What a Hoot! He Named Himself Coach

To the surprise of no one who had been paying attention, Howard Schnellenberger is a college football coach again, this time at age 65.

Greg Cote of the Miami Herald saw this coming a little more than a year ago, when he visited Schnellenberger after the former Miami Hurricane boss was put in charge of starting the program at Florida Atlantic. That included choosing a coach.

Fourteen months later, Schnellenberger made the hire.

Himself.

“FAU’s Owls putting Schnellenberger in charge of finding their first head coach,” Cote wrote after thinking back on that visit, “was like asking a pit bull to guard the hamburger.”

*

Trivia time: Which golfer will finish the 1990s with the most top-10 finishes in the majors?

*

Selective service: Vito Stellino of the Baltimore Sun, on the San Francisco 49ers’ continued interest in troubled running back Lawrence Phillips: “There was a time when the 49ers were so good that they could dump problem players they thought weren’t good for their image. They got rid of Charles Haley in 1992, and he won three more Super Bowl rings in Dallas. They dumped Ricky Watters in 1995, and his only problem was that he was a hotdog who was disliked by the players.

“The 49ers no longer have the luxury of being so selective. If [Garrison] Hearst can’t play, the top rusher from last year on the team is [Steve] Young.

“Bill Walsh, who’s now running the front office, even said Phillips has a ‘disarming pleasant personality.’ This comes just three months after Walsh had said, ‘I wouldn’t have taken Lawrence Phillips no matter what was out there because of the violence.’

“That the 49ers are even willing to consider Phillips shows that these are desperate times for a franchise trying to remain a contender.”

*

Pregnant pause: Karen Smyers of Lincoln, Mass., is a star in the grueling sport of triathlon, someone who has competed in the invitation to pain that is the famous Ironman in Hawaii and is regarded as the best American woman these days.

That’s nothing. Try being in labor for 48 hours, as she was last year before giving birth to a daughter.

“Only a small percentage of people in the world can do the Ironman,” said Smyers, who was chosen to carry the U.S. flag in Friday’s opening ceremony of the Pan American Games in Winnipeg, Canada. “Fifty percent of the people can do labor, and let me tell you, labor is harder. You don’t have a choice when you go into labor. You can’t drop out.”

*

Trivia answer: Greg Norman. He has 15, three more than Nick Faldo.

*

And finally: What’s the deal with Zzalt Lake Zzity?

The trend for the teams in Utah’s capital city started with the Jazz, which made the choice of Starzz understandable since the NBA and WNBA try to have a connection between the names of teams in the same towns (Sacramento Kings and Monarchs, Charlotte Hornets and Sting, Houston Rockets and Comets, etc.). But the minor league baseball team that plays in the wonderful stadium there is the Buzz. And the representative in the Western Indoor Soccer League?

The Freezz.