Coach Won’t Be Stuffing the Ballot Box

Mack Brown politicked the Texas Longhorns into the Rose Bowl last season, but the coach’s get-out-the-vote efforts apparently don’t extend to state and local government.

Brown said he wouldn’t vote in the recent elections because he wanted to avoid offending anyone, the Austin (Texas) American-Statesman reported.

“Coach [Darrell] Royal told me that if you voted, you make half the people in the room mad,” Brown said.

Go ask Cal.

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Trivia time: What was the first year of the USC-UCLA football rivalry?

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‘Melo turnaround: It sounded as if the Nuggets’ Carmelo Anthony’s change of heart came during last season’s All-Star game in Denver. He was there all right -- as a spectator -- having been bypassed for selection.

“I made myself watch guys I play against every day -- guys I could beat up on every day -- play on my home court,” he told Esquire magazine. “Laughing, joking. And I wasn’t down there with them, knowing that I should have been.”

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Add Anthony: This is not to say everything has changed in ‘Melo’s world.

An anecdote in the Esquire feature article raises the possibility that director Penny Marshall would like him to be the lead in a movie. One problem: He would apparently have to get rid of his cornrows.

“Penny, you out yo’ ... mind,” Anthony said.

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T.O.’s world: Now for the daily dose of Terrell Owens. San Jose Mercury News columnist Tim Kawakami noted Owens’ arbitration hearing took 13 hours: “Sure, it seems like a long time. But actually, it’s only an hour for each of T.O.’s personalities.”

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More Owens: “The big news was that Coach Andy Reid’s session before lawyers took four hours. Four hours? That’s not testimony. That’s cruel and unusual doughnut deprivation.”

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Turkey time: Drumroll please ... Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist Patrick Reusse has selected the Minnesota Wild’s chairman, Bob Naegele, as his Turkey of the Year: “He enthusiastically joined the lockout, then decided not to share in a league-wide trend of rewarding fans with reduced ticket prices.

“Also, the guarantee of another winter of sellouts did not prevent Naegele from having his GM, Doug Risebrough, come in at roughly a $26-million payroll -- $10 million-$12 million under the new salary cap.”

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Clarifying trivia: Bob Hayes is not the only person to win an Olympic gold medal and a Super Bowl.

Unfortunately forgotten was Willie Gault -- a two-time Olympic gold medal winner and member of the Chicago Bears when they won the 1986 Super Bowl. Gault will be playing in the Jim Murray SilverRock Alumni Challenge at SilverRock Resort in La Quinta, Dec. 11-13.

Trivia answer: 1929. (USC won, 76-0.)

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And finally: Florida Marlin President David Samson, on the changing economic times for baseball in Florida, to the Palm Beach Post: “The fiscal insanity that [owner] Jeffrey [Loria] was willing to be a part of for all these years is over.”