Bruins Still Waiting for a Show of Motion

In my role as advance scout for USC, and looking ahead to the big game later this season, here’s my big concern about UCLA and Coach Karl Dullard.

The Bruins are 3-0 in the Pacific 10 Conference, which is downright confounding if you’ve seen this lucky team play football, because they’ve done it with a walking dead man along the sideline in the role of head coach.

Now you could understand a crummy team playing above its head and running out to a 3-0 mark if playing in fear of someone like Bill Parcells, or responding to the animated leadership of Jon Gruden on the sideline or our own beloved Pete Carroll. Fight on!

But so far hands to the hips is about as demonstrative as Coach Dullard has gotten, so I worry that he has been saving himself for the big game.

I mean after you’ve played for a Trappist Monk all season long the way the Bruins have, consider the emotional lift if that Monk suddenly breaks silence and then urges everyone to go kick Trojan butt.

The risk, of course, is the Bruins will never get to the big game in position to play for a Rose Bowl invitation because they really aren’t any good, and they won’t be able to wait that long for some sign of life from Coach Dullard.

As we learned last year, this team is best directed when the guy in command is waving a towel over his head on the sidelines.

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THE FIRST 10,000 fans wearing UCLA blue to Saturday’s game were told they’d get a free baseball cap. I was wearing UCLA blue. A UCLA spokesman said I wasn’t a UCLA fan, so no cap. A small price to pay for being a Trojan fan.

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A YEAR ago the fans chose to stay away from the WTA event in Staples Center. This year it’s the players, with Serena Williams and Lindsay Davenport opting not to come because of injuries. I’m told Justine Henin-Hardenne, who got upset and tanked a match last year because I wanted to know why she wears a watch while competing, will be here.

Good, it’ll give me a chance to ask her why she wears a watch while she plays.

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WE’RE TOLD the WTA wants to increase the fines for players caught fixing tennis matches. That suggests it’s OK to fix a match if you have the money. I’d think if you fix a match, the penalty should be taking your racket away for life, or worse, forcing the offender to play in the WTA event in Staples Center every year.

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ONE WEEK to go before the Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita, and tonight at 5 on Fox Sports Net 2, the final workouts for four of the six horses trainer Bobby Frankel will run in the Breeders’ Cup will be shown on “The Works.”

“Mrs. Frankel,” as Frank Lyons is known around the TVG studio because of his devotion for Frankel, and “Lyons the Loser” as he is known here because of his inability to pick winners, will be providing expert analysis on the show tonight, which some people might consider comic relief.

Lyons the Loser, of course, likes to give out winners on TV after races have been run -- and on occasion he’s still wrong. He’s promising now to deliver a horse with odds of 10 or more in the Breeders’ Cup Mile two days before the race in this space, and he guarantees it will hit the board. You can imagine how much a guarantee from the Loser has to be worth.

TVG will donate $500 to the Mattel Children’s Hospital at UCLA if the Loser’s Breeders’ Cup picks aren’t better than mine. We will print his picks here Friday, and I’ll donate $500 to the charity of his choice -- if I can’t convince The Times to put the money in for me -- if he has a better day than Page 2.

By the way, Lyons the Loser picks Plus Three in the second today at Santa Anita, and Saintly Persuasion in the third. Bob Mieszerski, aka “Misery,” The Times’ handicapper, has Seven Grand winning the second, and We Have A Problem in the third. I know Misery keeps his eyes open most of the time when he picks, so I’m siding with him, and I never thought I’d write that sentence in the paper.

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SO SHAQUILLE O’Neal is ticked at Phil Jackson for some reason. For a guy who just sits on the bench these days and earns more than $20 million for doing nothing, he sure is unhappy a lot.

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AFTER SEEING LeBron James up close and personal, two words come to mind: Danny Almonte. Some day we’re going to find out the 18-year-old James was really 28.

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SO YOU want to own a horse. One of my favorite people in the world is Jack Disney, because he buys dinner without whining. Disney, former Los Angeles Herald Examiner football writer extraordinaire and currently PR guy at Hollywood Park, recently bought a horse for $3,000 along with his brother, Doug, who always whines when he has to buy dinner.

He wanted to know if the Grocery Store Bagger and I might be interested in buying a share of the horse. The Bagger wanted to know which part of the horse he got, and when I told him he thought I was calling him names again.

Anyway, this is not Disney’s first horse, which also influenced my thinking. The last, a nag named Crappie, never won a race, although he did eat well, the owners paying $40 a day to feed the pig. By the way, I’m told now the horse’s name was Chappie, and known only as Crappie to those who bet on him.

Anyway, the Disney brothers’ new horse, Jaming Jammer, ran for the first time under their leadership recently at Los Alamitos, and finished strong to beat two horses and avoid finishing last. Jack says the horse is eating well and resting now. I guess owning a horse is a lot like having a son-in-law living in your house.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com.