Not Namath and Alworth, but AFL Stars All the Same

The Avengers, Los Angeles’ new entry in the Arena Football League, don’t open their season at Staples Center until April, but they already have a most valuable player. . . .

His name is Kurt Warner. . . .

Don’t look for him in an Avenger uniform. He has already served his time in the AFL with three seasons at quarterback for the Iowa Barnstormers. But his performance this season for the unbeaten St. Louis Rams has given the AFL and the Avengers credibility that can’t be bought with a marketing campaign. . . .

Commenting on the impact that Warner and fellow AFL survivor, Miami wide receiver Oronde Gadsden (Portland Forest Dragons), have made in the NFL, Avenger owner Casey Wasserman says, “Dick Vermeil and Jimmy Johnson probably have a different opinion of arena ball today than they did a year ago.”

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My first impression after the second-half collapse at Notre Dame was that USC would easily beat Stanford on Saturday. . . .

First, the Cardinal is not very good. . . .

Second, the Trojans were ready to take out their frustrations on somebody. . . .

But after Coach Paul Hackett publicly assigned blame to the veterans, who knows what will happen at the Coliseum? . . .

My reaction was that the Trojans already had a split between offensive and defensive players and didn’t need another between upper- and underclassmen. . . .

I have been assured, however, that he merely was trying to motivate some players who, he feels, have abdicated leadership responsibilities. . . .

My feeling is that he’s playing with nitroglycerin. It’s either going to blow up in the faces of the Trojans or the Cardinal. . . .

It took only seven games for us to realize that UCLA is in a rebuilding season. . . .

Even so, the Bruins have underachieved. . . .

Most troubling about that is, it continues a trend that began after the first four games of 1998. They were able to get away with it until the final two games last season because of Cade McNown. . . .

East Los Angeles College is searching for members of its 1949 football team for a reunion to be held Oct. 29 at the Wyndham Garden Hotel in the City of Commerce. . . .

Coach Ace Hunt’s Huskies were disappointed because they weren’t invited to the Junior Rose Bowl Game, thus becoming known as the team that was “Undefeated, untied and uninvited.”

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Two CART drivers, Dario Franchitti and Paul Tracy, were in Los Angeles on Wednesday to promote the Metrolink service between the California Speedway in Fontana and Union Station on Oct. 31, the day of the Marlboro 500. . . .

It was particularly thoughtful of Franchitti to stop over, considering he was en route from Tokyo to Nashville, where--according to the tabloids--Ashley Judd was waiting for him. . . .

Bob Arum recanted after calling featherweight Prince Naseem Hamed “an English fraud.” I think Arum got it right the first time. Judge for yourself tonight, when Hamed fights Mexico’s Cesar Soto in Detroit on HBO. . . .

One of Arum’s Top Rank fighters, Floyd Mayweather, is so incensed about Hamed’s getting a six-fight, $12-million deal from HBO that he rejected a seven-fight, $12.5-million offer from the network, calling it a “slave contract.” . . .

Mayweather should study African American history for a better understanding of slavery. . . .

When Amy Alcott was 8, her parents pulled up the rose garden in the front yard of their Santa Monica home and put in a sand trap. She called it the “Alcott Country Club.” . . .

Tonight, the LPGA is honoring Alcott for her inclusion into its Hall of Fame at her second home, Riviera. . . .

Laffit Pincay, 31 wins shy of Bill Shoemaker’s record of 8,833, probably will break it this winter at Santa Anita, perhaps on his 53rd birthday Dec. 29. . . .

In Wednesday’s column, I complained that the Fox Sports Sky Box, the sports bar in the new arena, features photographs on the walls of Cardinal Mark McGwire, Bronco John Elway, Ranger Wayne Gretzky and numerous New York Yankees but no athletes in L.A. uniforms. . . .

The official explanation is that the photographs are all from Fox telecasts. . . .

Who cares about that, outside of the Aussies who run the network? Get some pictures up there of Magic, Wilt, Jerry West, Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Marcel Dionne, Gretzky as a King, Oscar De La Hoya. This is L.A., mates.

Randy Harvey can be reached at his e-mail address: randy.harvey@latimes.com.