If Best Days Are Behind Him, This Is Trouble

Kwame Brown, the 23-year-old former No. 1 draft choice of the Washington Wizards coming to the Lakers, recently acknowledged he had acted unprofessionally at times during his four seasons in the NBA.

That’s not news to Thom Loverro of the Washington Times, who writes: “Brown left his best days behind him in Brunswick, Ga., where he will always be the high school phenom.”

Regarding Phil Jackson’s desire to turn Brown into “the second coming of Kareem,” Loverro writes: “Here’s two words for the Zen Master to remember: Elden Campbell.”

Trivia time: On this date in 1951, Jersey Joe Walcott won the heavyweight world championship with a seventh-round knockout of Ezzard Charles. At the time, the 37-year-old was the oldest heavyweight champion in history. Who broke his record?

Back in town: Real Madrid, the star-studded soccer team, concludes its two-match visit to the United States against the Galaxy tonight at the Home Depot Center in Carson.

It is the seventh trip to the States for the nine-time European champion, dating to 1927, and its third visit to Los Angeles.

In 1990, Real Madrid defeated a Central American all-star team, 2-0, at the Coliseum. Two days later at the same venue, Real Madrid lost to the Mexican national team, 3-1. In 1961, Real Madrid defeated a USC club team, 9-0.

Stay hungry: Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle, on eating contests:

* “The International Federation of Competitive Eating is gaining notoriety, so it’s only a matter of time before its draft is televised on ESPN.”

* “The most famous and successful eater is Takeru Kobayashi, who recently won his fifth consecutive hot-dog eating contest, scarfing 49 dogs in 12 minutes. For the other competitors, Kobayashi’s showing up for a contest is a wurst-case scenario.”

* “There are some promising young hot-dog eaters who might challenge Kobayashi, but they didn’t use enough ketchup and mustard, so they were sent down for more seasoning.”

Equal opportunity: The mother of a 14-year-old female hockey player in Canada has demanded her daughter be given full access to the locker room used by the teenage boys on her coed team. Policy dictates the team’s three girls must change somewhere else and cannot enter the main locker room until 15 minutes before a game.

Jane Emlyn, in defense of the rights of her daughter, Jewel, told the CBC: “I feel that if they can play hockey, then they should be exposed to all the opportunities that minor league hockey players have.”

Notes Jerry Greene of the Orlando Sentinel: “She may have had a shot. If she hadn’t said ‘exposed.’ ”

Trivia answer: George Foreman, who was 45 in 1994, when he knocked out Michael Moorer to regain his title.

And finally: “The Sports Illustrated cover jinx lives on,” writes Jim Armstrong of the Denver Post. “Or didn’t you notice that the same week Team USA pitcher Jennie Finch donned the cover, the IOC booted softball out of the 2012 Games?”