Nothing Enhanced About This Performance

Maurice Clarett reportedly ran unimpressive times of 4.72 and 4.82 seconds in the 40-yard dash at the recent NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis.

“In related news,” Randy Hill of Foxsports.com wrote, “the league decided that, based on his times, Clarett shouldn’t bother taking a drug test.”

Commented Scott Ostler in the San Francisco Chronicle: “It’s not so much that Clarett was slow. It’s just that it’s so rare in the 40 to see a guy get lapped.”

Trivia time: Don Bowden of the University of California was the first American to run a sub-four-minute mile, clocking a 3:57.8 at Stockton in 1957. What 1958 UCLA graduate from a small San Joaquin Valley town became the seventh American to run a sub-four-minute mile with a time of 3:58.0 at London in 1962?

No problemo: NASCAR driver Carl Edwards, who placed third in the Busch race at Mexico City on Sunday, was a guest on the Fox radio network morning show on 570 Monday.

Asked by Andrew Siliciano about difficulties with the language, Edwards said that, after arriving in Mexico City, he tried to ask a bus driver how long the trip to the racetrack was.

“I’m trying to figure how to ask him; I’m like ‘cuando minutos?’ and all this stuff,” he said. “He looks at me and goes, ‘It will be about 20 minutes, man.’ ”

Naughty, naughty: Louisiana State professor Leigh Clemons, who had New England Patriot cornerback Randall Gay as a student, decided she’d like to have a personalized football jersey with the name Gay printed on the back.

But to her surprise, when she went to NFLshop.com and typed the word “Gay” in the box specifying personal lettering, she was informed: “This field should not contain a naughty word.”

“I was like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ ” Clemons told the Times-Picayune of New Orleans.

Clemons had to go through three levels of bureaucracy to get the jersey.

The word “gay” is now acceptable on the website.

Another naughty word: Jim Buzinski of Outsports.com, who had read about Clemons’ shopping misadventure, decided to see what other words would be rejected. He discovered that one word that was not acceptable was “lesbian.”

However, Buzinski found that “Bin Laden,” “terrorist,” and “Al Qaeda” were accepted without question.

Looking back: On this day in 1958, Silky Sullivan, ridden by Bill Shoemaker, won the Santa Anita Derby by three lengths after trailing by 30 early in the race.

Trivia answer: Bob Seaman of Reedley. In 1953, as a senior at Reedley High, Seaman set a national high school mile record of 4:21.0.

And finally: Silky Sullivan’s victory in the 1958 Santa Anita Derby was amazing, but not as amazing as one in a 6 1/2 -furlong allowance race at Santa Anita two weeks earlier. In that race, Silky Sullivan trailed the eighth-place horse by 40 lengths on the backstretch and still trailed the pack by 15 lengths on the final turn before charging to a victory.

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