It’s All Part of the Bitterness of Finishing 33rd

John McClain of the Houston Chronicle on Los Angeles conditionally being awarded the NFL’s 32nd franchise:

“Sept. 15 is the deadline. Yeah, right. That deadline is about as solid as my waistline.

“I’ll wager my Baylor football and basketball season tickets that L.A. will be given an extension because it won’t meet the guidelines. How long an extension is the billion-dollar question. . . .

“It was never Houston’s to win. It was always Los Angeles’ to lose. Still is.”

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More McClain: Writing on Boston College running back Mike Cloud, he said: “After the season, he was considered a fourth- or fifth-round pick. . . .

“[But] Cloud might have moved into the second round. He ran a 4.28 40 and lifted 225 pounds 21 times at his workout for scouts.”

A 4.28 40? Get real, John.

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Trivia time: Who are the three active coaches who have won more than one men’s NCAA basketball championship?

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Remember when? The recent Laker trip of six games in nine days is not unprecedented. During the Lakers’ championship season of 1971-72--in which they won an NBA-record 33 consecutive games--they had two arduous trips.

They began the season with four games in six days, winning them all. Later, they had a six-game trip in 10 days, during which their 33-game win steak was halted by Milwaukee on Jan. 9, 1972. They were 4-2 on that trip.

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Good shot: Miami Heat Coach Pat Riley responding to comments from former Chicago Bull Coach Phil Jackson that this season’s NBA title will be “tainted” because Michael Jordan retired and the Bulls were broken up:

“I think that’s the effects of all the windowpane [LSD] he took in the ‘70s. The synapses just don’t fire like they used to.”

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Still running: Martin Saarikangas, a 14-year-old messenger when the Summer Olympics were held in Helsinki in 1952, is the chairman of the committee pushing the Finnish capital’s bid for the 2006 Winter Olympics.

“I was so proud of the badge they gave me,” he said of his ’52 experience. “I was so proud to be allowed to run around the Helsinki stadium. I would be proud to be a messenger boy again for the 2006 Games, if that’s what task I’m given.”

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Trivia answer: Bob Knight of Indiana with three, and Denny Crum of Louisville and Mike Krzyzewski of Duke with two each.

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And finally: Bernie Lincicome of the Chicago Tribune on the city’s losing sports celebrities:

“Dennis Rodman is no great loss, like losing an aloha shirt in the laundry, and Albert Belle is still a creeping contagion, no matter how many home runs he took with him. But Chicago’s marquee is greatly dimmer without them.

“Even the livestock is absent without Arlington Park. If Cigar came to town today, he would have to stand outside the gate with the rest of the smokers.”