They Won’t Need a Wind Gauge at This Venue

Some predictions from Woody Paige of the Denver Post:

* “The 2084 Summer Olympics will be held on the moon. A young man from Latvia will break the long jump record--with a leap of 2.3 miles.

* “The Super Bowl will be played in Monte Carlo in 2033. Tickets will cost $87,000. Jacksonville will lose.

* “In 2092 [Colorado University] will beat Notre Dame, just off probation, for the national championship in the WWW.Yahoo/UPS/FloridaOrangeGrow-ersAssociation/Microhard.com Bowl.

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Trivia time: What is the record for most overtime periods in a UCLA-USC men’s basketball game?

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Say goodbye, Dan: Michael Wilbon of the Washington Post is skeptical that Dan Marino can continue to be a playoff factor:

”. . . This notion that Marino’s performance Sunday in Seattle means he’s still got it is crazy. I’m rooting for Marino again this Saturday in Jacksonville, but the fact is he’s missing passes now that he could throw from a chair 10 years ago.

“Hey, he’s old. It’s not an insult. It’s life. Is he supposed to be able to throw the deep out until he’s 50? Please.”

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Come again? Wallace Matthews of the New York Post reports that shortly before Oscar De La Hoya held a news conference in New York to promote his Feb. 26 fight against Derrell Coley, somebody in his entourage said, “He [Coley] says you’ve been ducking him?”

“Ducking him?” De La Hoya said. “I don’t even know who he is.”

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Goodbye, pal: Frank Luksa in the Dallas Morning News: “Jerry Jones first said that Chan Gailey displayed passion and eagerness to succeed. Then he said Gailey was loyal, owned unparalleled work habits and had all the traits of a genuine all-around good fellow.

“Jones followed by saying Gailey had character beyond reproach, ambition, integrity and imagination.”

Then, of course, he fired him.

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Class now in session: Chris Zelkovich of the Toronto Star wasn’t impressed with ESPN2’s hockey tutorial during the Chicago Blackhawk-Colorado Avalanche game Sunday. “If, after a decade of broadcasting NHL games, ESPN feels this type of Dick-and-Jane approach is necessary, it doesn’t say much for hockey’s future in the U.S.”

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FYI: On Jan. 12, 1991, Princeton routed Cornell, 164-71, in long-distance swimming even though the schools didn’t physically compete against each other.

The schools agreed to compete by phone because a blizzard made travel to Ithaca, N.Y., a problem. Each team swam in its own pool and the results were exchanged by fax.

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Trivia answer: Four. USC beat UCLA, 80-78, at Pauley Pavilion in 1985. Note: Earlier that season, USC defeated UCLA, 78-77, in two overtimes.

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And finally: In an interview with Mike Monroe of the Denver Post, Shaquille O’Neal was asked about the NBA’s most-valuable-player award:

“I’m 27,” he said. “I’ve done a lot individually, but individual accolades have never meant a lot to me. It would look nice on my resume.

“But if I don’t get it, I’m not going to drink a can of rat poison and retire.”