Nice Guys Finish Last and Keep Their Jobs

Mitch Lawrence of the New York Daily News commenting on Knick General Manager Scott Layden extending the contract of Coach Don Chaney: “... Layden didn’t come back from China with 7-6 Yao Ming, but he did return from his scouting trip with the recipe for Peking Lame Duck.

“Most guys with 11-27 records, whose team has failed to respond to their coaching, and whose strategies have contributed to a nearly a dozen double-digit blown leads in losses, are normally hustled out the door. As Chaney should have been, nice guy or not.”

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Trivia time: Who holds the men’s Pacific 10 tournament record for three-point baskets?

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Boring: Freelance writer Norman Chad: “The other evening I tried sampling the Knicks-Heat game on TNT. It reminded me of when I used to gaze at construction sites as a kid.

“I’d sit and watch the big dump trucks go to one end of the complex, gather up several shovels’ worth of sludge, then bounce along slowly to the other end of the complex and dump the dirt into a big hole. Eventually, I’d get hungry and leave.”

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More Chad: On the fallout from the shakeup on “Monday Night Football,” he said: “Sadly, I’m not sure what Eric Dickerson does now. There have been indications he may become a sideline reporter on ‘Survivor.’”

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Sneaky, the best policy: The Pac-10 reprimanded football coaches Bob Toledo of UCLA and Rick Neuheisel of Washington for publicly accusing each other of negative recruiting.

Said Michael Ventre of MSNBC.com: “The message was: If you’re going to accuse somebody of negative recruiting, have the decency to do so behind his back like every other coach in America.”

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Turns out great: Greg Hansen of the Arizona Daily Star, on Wildcat forward Luke Walton’s 100 turnovers this season: “Ironically, turnover statistics in Pac-10 basketball have come to identify the league’s greatest players. The top four career turnovers were all NBA first-round draft picks: Stanford’s Brevin Knight (403); Oregon State’s Gary Payton (397); Arizona’s Damon Stoudamire (378) and Sean Elliott (375).”

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Improving? Mark Kreidler in the Sacramento Bee: “Rick Ankiel, the St. Louis pitcher of renowned wildness, gave up two walks, six hits and five runs in his first exhibition appearance, after which Cards GM Walt Jocketty said, ‘I look at it as a good first outing for him.’ Ankiel also nearly hit a media member with a warmup pitch, which sources indicate would have elevated his rating to ‘effective.’”

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Tired issue: Even before former Arkansas coach Nolan Richardson unleashed a diatribe that cost him his job, Michael Rosenberg of the Detroit Free Press said: “Let’s institute a new policy, effective immediately. From now on, we’ll respect everybody in the sports world--except for people who say they don’t get enough respect.”

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Trivia answer: Steve Kerr of Arizona and Todd Lichti of Stanford, nine, in three and two tournament games in 1988.

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And finally: GolfWorld reports that Secret Service agents protecting Vice President Dick Cheney in Carlsbad went into full alert when a man was spotted on a resort’s golf course at 3 a.m. wearing night-vision goggles.

Steven Sprong, 33, of Oceanside, said he was using the goggles to play a round of golf. He was cited for misdemeanor trespassing and released.