Coaches Are Built for Racing

NASCAR Busch Grand National team owner and former NFL running back Joe Washington explains why Joe Gibbs’ team has driver Bobby Labonte about to win this year’s Winston Cup:

“This sport is as close to football as you can get--the crew chief is the coach, the driver is the QB and the backs and linemen are your crew.

“It takes everyone playing well to win a championship and Joe can see that better than some people that have been in NASCAR a lot longer than he has. Joe Gibbs is never outcoached.”

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Trivia time: When and where was the first major league baseball game played outside the United States?

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Prediction: Boston Celtic Coach Rick Pitino, on the upcoming NBA season:

“The power is still out in the West. That’s where the best teams are. Miami will be the team to beat in the East. After that, it’s a scramble.”

Solid support: Olympic hurdler Tonja Buford-Bailey had an unusual following at Sydney--prisoners at the Warren Correctional Institution in Lebanon, Ohio.

“My mom tells me a lot of the guys there are following me,” she said. “She told me they always ask how I’m doing and they follow me in the newspaper.”

Georgianna Buford is a corrections officer at the prison.

Now that’s slow: John Mooney, a former Salt Lake City sports writer, died the other day. He loved to recall when he was cut by the freshman football coach at Illinois after a qualifying sprint.

“Son, if you’d been running against a pregnant woman, you’d finish third,” the coach said.

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Records, records: Zizz, boom bah. Denver Bronco fans have made it into the Guinness Book of World Records for the loudest stadium cheer.

During halftime of the Broncos’ 28-19 loss to New England last Sunday, fans at Mile High Stadium belted out cheers, yells and whistles that topped out at 128.7 decibels.

That eclipsed the previous record set by fans at a rugby match in Ireland on Feb. 7, 1998 by more than three points.

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Generation gap: Max Mosley plans to run for reelection as president of FIA, ruling body for world motor racing. That will take him to his 65th birthday, a time to retire, he says.

“It’s all right to go to the drivers’ meetings and the drivers are young enough to be your children. But you don’t want them to be your grandchildren.”

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Name change: Thunder has replaced Crusaders as the new nickname of Wheaton College’s football team.

The college newspaper had raised questions about glorifying the Crusades because in the Middle Ages, the Crusaders roared through Europe and the Middle East, killing non-Christians.

Lots of glitter: Tennis champion Pete Sampras’ new wife, actress Bridgette Wilson, wore more than $400,000 worth of diamond jewelry for the wedding.

How do we know? Diamond Information Center, publicists for Fred Leighton, the jeweler who provided the diamonds, said so.

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Spreading out: Once a North American game, the NHL has gone global.

The Vancouver Canucks spent training camp in Stockholm. The Pittsburgh Penguins and Nashville Predators open with a two-game series in Japan.

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Trivia answer: April 14, 1969. Montreal defeated the St. Louis Cardinals, 8-7, at Jarry Park.

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And finally: Minnesota Viking Coach Dennis Green’s appraisal of his linebacker-sized quarterback Daunte Culpepper:

“He was big when he was small.”