If You’re Looking for a Sure Brett, Here’s One

Ron Jaworski, an ESPN analyst and a former Eagle and Ram quarterback, on Green Bay quarterback Brett Favre in an interview with Leonard Shapiro of the Washington Post: “He’s one of the few guys who can put a team on his back and carry them with him. It’s in vogue to say he’s calmed down, he’s matured and all that. I still think he plays a little out of control.

“He’s throwing off his back foot, off-balance, guys hanging all over him and he hits the guy [receiver] in the numbers. He’s just an incredible competitor. You see it on tape, and you can’t believe what he just did.”

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More on Favre: Green Bay center Mike Flanagan says that Favre likes to play practical jokes.

“He’ll throw water on you after you’ve put on your coat and tie, he’ll take your clothes and throw them in the shower or stuff ‘em in an ice bag,” Flanagan says. “He’s big on stink bombs every once in a while too

Fun for whom?

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Trivia time: What is UCLA’s overall bowl record and when did the Bruins play in their first bowl game?

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He has a beef: In this month’s GQ magazine, an article “Smoke and the Butterfly” quotes Joe Frazier crying foul over the famous “Rocky” statue of Sylvester Stallone in Philadelphia.

“That Stallone, what a phony scam booger he is,” Frazier said. “A scavenger. The slaughterhouse, sparring with sides of beef. I was the one. I was the one who used to run those steps. He stole that story, my story, and they put up a ... statue of him.”

Forget it, Joe, you’ll never win this one.

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Humorist: Tom FitzGerald in the San Francisco Chronicle: “His real name was Thomas Speers, but to listeners on sports-talk radio shows in Boston he was ‘Butch from the Cape.’

“Until his death [Wednesday] of cancer at the age of 58, he took delight in jabbing New England teams, punctuating his blasts with a guttural cackle ... ‘Maybe I’ve got Red Sox cancer,’ he told a Boston TV station this year, ‘the kind everybody beats.”’

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Right on! A Dallas talk-show host on Monday night’s Cowboy-Redskin debacle: “It was a shame someone had to win this game.”

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Here I come: Mike Bianchi in the Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel: “Michael Jordan is so old, when he drives the length of the court, he has his left blinker on all the time.”

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Double knock: Scott Ostler in the San Francisco Chronicle: “Something you hardly ever hear the football scouts and experts say: ‘For a big, fat guy, he’s surprisingly slow.”’

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Looking back: On this day in 1979, USC defeated Notre Dame, 42-23, at South Bend, Ind. The Trojans had an undefeated season marred only by a tie with Stanford.

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Trivia answer: 11-11-1; UCLA lost to Georgia, 9-0, in the 1943 Rose Bowl game.

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And finally: If you’re feeling old at 75--and you are--this might stimulate you: Reader Doug Hays has a friend, Dewey Vroom, who won seven events in a recent Masters track and field meet in Santa Barbara in the 75 years and older age group.

Vroom is a former All-City halfback from Fremont High.