Sounds Like He Could Be New Tidy Bowl Man

At the Great Eight Classic in Chicago, Rhode Island basketball Coach Jim Harrick told Skip Myslenski of the Chicago Tribune about his problems at UCLA.

“You don’t like your life dragged out in front of everybody,” he said. “You don’t like to be humiliated. I did a lot for them, I think. I took a program that was in the toilet, in the toilet, and won a national title.

“I made it one of the top programs in the ‘90s, and look at their scores now! But, ah, I don’t want to talk about that.”

Don’t be so reticent, Jim.

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Trivia time: It’s estimated that 40,000 rounds a year are played at the TPC at Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra, Fla. How many balls wound up in the water on the 17th hole, near the island green?

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Just win, baby: Lou Holtz, the new football coach at South Carolina, is reportedly friendly with Mike McGee, the school’s athletic director.

Let’s hope so for Lou’s sake. While McGee was USC’s athletic director from 1984 to 1993, he fired two football coaches, Ted Tollner and Larry Smith. And he recently fired Gamecock Coach Brad Scott, who had a 1-10 record this year.

Before Tollner and Smith were sent packing, USC hadn’t fired a football coach since Jeff Cravath in 1950.

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Striking guy: David Casstevens in the Arizona Republic: “He reminds you of one of the Dalton gang. The tall one they call Slim.

“His blue eyes are deep-set, watchful. The thick mustache is the saloon variety, made for stud poker and collecting sarsaparilla foam.”

Some feared gunslinger from the Old West? Not quite. Casstevens is describing Randy Johnson, the Big Unit, and the Arizona Diamondbacks’ new pitcher.

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Forget the hype: Promoter Don King on the Evander Holyfield- Lennox Lewis bout: “This will be another Cain and Abel.”

Comment from Wallace Mathews of the New York Post: “It will be like Cain and Unable. Make it Holyfield by a knockout.”

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Bad P.R.: Steve Rosenbloom in the Chicago Tribune: “Montreal Hall of Famer Guy Lafleur ripped Canadien players as overpaid, lacking in pride and being ‘just one of 27 teams in the league.’

“Lafleur still draws a paycheck from the Canadiens--as a public relations ambassador.”

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Trivia answer: 120,000 balls were fished out of the water, an average of three per player.

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And finally: Charlie Vincent in the Detroit Free Press:

“Once, in a long-ago Piston playoff game against Boston, Adrian Dantley and Vinnie Johnson rammed heads while diving for a loose ball.

“When Dantley regained consciousness, his first words were, ‘What happened?’ Told their heads bumped in an effort to get the ball, Dantley--in blunt and semiconscious honesty--blurted, ‘Somebody must have pushed me; I never dived for a loose ball in my life.’ ”