Someone Forgot Aim of the Game

The no-name notes column:

* Donating money to charity is a wonderful thing.

* Donating money in conjunction with a basketball game featuring millionaire players who aren’t playing because they want to become richer millionaires is a strange, strange thing.

* You go ahead and attend that game between suddenly philanthropic NBA pouters Sunday at UCLA.

* I’d rather write a check to the charities involved.

* As long as I didn’t have to make it out to the impoverished Mr. Elden Campbell.

* Do these NBA players and some of their embarrassing advisors really not have one clue?

* When hearing that Texas Christian had been picked to play USC in the Sun Bowl, I was also surprised, but for a different reason.

* I was unaware TCU still played football.

* Call me naive, but can anybody out there name one team the Horned Frogs played? One of their final scores? Any of their players?

* All of which should easily make this the scariest game of the season for Paul Hackett.

* Just ask Larry Smith.

* Funny how, with Hackett and Henry Bibby coaching their socks off, there has been a pause in the call for the head of Mike Garrett.

* I write “pause” because the attention span of an average Newport Beach car dealer doesn’t extend much past the next game.

* Bob Toledo wouldn’t recognize me if I didn’t wonder why the Bruins ended their Miami loss with two timeouts remaining.

* But blaming the defeat on the disjointed last drive--a hook and ladder?--is as silly as blaming it on distractions from a pregame vote.

* This latest talk would make sense only if the players had voted to protest our state’s affirmative action policies by refusing to tackle.

* Even if one or two defensive players were mad, all 11 were bad, case closed.

* I am shocked that fans were shocked when the UCLA offensive players publicly ripped their defensive teammates.

* They were only imitating the boss.

* Through his actions this season, Toledo has preached real-world accountability.

* As one who has to wake up every Saturday to our letters page, I find the lesson an appropriate one.

* None of which, sadly, will change the fact that against Miami, Cade McNown had the greatest game nobody will remember.

* He might have thrown college football’s pass of the year early in the second quarter, when he scrambled the width of the field and, while leaning out of bounds to avoid a sack, still flung the ball through several defenders to a diving Brian Poli-Dixon for seven yards and a touchdown.

* It was the play that typified the career.

* I will remember McNown not only for that, but for how he put his head down and ran off the field after each of his five touchdown passes and one touchdown run, refusing to celebrate excessively or taunt the Hurricanes.

* I’ve never seen a game of this magnitude involve one player who so insistently refused to let his team lose . . . yet was so overwhelmingly outvoted.

* I can see McNown getting swamped by Ricky Williams in this weekend’s Heisman Trophy voting, but for him to finish behind anyone else is absurd.

* And what’s your favorite postseason college game?

* Love the renewal of that longtime San Diego State-North Carolina rivalry in the Las Vegas Bowl.

* Can’t wait to see if Alabama’s defense can stop Virginia Tech’s offense in the Music City Bowl.

* Or is it the other way around?

* People always love to make fun of the Humanitarian Bowl, this year between Idaho and Southern Mississippi, but at least organizers are being humanitarian by putting it on obscure ESPN2.

* Think about those poor people who inadvertently flip to ABC on New Year’s morning and are confronted with Michigan-Arkansas in the Citrus Bowl.

* But, ohhhh, they don’t like each other very much.

* And will somebody please change the name of the Holiday Bowl to the Nonrefundable Fare Bowl?

* Isn’t it true that one of the reasons Nebraska was invited to play Arizona--despite the availability of Kansas State--was that thousands of Nebraska fans had already made airline arrangements?

* The toughest thing for our Nebraska and Wisconsin visitors this month will not be finding football tickets.

* It will be finding ways to maintain their cholesterol levels.

* As in, keeping them up.

* Every night, another Beef Bowl.

* This talk that the decline in the popularity of “Monday Night Football” merely reflects the decline of good pro football is nonsense.

* I walked into a modest Midwestern home Monday night for an unrelated interview when I heard screaming from the large family TV.

* I turned to see if Green Bay had taken the lead over Tampa Bay when I realized they were all watching professional wrestling.

* Instant replay is such a common-sense idea, it’s not even worth debating.

* The answer is not hiring full-time officials for 17 days a year.

* First, nobody with a lucrative day job would leave it for the NFL, which would cut out some of best officials.

* Second, by making them full-time without a union, the officials might be afraid to make the gutsy call often required of their position.

* It’s one thing to worry about losing a part-time gig; something else to worry about losing your sole source of income.

* And you think the officiating is tentative now?

* Back the current officials up with monitors, use your technology to make those monitors work quickly, and we’ll all shut up.

* The Arizona Diamondbacks spent $118.9 million on players. And they’ll still stink.

* What does it say about San Diego’s perceived downfall when Steve Finley leaves the National League champions because he says he wants to play for a winner?

* Unless the Colorado Rockies sign Kevin Brown, the Dodgers are, amazingly, the class of the National League West again, even without another pitcher, which is probably why they have been so slow to sign one.

* Which is still a huge mistake.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com