wants complete control over you.” . . .

The NCAA probably wouldn’t have objected if the Aggies wanted to wear an additional patch on their jerseys advertising “the Southwestern Bell Cotton Bowl.” . . .

Be that as it may, an NCAA official told the Aggies they shouldn’t have asked for a ruling but should have just showed up on the field with the decals. . . .

That falls under the presumption that it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission. . . .

But Slocum, who receives almost as many visits from the NCAA as Jerry Tarkanian because of transgressions in the football program before he became head coach, doesn’t blow his nose without asking the NCAA. . . .

The Aggies will wear the decals on their shoulder pads under their jerseys. . . .

Bob Toledo, fired as Texas A&M;’s offensive coordinator after the 1994 Cotton Bowl, greeted Slocum before their joint news conference Tuesday. . . .

Toledo said they talked about golf. . . .

Slocum repeated he made a mistake in letting Toledo go. . . .

But I had to wonder what the UCLA coach was thinking when Slocum said he should be given credit for hiring Toledo in the first place. . . .

“If they beat us, they can win the Texas state championship,” Aggie linebacker Dat Nguyen said of the Bruins. . . .

Unlike Texas and Houston did in games this season, the Aggies expect to hold UCLA under 66 points.

While wondering how many All-Star votes Shaquille O’Neal would get if he were playing, I was thinking: I hope the Lakers haven’t seriously considered trading Eddie Jones for Scottie Pippen, I haven’t heard much from the Bulls’ critics lately, give me another decade and I’ll be ready for the Celtics to be good again.