Of Course, He Leads Everyone to Temptation

Charles Barkley is popping off--again--in an interview in the February issue of Stuff magazine: “You can’t consider talking about sports as a real job. Sitting around talking about sports is the best. I hate regular people voicing their opinions about sports because they’re just fans--they don’t know anything.”

Then, he added: “I don’t need this gig. I’m rich. The job barely covers my expenses in Vegas. I don’t need to be on TV. If I had a good agent, I’d be on ‘Temptation Island.’”

Note to Charles: Find a good agent.

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Trivia time: Which was the first NFL wild-card team to win the Super Bowl?

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Frozen redundancy: Writers often refer to tundra as frozen, borrowing the phrase from the late John Facenda’s narration on old NFL films. Gene Collier of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette had this comment: “There’s no other tundra than frozen, folks. It’s like saying the ‘liquid ocean.’”

Besides tracking such redundancies, Collier annually rails against sports cliches, especially the convoluted ones like this from the Steelers’ Jerome Bettis: “We see the light at the end of the rainbow.”

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Ram bandwagon: Both John Madden and Marv Levy think the NFL has benefited from having the Rams.

“I believe in the dominant team thing,” Madden said. “Parity equals mediocrity equals boring.”

Said Levy: “Having a dominant team is healthy. Love them or hate them, like the Yankees. It raises passion. Nobody can beat the Rams--except the Rams.”

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Lovable Cubbies: Brian McRae to the San Francisco Chronicle about his three seasons as a Cub: “Chicago is the best place to play if an athlete doesn’t care about winning or losing. You don’t have to win to be revered in Chicago, especially if you’re a Cub.

“In New York, you’ve got the garbage man yelling at you if you didn’t get a hit last night.”

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The real chair-man: From comedy writer Jerry Perisho: “John McEnroe will be the host of the new TV quiz show ‘The Chair.’ Hey, if you were going to pull someone from the world of sports to host a show called ‘The Chair,’ shouldn’t it really be Bobby Knight?”

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Thankless job: Noting that new Florida Coach Ron Zook was the defensive coordinator of the New Orleans Saints, Greg Cote of the Miami Herald said that’s “sort of like being the publicity director for the Taliban.”

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Looking back: On this day in 1969, the New York Jets upset the Baltimore Colts, 16-7, in Super Bowl III in Miami.

Quarterback Joe Namath had “guaranteed” a victory for the Jets on the Thursday before the game.

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Trivia answer: The Oakland Raiders, who defeated the Philadelphia Eagles, 27-10, in New Orleans in 1981.

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And finally: Shortly after helping Miami win the national championship, junior running back Clinton Portis announced he will make himself eligible for the NFL draft, saying, “There isn’t much more I can do in college.”

Said Ken Rudulph of Fox’s “Best Damn Sports Show Period”: “Apparently Portis has never heard the word ‘graduate.’”

Mal Florence