Rookie Couldn’t Pass the Muenster

With Trent Dilfer around, Matt Hasselbeck better watch his back. It’s not about the Seattle Seahawks’ starting quarterback job. It’s Dilfer’s practical jokes, writes Laura Vecsey of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Take the case of the Muenster cheese and rookie Chris Redman’s helmet last season with the Baltimore Ravens.

“I took out the little piece of padding and put the cheese in there, then went home. It had all night to kind of ferment,” Dilfer said. “The next day, we go out to practice and he has no idea. He starts to sweat. I’m laughing.

“Finally, I told the guys and everyone knows what’s going on. [Coach Brian] Billick has to stop practice because we’re all rolling on the ground laughing, and Chris has no idea. He takes his helmet off, and he has melted cheese all over his face.

“Maybe that’s why they didn’t want me back there.”

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Trivia time: From what state do the most Oregon and Oregon State players hail?

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Ready, aim: The football season has begun. The firing will follow soon enough, writes Mark Kreidler in the Sacramento Bee: “And now a word about patience in college football: No.

“Cal Coach Tom Holmoe [was] on the ropes without a game being played in the 2001 season, and that is every bit as fair as it is ridiculous.

“The man has had four seasons, after all, and delivered a 15-29 record, and can we just go back to the part about the four seasons for a moment?

” ... This is the time of the fast track in sports. This is not a time for program builders, but rather for turnaround specialists. The heavyweights get the seven-year contracts. The rest of the field? Two, three and out.”

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Suggestion box: Granted, cleaning up college basketball is a big job. But a few of the proposals that came out of a recent gathering in Kansas City featuring big-name coaches, conference commissioners and university leaders seem either impractical, self-serving or both.

For one, coaches want to be referred to as “teacher-coaches.” Also, schools were encouraged not to fire coaches during the season.

Have officials call rules as they are written, someone suggested.

And the zinger: Recruit only prospects “who have a serious interest in education.”

Now we’re talking radical reform.

Best realistic proposal to come out of the meetings moderated by Michael Josephson of the Josephson Institute: Require background checks on all “teacher-coaches” of youths under 18.

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Trivia answer: California. Entering fall camp, the Duck roster listed 55 players from California and 45 from Oregon. The Beaver roster listed 52 players from California and 31 from Oregon.

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And finally: Houston Texan owner Bob McNair, whose team begins play next season, attended a New York Giant practice recently wearing a Texan shirt and cap, the Houston Chronicle reports.

When Giants strength and rehabilitation coach John Dunn saw him, he looked at McNair and asked, “What’s up with all this Texans [stuff]?”

McNair stopped, extended his hand and told Dunn, “Hi, I’m Bob McNair.”

“Oh [shoot], you are the Texans,” Dunn said.