Ditka Still Has Final Say, Though He Shouldn’t

Bernie Lincicome in the Chicago Tribune: ‘Accusations flourish that television has hit rock bottom the same week that Mike Ditka is rehired as a studio expert and tour guide.

“And it does suggest a possible Fox series. ‘Who wants to marry an unemployable oaf?’ Well, CBS does.

“Where else can a man go off and further ruin an already wrecked franchise as Ditka did the New Orleans Saints, not to mention his earlier underachievement with the Bears, and yet be made the last word, or least the loudest, on the NFL?”

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Trivia time: Since the NCAA men’s basketball tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985, which school was the last defending champion not to make the field?

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Also, provincial: Wallace Matthews of the New York Post on spectators not being particularly impressed by Oscar De La Hoya’s knockout victory over Derrell Coley on Saturday night in Madison Square Garden:

“This is a tough town and a skeptical town and a knowledgeable town.

“It’s not L.A. where people are revered for being famous and famous for being revered.”

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The pro experience: Jim Armstrong in the Denver Post: “You’ll be happy to know that Heisman winner Ron Dayne is making a smooth adjustment to the NFL. He’s dropped out of school and skipped the combine workouts.

“Next, I presume comes the training camp holdout.”

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Sorry, no scoop: After Corey Dillon checked into a Cleveland hotel recently, the Associated Press got a tip and reported that the Cincinnati Bengal running back was in town for an unannounced visit with the Browns.

If it was, it was news to him. This Corey Dillon is a 30-year-old mutual fund salesman from Denver.

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The Worm watch: The Fort Worth Star-Telegram now assigns two reporters to every Dallas Maverick home game. One to cover the game, the other to chase Dennis Rodman.

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Say it isn’t so: Edwin Pope in the Miami Herald on the question he hears everywhere: Is Dan Marino coming back to the Dolphins?

“I’ve never seen such naked emotionalism with an athlete. I wasn’t in Denver with John Elway, or Chicago with Michael Jordan, but I can’t imagine either’s magnetism could have been any more overpowering than Marino’s in South Florida, for all Elway’s and Jordan’s rings.

”. . . He’s not coming back. Here or any place else. He’s gone. G-o-n-e.

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Trivia answer: Kansas in 1989. The Jayhawks were put on probation and banned from postseason play after winning the championship in 1988. Before that, Louisville, which won in 1986, went 18-14 and fell short in 1987.

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And finally: Australian Paul Crake, 23, beat a field of 181 runners ranging in age from 18 to 88 from nine countries Wednesday in a record nine minutes, 53 seconds. The event?

Crake won the 23rd annual Fleet Empire State Building Run-up--1,576 steps. Approximately a fifth of a mile up on one of the world’s tallest buildings.