Sprinter Making Quick Cash as Coach in Libya

Things must be kind of slow for Ben Johnson in Libya. Why else would he telephone the Toronto Sun at 4:30 in the morning, Libya time?

“Big Banned Ben,” as he is known in Canada, is ensconced in a five-star hotel in Banghazi for three months while acting as a fitness coach for Al-Saad Kadafi, the soccer-playing son of Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi.

“I just work and sleep,” Johnson told the Sun. “But that’s OK. I’m here to work, not to socialize.”

When he does leave the hotel, he travels by limousine, and everywhere he goes, even just down the hall, he is accompanied by heavily armed guards as a security precaution.

But don’t feel bad for the sprinter. He does have 24-hour room service, he said, the food is fine and, oh, yes, he’s being paid $50,000 for the 90-day gig.

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Trivia time: The winner of next month’s Bob Hope golf tournament will collect $540,000. How much did Arnold Palmer receive as the 1960 winner?

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Window dressing: Amid the scores of better-known figures he might have chosen, Tony Kornheiser of the Washington Post selected University of Kansas defensive end Dion Rayford as his athlete of the year because of his “stick-to-itiveness.”

Rayford, you’ll remember, became so enraged at a Taco Bell restaurant for failing to include a chalupa in his order that he attempted to climb through the 14-by-46-inch drive-thru window to get his food and got stuck.

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Free kick: The folks at U.S. Soccer headquarters in Chicago will not have taken kindly to Ron Rapaport’s comment in the Sun-Times:

“It’s hard to believe that the U.S. women’s soccer team will boycott future games because of a disagreement with the people who run the sport,” Rapaport wrote.

“It’s also hard to believe there are actually people running the sport. . . .”

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Fresh approach: Jerry Izenberg of the Newark Star-Ledger has a better idea for the parity-plagued NFL.

“The theory under which the NFL now operates is that everybody wants a winner and everybody needs and deserves a playoff team for which to root,” he said.

“What the league needs to do is start the season on the first weekend in September and then go directly into the playoffs after one game. Every team at .500 or better would qualify.”

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Not a pretty picture: English soccer player Neil Ruddock of West Ham United injured his eye in a league game.

“Afterward,” he said, “the doctor pinched my nose and told me to blow. My eye blew up like a balloon, which the doc said was a certain sign I’d fractured the socket.”

And what does the eye look like now?

“The backside of an orangutan,” Ruddock said.

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Trivia answer: $12,000.

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And finally: The Chicago Tribune’s Bernie Lincicome suggests that it’s best not to tell Illinois football Coach Ron Turner that playing Virginia in something called the Micronpc.com Bowl in Miami is small time.

Turner, it seems, has a ready answer.

“Ohio State, Notre Dame, UCLA, Southern Cal. No bowl games, big or small, for them. When is the last time that happened in the same year? Maybe never.”