Latest Ramblings Aren’t Exactly Words to Live By

Sports used to be about curses -- Bambino, Billy Goat, Sports Illustrated -- but lately they seem to be more about cursing.

Here’s a four-letter word for all on-camera expletive users: S-T-O-P.

Cursing on television, unless you’ve whacked your thumb with a hammer on a home-improvement show, is not acceptable or appropriate.

It’s getting so bad that the Federal Communications Commission may have to consider putting a five-second delay on all sporting events and Charles Barkley’s mouth.

The Second Thoughts Police is keeping tabs on the foul-mouthed suspects and putting them on notice:

Bob Knight: The Texas Tech basketball coach says he’s an educator, but imagine your college history teacher appearing on ESPN last December, as Knight did, and going so four-letter ballistic ESPN could have turned the interview into a miniseries: “Season on the [Bleep].”

Analysis: Short of duct-taping his mouth, Knight is a lost cause.

Shaquille O’Neal: The Laker center was recently suspended and fined for giving a profanity-laced postgame interview to Channel 9. If only Shaq could channel his foul language into foul shooting.

Maryland basketball fans: They think it’s cool to drop F-bombs on opposing players and wear X-rated T-shirts. Can’t wait for comedian George Carlin to reveal the seven dirty words you can’t say on television but can say at a Maryland game.

North Carolina basketball fans: Last Thursday, in a tremendous game, Duke defeated North Carolina in Chapel Hill over the cacophony of obscene chants, giving new meaning to the term Carolina blue.

Mike Tyson: The former heavyweight champ is to an open microphone what oxygen is to fire: Tyson says things that would make a felon blush and, given his background, we’re sure a few have.

Tyson says he can’t help himself. “This is how I talk,” he once said. And this is why remote controls have mute buttons.

Gary Payton: Have not actually overheard the veteran Laker guard curse on television, but, boy, can we read lips.

Tiger Woods: NBC once caught the golf star uttering a four-letter word at Pebble Beach, and that word wasn’t “fore.”

Frankly, it’s a wonder Woods can hold his tongue at all those idiots yelling “You Da Man!”

Paul Tagliabue: The NFL commissioner hasn’t cursed on air, but wait until someone asks him about Maurice Clarett winning that lawsuit.

Quick reads and reaction:

* Lakers rally from 18 points down to defeat Orlando.

Rookie forward Luke Walton is a step slow, too small and is not a very good shooter. So how come I like him more every time I see him play?

Answer: He has a fundamental understanding of how games are won and lost and is the rare player who gets greater satisfaction delivering a good pass to his teammate than scoring himself.

With that attitude, how is he ever going to last in this league?

* USC and Louisiana State land top football recruiting classes.

Terrific, another split title.

How it broke down: USC was No. 1 in both the writers’ and coaches’ recruiting polls entering draft day, but finished No. 3 in the final bowl championship series recruiting standings when 34 coaches switched first-place recruiting votes from USC to LSU after national signing day.

Instead of LSU-USC in the Recruit Bowl, USC must play Michigan prospects while LSU faces off against Oklahoma’s incoming class.

What a mess.

* Judge rules that the 20-year-old Clarett is eligible to enter NFL draft.

Bottom line: If a 14-year-old girl has the right to shoot a round of 68 on a men’s professional golf tour stop and a 14-year-old boy can play professional soccer, a 20-year-old man with a mustache should not be deprived of his right to ride the bench for the Oakland Raiders (just a wild guess on what NFL team might take a chance on Clarett).

When you think about it, what’s wrong with players who don’t want to be in college not being there?

As much as he opposed the judge’s decision in the Clarett case, Pacific 10 Conference Commissioner Tom Hansen said he thinks he may have found a silver lining.

Said Hansen: “The one positive thing, and this has been true in basketball, it does allow the individual who simply has no interest in education to go play professional sports without having to pretend to play and attend a college.”

* ESPN cancels “Playmakers.”

I’m going to miss the fictional series about a fictional professional football league and all its fictional plots, and was looking forward to next year’s fictional episode about a fictional troubled tailback from a fictional college in Ohio who wins an antitrust lawsuit against the fictional league only to be drafted in the second round of the league’s fictional draft.

* Lennox Lewis retires from boxing.

Look for ESPN to contact Lewis about starring in the fictional series, “Haymakers.”

* Texas Tech basketball Coach Knight exchanges heated words with his chancellor during lunch break at an upscale Lubbock grocery store.

Knight is getting soft in his old age. He used to toss chairs when he got mad; now he tosses salad.

* Flap over the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show continues.

Clearly, the Janet Jackson-Justin Timberlake burlesque show would have been far better suited for Super Bowl XXX.

* Dan Marino resigns as Miami Dolphin senior vice president of operations.

Give credit Marino for his no-nonsense leadership style. After accepting the top-level job with his old team, he took stock of the situation, made a tough executive decision and immediately fired himself.