For Bunce, Quarterback Issue Was No Contest

Former Stanford quarterback Don Bunce, who died Tuesday of a heart attack, begrudgingly spent two seasons playing behind Jim Plunkett before leading the then-Indians to a Rose Bowl victory as a senior in 1972.

Even though Plunkett won the Heisman Trophy in 1970, led Stanford to victory in the 1971 Rose Bowl game and was the top pick in the NFL draft in 1971, Bunce was convinced he should have been the starter in those seasons.

“Never a day went by that he didn’t think he was better than Jim Plunkett,” John Ralston, Stanford’s coach at the time, told the San Francisco Chronicle. “He couldn’t believe I played Plunkett ahead of him.”

Bunce, who never played in the NFL and later was Stanford’s team doctor for more than a decade, often treated Plunkett and his children.

Plunkett told the Chronicle that he’d last spoken to Bunce earlier this month by phone, when the caller identified himself as “the best quarterback at Stanford.”

Trivia time: Who lost to Stanford in the 1972 Rose Bowl game?

Word of caution: Bernie Lincicome of the Rocky Mountain News, pointing out that only twice since the NBA lottery began in 1985 has the team with the No. 1 draft pick made the playoffs the next season: “What you think you are getting is not always what you get. Sometimes it is Michael Olowokandi.”

And it’s only April: NBC’s Conan O’Brien, on the Air Force’s dropping 100,000 leaflets on the Iraqi army, telling soldiers they had no chance of winning: “Today, the Air Force did the same thing for the New York Mets.”

Don’t mind the rubble: Brad Rock of the Deseret News in Salt Lake City, on the resignation of Louisiana Monroe football coach Mike Collins, who was charged with drunk driving after plowing his truck into a house: “On the bright side, I hear the homeowner is a ULM fan who now has room for a big-screen TV.”

Lovable loser: After his 12-year-old gelding, Zippy Chippy, fell to 0-97 last week, owner Felix Monserrate told the Cleveland Plain Dealer: “I love him. I want to keep this horse. If you had three sons and the first two were lawyers and the other worked in a department store, would you throw the last one out of your house?”

We’ve all been there: Wrote Jeff Schultz of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “I can’t believe I went through all this trouble putting together my WNBA mock draft and now it’s been called off.”

Trivia answer: Michigan, which was 11-0 before losing to No. 18 Stanford, 13-12. Bunce passed for 290 yards and was the game’s most valuable player.

And finally: Tony Kornheiser of the Washington Post, expressing a fondness for the old-school, thick-striped, red-and-white Bullet uniforms:

“Isn’t it obvious that they’re far better than those motley Wizard jerseys? Isn’t it time Abe Pollin reconsider the name Wizards, and change the name back to the original Bullets? Nobody associates the name ‘Washington Bullets’ with gun violence. It’s a basketball team, not a geopolitical statement.

“Lighten up, and change it back.”