Chargers Are Losing in Landslide
Nick Canepa of the San Diego Union-Tribune, writing on the Chargers, whose record fell to 0-10 Sunday after a loss to the Miami Dolphins:
“The only Floridians we know for certain punched all the right buttons in the last week were the Miami Dolphins.
“Of course, the Dolphins were playing the Chargers, therefore running unopposed.”
More Miami: Dolphin Coach Dave Wannstedt put mousetraps (not set) in his players’ lockers at midweek, an obvious reminder not to fall into the trap of taking the Charges too lightly.
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Trivia time: In the USC-UCLA football series, what is the largest winning margin for each school?
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Hooked on violence: Kevin Paul Dupont in the Boston Globe:
“Do you wonder about a league [NHL] that has worked diligently to distance itself from an exaggerated image of thuggery, while its clubs continue to play clips from ‘Slapshot’ on their giant message boards?
“I don’t get it. It would be like playing clips of ‘The Honeymooners’ at a NOW convention.”
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Turned off: Les Carpenter of the Seattle Times is not thrilled about the 2005 Super Bowl being awarded to Jacksonville, Fla., a city he calls the Redneck Riviera:
“Not in Jacksonville, the land of strip malls and trailer parks, where dead and dying jalopies are hoisted reverently onto the front-yard cinder blocks.”
Football junkies: A sampling from David Letterman’s Top 10 Signs You’re Watching Too Much Football:
* “The kids bring home a good report card and you dump Gatorade on them.
* “You’ve been banned from the A&P; for spiking melons.”
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Look for it: Jerry Greene in the Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel: “How many pundits will dispute the final scores of the games played in Tampa and Jacksonville--demanding a Florida recount?”
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More Greene: “And the historical play of the day was when Atlanta fullback Bob Christian carried the ball in Detroit. . . . Yes, it was Christian vs. the Lions.”
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Wait a minute! In Tuesday’s edition of The Times, UCLA Coach Bob Toledo dismissed the notion of overworking tailback DeShaun Foster by saying, “He’s not in a union. The ball is not heavy.”
Clever, but it’s a famous line he borrowed from former USC coach John McKay, commenting on O.J. Simpson. Toledo, a former USC assistant coach, is obviously a student of Trojan football history.
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FYI: Defending national champion Michigan State ended the Harlem Globetrotters’ 1,270-game winning streak with a 72-68 victory Monday in an exhibition basketball game at East Lansing, Mich.
The Globetrotters hadn’t lost to a college team since April 15, 1962, when they were beaten by the University of Denver, 101-89.
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Trivia answer: USC won, 76-0, in 1929 and UCLA won, 39-0, in 1950.
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And finally: Miami Heat Coach Pat Riley, replying to criticism from Dallas Maverick owner Mark Cuban that playing for the hard-driving Riley will shorten a player’s career:
“This is a fashionable myth that has followed me,” Riley told Dan Le Batard of the Miami Herald. “The players become evangelists for conditioning after they leave. Doc Rivers and Byron Scott [former Riley players now coaching] are harder than I was.
“Conditioning has extended careers, strengthened their bodies, gotten better performances. [Cuban’s] primary motivation here is to discredit and degrade.”