If the Shoe Fits ... He Still Won’t Wear It

Just another strange, twisted week in sports ... and we’re not even going near the dress code flap in the NBA, at least not today.

Weird, Part 1: Arkansas State basketball player Jerry Nichols is sitting out, not in a dispute over lack of playing time or his role in the offense. He simply won’t practice if he is forced to wear Adidas shoes.

Nichols has had two knee operations and said he was injured while wearing Adidas. But the school’s athletes are contractually obligated to wear the brand.

Coach Dickey Nutt said the company was sending Nichols another pair.

Nichols began practicing this season wearing Nikes, according to the Jonesboro Sun newspaper, and hid the logo with tape.

Said Wally Hall of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette of Nichols’ actions: “It wasn’t stubbornness or a scream for attention. Besides, there is a precedent here. This same thing has happened at Kentucky, North Carolina and a host of other schools. They just taped over the logo.”

It could lead to whole new university slogan: Just Tape It.

Weird, Part II: This one goes under the heading of “The End of the World as We Know It.” Eric James Torpy of Oklahoma requested a longer prison term than the plea deal reached between prosecutors and his defense attorneys, and it wasn’t because of his desire to eat prison food for three more years.

He wanted his sentence -- which was 30 years -- to match Larry Bird’s jersey number: 33.

“He said if he was going to go down, he was going to go down in Larry Bird’s jersey,” Oklahoma County District Judge Ray Elliott said in an Associated Press report. “We accommodated his request, and he was just as happy as he could be.”

Torpy faced two counts of shooting with intent to kill and one count of a weapons violation.

“I’ve never seen anything like this in 26 years in the courthouse. But, I know the D.A. is happy about it.”

Good thing Torpy wasn’t a Dirk Nowitzki fan. That’s 41, for you non-fans.

Trivia time: What horse placed second in the Breeders’ Cup Mile in 1988 and came back to win it in 1989?

Coach, Please: Missouri basketball Coach Quin Snyder took issue when a reporter called him by his first name at the Big 12 Conference media day Wednesday, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

“Coach Snyder,” Snyder said. “I’ve been in the league seven years now, can I be Coach Snyder? I think I’ve earned that. Why am I the only coach still called by his first name? Do you call [Oklahoma State] Coach Sutton Eddie?”

It could have been worse. Don’t forget the student in 2000 who shouted out to then-Indiana Coach Bob Knight, “Hey, what’s up, Knight?”

Trivia answer: Steinlen.

And finally: New Orleans defensive tackle Brian Young, on getting around on a scooter in the Alamodome: “Most of us are over the suggested weight limit on the thing anyway. I think there is a warning and it says over 275 [pounds]. I think there is only one of us in the whole group that is actually under the weight limit, which is probably Ernie [Conwell].”