Two Paths Led Them to Identical Destination

In a new book, “How March Became Madness,” written by Eddie Einhorn with Ron Rapoport, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar talks about how he ended up attending UCLA.

Selecting a college was difficult for Abdul-Jabbar -- then known as Lew Alcindor -- because he had been recruited by schools from across the country. Says Abdul-Jabbar, who along with Einhorn will be at a book signing tonight at Costco in Marina del Rey, “I always remember my mom pointing out how articulate Jackie Robinson, who went to UCLA, was.”

It was different for Bill Walton a few years later.

“I was the easiest recruit UCLA ever had,” Walton says in the book.

“My dad refused to allow the San Diego Union in the house -- he didn’t like its politics -- so we got the Los Angeles Times, which had all these stories about UCLA football and basketball.”

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Trivia time: The two most valuable players in major league baseball in 1963, Sandy Koufax and Elston Howard, wore No. 32. So did the NFL’s MVP that year. Who was he?

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From rags to coaching: In Einhorn’s book, the legendary Ray Meyer, 92, talks about how he got into coaching.

“I was playing high school basketball in Chicago,” Meyer says, “and I was walking by St. Agatha’s Church when the monsignor came out and said, ‘I want you to tell me what that priest coaching the girls knows about basketball.’

“Well, I took one look and said, ‘That guy doesn’t know whether the ball’s got air in it or rags.’ ”

The coach got sick the next week, and Meyer became his permanent replacement.

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An added plus: One of the members of the St. Agatha’s girls’ team was Mary “Marge” Delaney, who was married to Meyer for 46 years. She died in 1985.

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Top this: After a quadruple negative by Leon Spinks appeared recently in Morning Briefing, reader Dave Weiss of Brea e-mailed to say Sparky Anderson was the master of the double and triple negatives.

According to Weiss, Anderson, when he was managing the Detroit Tigers, said of ace Jack Morris in spring training in 1986: “There ain’t no way that no Jack Morris ain’t gonna win no 20 games.”

“That’s five negatives, a world record,” Weiss said.

By the way, Anderson was correct in what he was trying to say. Morris won 21 games that year.

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Looking back: On this day in 1980, the U.S. Olympic hockey team stunned the Soviet Union with a 4-3 victory in the medal round of the Winter Olympics at Lake Placid, N.Y.

Captain Mike Eruzione scored the game-winning goal midway through the third period.

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Trivia answer: Jim Brown of the Cleveland Browns.

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And finally: Of the television ratings for the Winter Olympics, NBC’s Jay Leno said, “NBC is paying $613 million to broadcast these Games. That’s $1 million per viewer.”

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