Biggest Head Case in Football? It’s No Contest

Derrick Wilkes has such a big head that coaches at Elizabeth City (N.C.) State couldn’t find a helmet to fit him last season. So he went into a Sept. 12, 1998, game against Fayetteville State wearing a helmet with most of the padding removed.

After a few plays, he collided head-on with a running back and that’s all he remembers. He says he was unconscious for more than five minutes and when he awoke he saw a “pink monkey and strawberries floating by.”

“I’ve probably got the biggest head in the NCAA,” Wilkes said. A tape measure around his head shows 25 1/2 inches. That translates into a hat size of 8 1/4. Most fitted caps stop at 7 3/4.

Wilkes’ head is huge but not out of proportion to his 23 1/2-inch neck and 60-inch chest. He stands 6 feet 2 and weighs 380 pounds.

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Trivia time: The New York Yankees have played in 201 World Series games, easily the highest total in major league history. Which franchise has played in the next-highest number of World Series games?

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Let him pass: John Crumpacker in the San Francisco Examiner: “Player you’d least like to tackle--Mike Alstott, Bucs. Most NFL defenders would rather catch a falling floor safe with Ty Cobb’s glove than confront the 260-pound Alstott with a full head of steam.

“Player you’d least like to block--John Randle, Vikings. Every day is Halloween for this gibbering lunatic.”

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Forgettable 1999: Bud Geracie in the San Jose Mercury News: “The 49ers need a bye year.”

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Tiresome: David Letterman teased his friend, Bob Costas recently on the “Late Show,” saying:

“Boy is that Bob chatty. Have you heard him on the World Series? He just chats and chats and chats. He’s chocked full of facts, give him his due. But he just runs his mouth, just bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.”

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Mr. Happy Face: C.W. Nevius of the San Francisco Chronicle on stoic Stanford football Coach Tyrone Willingham:

“He can be maddening. Even he jokes about his stiff image. If Stanford should reach the Rose Bowl, the Democratic committee should schedule a side-by-side interview with Willingham and Al Gore. Gore would come off like Iggy Pop.”

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FYI: USC has a 3-5 record; UCLA is 3-6. If the Trojans don’t defeat Arizona State and Washington State, their Nov. 20 meeting with the Bruins will be the first since 1941 that both teams have played each other with losing records.

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Trivia answer: The St. Louis Cardinals, with 96 World Series games played.

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And finally: Chili Davis, 39, of the New York Yankees is an 18-year veteran, who played with Kansas City in 1997.

A Kansas City writer asked Davis during the World Series: “I thought you had retired.” Said Davis: “They buried me six feet under and gave me a seven-foot straw.”