Heroic Rescuers Deserve to Sit in Lifeguard Chairs

The way it works, media day on the Tuesday before the Super Bowl:

The stars for each team speak to reporters while sitting in the comfort of chairs like the ones lifeguards have at the beach. The other players sit in the stands, waiting to be approached, or wander around the field with cameras and shoot pictures of each other.

“This isn’t me,” Tennessee tight end Frank Wycheck said Tuesday at the Georgia Dome, sitting in his lifeguard chair alongside Steve McNair, Eddie George, Bruce Matthews, Jevon Kearse and Yancey Thigpen.

“I belong up there in the stands or something.”

Not now. He’s the most popular man in Nashville outside of Porter Wagoner after throwing the lateral on the Music City Miracle, the controversial kickoff return that gave the Titans the victory over Buffalo in the first round of the playoffs.

“It was an unbelievable play at an unbelievable time,” he said.

It’s certainly unbelievable in Buffalo. A professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Rochester in New York has studied the play and declared that the lateral from Wycheck to Kevin Dyson was thrown forward, thus illegal.

But considering that the professor is an avowed Bill fan, he is no more objective than Wycheck, who said he has watched the replay 25 or 30 times.

“I knew it was close, but I knew it wasn’t a forward pass,” he said.

Wycheck said he has been hearing a lot lately from friends he grew up with in Philadelphia.

“This is my seventh year in the league,” he said. “A lot of them didn’t know I was playing in the NFL until that play.”

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When it was the St. Louis Rams’ turn to experience media day, Ricky Proehl was one of the players wandering around on the field, although without a camera, until an NFL official realized that a lot of reporters wanted to speak to the wide receiver and escorted him to a place in the stands.

No doubt Kurt Warner, Marshall Faulk, Todd Lyght, Orlando Pace and others deserved their lifeguard chairs, but none would have been there Tuesday if Proehl hadn’t caught the 30-yard touchdown pass in the fourth quarter of the NFC championship game that beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

As unlikely a hero as Wycheck, Proehl is a journeyman who played in Arizona, Seattle and Chicago before St. Louis and is considered primarily a possession receiver. If a Ram were going to catch a long touchdown pass, you would think it would be one of their burners, such as Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt or Az-zahir Hakim.

“I’m a role player,” he said. “When you’re a role player, the chance of making a game-winning touchdown diminishes a little bit.

“I played for 10 years and I think I’ve been pretty consistent and put up some decent numbers. But no one knows who I am.”

Not true now. His play will be remembered in St. Louis like Dwight Clark’s is in San Francisco as “the Catch.”

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Say what you will about Georgia Frontiere, who is revered in St. Louis and reviled in Southern California. But she’s not as much a meddler as an owner as her late husband, Carroll Rosenbloom. . . .

Former Ram coach Chuck Knox used to talk about Rosenbloom coming into the locker room 30 minutes before kickoff and telling him which quarterback to start. . . .

Rosenbloom usually favored Ron Jaworski over James Harris and Pat Haden. . . .

Knox made fun of Rosenbloom because he would go to games wearing an expensive suit or a smart sport coat and slacks, but with rubber-soled football shoes like the ones the coaches wear. . . .

If Phil Jackson is trying to make a point that he needs another big man on the bench by playing Shaquille O’Neal so many minutes, he’s succeeding. . . .

NBC’s Ahmad Rashad said during the Lakers’ loss to Portland on Saturday night that John Salley must have his uniform sewed to his body. . . .

Dennis Rodman must be sincere about playing if he wants to be in a Maverick uniform in time for Thursday night’s game in Dallas against the Clippers. I figured Rodman would wait until after his Super Bowl parties. Or Mardi Gras. . . .

Based on his third-round knockout Saturday of Willy Wise, Shane Mosley looks like a real threat to Oscar De La Hoya. . . .

But Mosley, rather obnoxiously, says he doesn’t want that fight unless he’s “paaaaid.” . . .

Memo to Mosley: Beat De La Hoya, you’ll be paaaaid.

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Winners: The bus drivers who transported teams and media to the Georgia Dome on Tuesday without getting lost.

Where were they during the Olympics?

Loser: Fred Taylor.

Not that you’ll ever be able to convince him. After Tennessee beat Jacksonville for the third time this season, the second time at Alltel Stadium, in the AFC championship game Sunday, the Jaguar running back said, “No matter what happens, we’re still the better team.”

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