At Last, a Way to Get Musburger to Shut Up

It has been 20 years since that memorable Super Bowl pregame moment when Raider employee Mike Ornstein tried to throw CBS’ Irv Cross off the field in Tampa, Fla., while Cross was doing a live report.

Ornstein, who now works for Reebok and is here for today’s Super Bowl game, remembers it well.

“Matt Millen was warming up and Al Davis thought Irv was in the way,” Ornstein said. “Al told me to go over and get him to move. It was Al who made me do it. I didn’t know he was on the air. I was fired up for the game.”

Ornstein said he and Cross, now the athletic director at Mankato State in Minnesota, patched things up about two years later.

“But Brent Musburger didn’t talk to me for five years,” Ornstein said.

Trivia time: Who has won the most Super Bowl MVP trophies?

All in the family: Carolina’s DeShaun Foster said his former UCLA teammate, Freddie Mitchell, was a cousin of his current Panther teammate, Rod “He Hate Me” Smart.

“So I knew [Smart] before the XFL,” Foster said. “He was my roommate all year. It’s not an act. That’s his personality. I’m the straight man.”

Success story: Smart played college ball at Division I-AA Western Kentucky and was signed as an undrafted free agent by the San Diego Chargers in 2000. He was released by the Chargers and later waived by the Edmonton Eskimos before being rescued by the Las Vegas Outlaws of the XFL.

So what was he doing before the XFL?

“Weird jobs, like working in a grocery store, doing stock,” he said.

Before “He Hate Me:” Smart, called Hot Rod in high school, said was known as “Snoop” at Western Kentucky.

“I had long braids,” he said. “They called me Snoop so much, that is how everybody knew me around campus. Nobody ever knew my real name.”

Self analysis: Smart’s description of himself: “I’m the same all the time -- me in the morning, me at night, or me in the afternoon. I’m the same person with two names. It’s not like a Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde-type thing. I’m always the same person.”

Other nicknames: ESPN’s Chris Berman has tabbed the Patriots’ eighth-year linebacker from Arizona Tedy “Ice Cold” Bruschi. Another one: “Daylight Come and Me Wanna” Delhomme.

Wacko city: Carolina guard Doug Brzezinski was asked by The Times’ Sam Farmer about getting approached by psycho fans this week.

“As far as psychos coming out of the woodwork, I played in Philadelphia for the past four years,” he said. “So I’ve kind of learned how to deal with weirdos who pop out of nowhere.”

Trivia answer: Joe Montana, three.

And finally: Tom Brady, on being compared to Joe Montana: “I think that’s crazy. He was the best quarterback in the history of the NFL.”

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Larry Stewart can be reached at larry.stewart@latimes.com.