Bears Not Being Good Soldiers About This

Rick Morrissey of the Chicago Tribune has little sympathy for the Chicago Bears’ complaints about having to go on the road for all their games this season. While Soldier Field is being renovated, the Bears will play home games at the University of Illinois in Champaign, about 140 miles south of Chicago.

“It’s hard to figure out how we won World War II, what with it being fought on the road and all,” Morrissey writes. “Not even a home-beach advantage on D-Day. How did we ever pull it off?...

“After listening to people carry on about the rigors of getting to Memorial Stadium, about the nastiness of the playing surface and the unpleasantness of the local barnyard scents, you’d swear this was hard labor at Rikers Island. And you’d swear this was the most godforsaken place on the planet, if not Nebraska....

“I pity the person who has to tell Dick Butkus about all this wussiness.”

Trivia time: In what sport did Paul Sunderland, who was the Lakers’ play-by-play announcer last season while Chick Hearn recuperated from heart and knee surgeries, win an Olympic gold medal in 1984?

Clothes call: Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle, recalling Hearn as being quick with a needle and “the funniest guy I’ve ever been around in sports”:

“ ‘You keep wearing that sport coat,’ Chick told a sportswriter, with genuine admiration and sincerity. ‘It’ll come back into style someday.’

“Only rarely was he topped. On a postgame TV interview, he presented Elgin Baylor with a gift certificate for a clothing store. Baylor handed back the certificate, saying, ‘Here, Chick, you need this worse than I do.’ ”

In a class by himself: Safety Brock Marion of the Miami Dolphins, asked by Dan Le Batard of the Miami Herald to identify the most overrated player in football today:

“I’ve got two actually. [New York Giant and former USC cornerback] Jason Sehorn. He does all this stuff off the field, and he isn’t that good.

“And I should say [Tampa Bay Buccaneer defensive tackle] Warren Sapp too, but I’ve got to take that back. He talks a lot, but he produces, so let’s leave Sehorn alone there.”

Flying south: Shaun Powell of Newsday writes that the New Jersey Nets, who last week traded Keith Van Horn to the Philadelphia 76ers, never really got the player they expected after trading up to take the former Diamond Bar High and Utah forward with the second overall pick in the 1997 NBA draft:

“They ... bought into the insane hype that said Van Horn would become another Larry Bird. Well, Van Horn can never be Bird. Not the Bird who led the Celtics to championships, and not the Bird who’s going on 46 and shooting hoops in his driveway.”

Trivia answer: Volleyball.

And finally: Tony Kornheiser of the Washington Post, on Redskin Coach Steve Spurrier’s reluctance to commit to one quarterback:

“How many times at Florida did we see him yank a guy after one or two series, and bench him for the rest of the game?

“A friend of mine suggests that Spurrier sees quarterbacks like neckties: You might have to wear one to work each day, but you don’t have to wear the same one each day.”