His Football Skills Bounced Back When Necessary

Football fans who patronize the House of Blues on the Sunset Strip may do a double take when they see the side-door bouncer.

It could be Darnell Autry, Northwestern’s halfback who ran for 110 yards and three touchdowns in the 1996 Rose Bowl game. Frustrated by lack of action during a brief NFL career, Autry came to the Southland to pursue an acting career.

Rick Telander of the Chicago Sun-Times caught up with him at the House of Blues where Autry is picking up a few bucks and hoping he gets seen by the proper people. His football experience came in handy the other night when a drunk jumped on the stage and Autry tackled him.

“Oh, man, it all came back to me,” he told Telander. “I tackled him good. You know, face up, hips low, explode from the hips. Boom!”

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Trivia time: Dale Earnhardt Jr. will be honored tonight as NASCAR’s Busch Grand National champion at the Beverly Wilshire. Who was the series rookie of the year?

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Perfect records: Tulane finished its football season with a 12-0 record and yet was ranked only seventh in the major polls, which brings to mind the fate of Colgate, which went 9-0 in 1932.

“Undefeated, untied, unscored on . . . and uninvited,” wailed Coach Andy Kerr after being snubbed by the Rose Bowl.

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Just like the guys: Phil Mushnick of the New York Post says women’s basketball has reached parity with the men’s game when it comes to humiliating opponents.

Mushnick cited scores of 130-0 in a Texas high school game, 117-20 by Connecticut over Quinnipiac and 130-55 by Louisiana Tech over Cleveland State.

“The same twisted condition that has removed sport from so many men’s sports is now afflicting women’s sports,” he wrote. “Kicking people when they’re down, shooting fish in a barrel with a machine gun, is not sport, it’s the antithesis of sport.”

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Scouting note: Coaches and recruiters go to a lot of work luring prospective stars to their campus, but who ever thought a star recruit would make his choice on hugging?

Siaka Massaquoi of Evanston Township, an all-Illinois running back, said he picked Iowa over Illinois, Michigan, Notre Dame and Northwestern because then-coach Hayden Fry “was the only coach who hugged me.”

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Unnecessary roughness: The ABL didn’t make it, so what chance does the WPFL have?

That is the Women’s Professional Football League, scheduled to begin smash-mouth, full-contact play in the fall. Two teams, the Minnesota Vixens and the Lake Michigan Minx are already in, with franchises being offered for $50,000 each--which is about what Dodger pitcher Kevin Brown will get for each inning he works.

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Trivia answer: Andy Santerre, of Cherryfield, Maine.

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And finally: For as long as he has been coach at Tennessee, Phillip Fulmer has been described as “dull, dull, dull.” Not so, says the man who guided the Volunteers to the national championship.

“I can be quite colorful if I choose to be,” he says. “I just don’t tend to do it in public or in front of the media.”