After All, It Helped Him Swish Bank Shots

Chris Webber, the former Michigan basketball star now with the Sacramento Kings, recently was quoted as saying, “Look how many millions the school made off of us, and what did we get out of it?” That didn’t set well with Mike Bianchi, Orlando Sentinel columnist.

“How about a chance at a better life, Mr. Webber,” he wrote.

“What do we get out of it? How about the fact that raw recruits are taken by a university, instructed by the finest coaches money can buy, nourished by nutrition specialists, strengthened by state-of-the-art weight facilities and bulked and built into NFL- or NBA-ready athletes who sign contracts for mega-millions?

“Don’t ever again let anybody tell you how colleges exploit their athletes. These days, it’s the other way around. Colleges are filled with athletes who care nothing about ruining the reputation of their schools. They stop off for a year or two, eat up thousands of dollars worth of groceries, then bolt to the pros.”

Trivia time: Where was the New Year’s Day football game played in Pasadena before the Rose Bowl was completed in 1922?

Sign of the times: Move over Jerry Lewis, college athletics is moving into the TV telethon business.

The University of Minnesota, faced with the elimination of its men’s golf and gymnastics teams and its women’s golf team, produced a three-hour telethon last Sunday that raised more than $670,000 with little more than the school’s marching band and pleas from such personalities as Arnold Palmer, Paul Molitor and Gov. Jesse Ventura.

“I don’t want to be the athletic director remembered for whacking three sports,” said Minnesota Athletic Director Joel Maturi in assisting with the Save Gopher Sports committee.

Look who’s talking: NFL commentators Terry Bradshaw and Jimmy Johnson said on TV that they couldn’t understand how New York Giant defensive end Michael Strahan hurt himself lifting weights.

To which Howie Long asked, “How in the hell would you two know?”

Dusty’s boy: With Dusty Baker and son Darren now in Chicago, what is the Cubs’ reaction to baseball’s new minimum age for batboys?

“It will be 4 for us, 14 for everybody else,” Cub General Manager Jim Hendry said.

Fair warning: Kentucky is rumored to be interested in Oregon State football Coach Dennis Erickson. Oregonian columnist John Canzano suggests it might be the right move -- for the Beavers.

“It’s possible that Erickson could stay at Oregon State and duplicate his 11-1 Fiesta Bowl season from 2000,” Canzano wrote. “It’s also possible that we’ve seen the best team Erickson could put on a field without landing the program on probation. Does the risk now outweigh the possible gain [in keeping Erickson]?”

Trivia answer: Tournament Park, now part of the California Institute of Technology campus.

And finally: During the televised game showcasing Ohio prep phenom LeBron James, James wore a patch to cover a tattoo, as required by school rules.

“Imagine if the NBA had that rule,” Steve Abney said in the San Francisco Chronicle. “Fans wouldn’t know if they were watching Allen Iverson or the Mummy.”

-- Shav Glick