What’s in Mirror Looks Better to Chuck Muncie

With talent that could have taken him to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Chuck Muncie instead went to prison. He has devoted himself since to helping young people avoid detours in their lives.

“You spend two years in a jail cell, you’ve got time to look at yourself,” Muncie said Tuesday. “I didn’t like what I saw.”

The former running back for the New Orleans Saints and San Diego Chargers was speaking by telephone from the Chuck Muncie Foundation, a nonprofit organization in Oxnard founded six months ago to provide Southern California youths with alternatives to the street.

His “baby doll” involves golf, hardly surprising considering the sport’s mushrooming popularity among the Tiger Woods generation.

Muncie is supplying 25 caddies to Rancho Park this summer. The Golf Group of America, also of Oxnard, developed the program and is responsible for training.

More potential caddies have enlisted, their interest no doubt enhanced by the more than $100 a day they can earn, but Rancho Park so far is the only course taking advantage.

Muncie, 44, created the foundation after three years as director of Port Hueneme’s Boys and Girls Club. Growing up in Pennsylvania, he lived across the street from one of the clubs and promised some day to show his appreciation by working with young people.

As a senior at the University of California in 1975, he was runner-up to Archie Griffin for the Heisman Trophy. Muncie later would reveal that it also was the year he began using cocaine.

He’s still the Chargers’ third-leading rusher and leader in rushing touchdowns. Dallas Cowboy offensive coordinator Ernie Zampese calls him “the best sweep man I’ve ever seen.” But Muncie couldn’t run around drug addiction.

He was convicted in 1989 for selling cocaine.

Before he was sentenced, he told the judge, “I’m more than willing to get my life back in order.”

That has been a promise kept, enabling him to keep others.

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When I think of Mike Tyson now, the athlete I’m most reminded of is Tonya Harding. . . .

Both came from economically deprived, unstable family backgrounds, both had opportunities through athletics to rise above their circumstances and both sabotaged themselves with stupid and cowardly acts of poor sportsmanship. . . .

I’d like to see the Nevada Athletic Commission react with the same resolve the U.S. Figure Skating Assn. did in banning Harding for life. . . .

Tyson could apply after a year for reinstatement. That would allow the commission to monitor him for 12 months to determine whether he has benefited from the psychological help he suggested he has sought since Saturday night. . . .

While on the subject of lifetime bans, I doubt very seriously that Don King’s endorsement enhanced Pete Rose’s chances of selection to baseball’s Hall of Fame. . . .

Meantime, Pete’s 11-year-old son, Tyler, been named to the Beverly Hills Little League all-star team. . . .

We have a lot to look forward to if he’s as good an athlete as his dad. Or the other Tyler Rose. . . .

That was Earl Campbell’s nickname. He’s from Tyler, Texas, which fancies itself as the Pasadena of the Southwest. . . .

Maybe I should check with Tyson’s psychologist, but I bet the Heisman Trophy that Campbell and others have won is experiencing self-esteem issues. . . .

O.J. Simpson compared his to “wallpaper,” and Fred Goldman said he’d like to “pound the daylights out of it with a sledgehammer.” . . .

If he has a swing like Bobby Witt’s, it shouldn’t take him long. . . .

The last American League pitcher to hit a home run before Witt did Monday night was Oakland’s Ken Holtzman in the 1974 World Series, also against the Dodgers. Andy Messersmith was the pitcher. . . .

The most important pitches for the Dodgers this season will be thrown on the sideline later this week, when Ramon Martinez tests his injured shoulder. . . .

It’s remarkable the Angels are staying in the division race with injuries to Jim Edmonds, Garret Anderson, Luis Alicea, Darin Erstad and Jim Leyritz. . . .

No wonder one of their trainers, Rick Smith, has been named to the American League All-Star team. . . .

Sports wasn’t quite morally bankrupt last weekend. The referee didn’t see it when the Galaxy’s Paul Caligiuri was butted by Tampa Bay’s Ivan McKinley. But the Mutiny coach, John Kowalski, did. He benched McKinley. . . .

“I feel sportsmanship still belongs in the game,” he said.

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While wondering if anyone guessed the Angels would be better than the Dodgers when they met in July, I was thinking: I like the Dodgers’ chances much better if Martinez returns, either Ramon from the disabled list or Pedro from Montreal.