Clarett Ruling Is Good for Bruin Football Fans

Stopped by UCLA to see if school officials had made arrangements for the parade on just what might be the greatest day in recent Bruin sports history.

Ran into a smiling Athletic Director Dan Guerrero walking through the school’s Hall of Fame, and he said, “It’s a beautiful thing,” and I understood.

(I also saw UCLA Coach Karl Dullard, but if I told you I saw him smiling you wouldn’t believe me.)

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A JUDGE’S decision earlier Thursday to allow Ohio State underclassman Maurice Clarett, and anyone else so inclined, to declare themselves eligible for the NFL draft frees the way for all those really good football players to leave USC -- and maybe make it a level playing field for UCLA.

Let’s face it, the only chance the Bruins have of stopping Mike Williams is if he’s in a San Diego Charger uniform next year.

Some people, of course, worry we’ll now have high school players a la LeBron James bypassing the college experience for the NFL. Well, if there’s any high school senior in the land capable of immediately jumping to the NFL, you have to figure the Trojans have already signed him to a letter of intent.

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BEFORE I heard about the Clarett decision, I figured to find UCLA shrouded in black a day after USC emerged the unanimous national winner in recruiting football players. The Times’ headline kind of said it all: “Big Day for USC, Not for UCLA.”

Apparently Guerrero reads the newspaper. “We took a pretty good shot this morning, and that wasn’t fair,” he said. “SC deserves all the kudos, but there are 118 other schools chasing them too -- to vilify us on the first page of sports because of their excellence and make it sound like we failed just isn’t fair. We didn’t fail.”

Maybe in the future he’ll start his day off by reading Page 2 and not get so upset.

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UCLA GOT lots of coverage Thursday. The morning newspaper also reported that, according to sworn depositions, current UCLA strength and conditioning coach E.J. Kreis improperly helped some Colorado football players cover up their involvement in an alleged sexual assault three years ago. Steve Henson reported that Kreis denied in his deposition doing anything more than telling one player to “tell the truth and get an attorney.”

Asked if the newspaper revelation might be embarrassing to UCLA, Guerrero said, “Of course not. If anything, it ticks me off -- allegations that haven’t been substantiated and are put on the front page of the L.A. Times. Is there something wrong with that?”

I reminded Guerrero the newspaper report had come from the deposition that Kreis had given to Colorado authorities.

When Dorrell joined our conversation I asked if his assistant coaches Eric Bieniemy and Jon Embree, who were on the Colorado staff at the time of the alleged sexual assault, were aware of Kreis’ alleged involvement and hadn’t informed Dorrell.

“I asked them the same thing, and they told me they didn’t know anything about it,” Dorrell said.

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WHEN SHOWN the money earlier this week in the form of a one-year contract extension, Dorrell did something you no longer expect in this day and age of sports -- he turned it down. A classy move.

Now he has shown something else, the ability to rectify a mistake, announcing that offensive coordinator Steve Axman would no longer be coaching at UCLA and would be replaced by Tom Cable, whom Dorrell wanted to hire a year ago.

“We speak the same language,” Dorrell said, which I guess means Cable is boring too.

Dorrell said he’d now add a quarterback coach to his staff. I asked, “Why bother? You don’t have any quarterbacks.”

And he laughed.

I swear, I saw him laugh.

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BEN HOWLAND accomplished something Steve Lavin was never able to do during his tenure at UCLA -- he made a winner out of Washington State in Pauley Pavilion.

Howland’s team has caught a case of Dorrell-itis. The Bruin football team was 6-2 before finishing 6-7. The Bruin basketball team was 5-0 in Pac-10 play; it’s now 5-5. Too early to say whether Howland will get the opportunity to turn down his chance at a contract extension.

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PITCHER SCOTT Erickson married “Monday Night Football” sideline reporter Lisa Guerrero on Tuesday, signed a minor league deal with the New York Mets on Wednesday and said, “I wish spring training started tomorrow.”

Guess that honeymoon isn’t going as well as one might have thought.

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USA TODAY reported that Max Kellerman, screaming host of ESPN’s “Around the Horn,” is not appearing on the show this week while he works on a new deal. USA Today reported that Kellerman is “fielding other offers.” I fear the Grocery Store Bagger might have some competition.

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ON WEDNESDAY, the same day we ran the obituary of Eleanor Holm Whalen, the Olympic gold-medal swimmer banned from returning to the Olympics because she partied on a cruise ship, we ran a news story on synchronized swimmer Tammy Crow, found guilty of two counts of misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter, who will be allowed to compete in the Summer Olympics before serving her jail time.

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TODAY’S LAST word comes in e-mail from Bill Fallon:

“Can you answer a few questions since you get so huffy when people don’t answer yours? Can you name five people who think you’re funny? Have you ever called Shaq the Big Potty Mouth to his face? How about it, T.J., give me a reason to read Page 2.”

Why bother -- it seems to me you’re already doing that.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.