Just Goes to Show It’s Dog-Meet-Dog World Out There

Wojciechowicz S. Wojtkiewicz, the former manager of UCLA’s practice football field who died recently, has been the subject of many stories over the years.

Better known as “Bow Wow,” he also worked for the Rams for a while when the late Tommy Prothro was coach in the early 1970s.

One day, while Jack Geyer, the late Ram public relations co-director, was opening the door at the club’s Pico Boulevard office, he noticed Bow Wow coming down the street in one direction and Fido Murphy, an NFL scout, in the other.

When they arrived at the office door, Geyer said, “You won’t believe this, Fido, meet Bow Wow.”

Geyer added later, “They just stood there growling at each other.”

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Trivia time: What was unusual about the 1942 Rose Bowl game?

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Add Bow Wow: When the Rams were on the road, it was always startling to hear Bow Wow paged in hotel lobbies: “Call for Mr. Wow, call for Mr. Wow.”

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More on Mr. Wow: One Christmas night, Prothro answered the doorbell at his home in Sherman Oaks and was greeted by a woman holding a “Merry Christmas” sign that stretched from her head to her knees.

“Then, she handed me the sign and I let out a yell for Shirley, my wife,” Prothro said in a 1970s interview. “[The woman] was wrapped in red cellophane and nothing else.”

Chuckling in the nearby bushes was Bow Wow.

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Mystery man: Bow Wow, a self-styled Polish prince, once was married to writer Sheilah Graham. In a book she wrote about her former husbands, Graham dismissed Bow Wow with one sentence--”That nut whose name you can’t pronounce.”

Prothro once said, “I’ve known Bow Wow since 1949 when I first came to UCLA [as an assistant coach], and I still don’t have any idea of what he does for a living or where he lives.”

Bow Wow had a business card that listed a number in Beverly Hills. When one dialed it, the operator broke in and referred the caller to the long-distance operator in Madrid.

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Impending doom: Southwestern Louisiana Coach Nelson Stokley, speaking to reporters before his team was routed by Washington State, 77-7, on Saturday:

“Would anybody like to be head coach for a week?”

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Looking back: On this day in 1892, William (Pudge) Heffelfinger of Yale became the first pro football player by getting $500 to play for the Allegheny Athletic Assn. against the Pittsburgh Athletic Club.

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Looking back again: On this day in 1996, the Lakers defeated the Rockets, 126-115, in double overtime at Houston.

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Trivia answer: It was played in Durham, N.C., because of World War II security restrictions on the West Coast. Oregon State beat Duke, 20-16. Note: Prothro was a blocking back for the Blue Devils.

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And finally: Dallas Coach Barry Switzer said stories about his future with the Cowboys are written by “vultures, hyenas,” adding, “They all come out when they think they’ve got dead carcasses laying around.”