For Some, the Battle Was All Too Real

When John Wooden was coaching basketball at UCLA, he used the bench as a great motivator. When Bill Walton told Wooden he didn’t have the right to tell him how to wear his hair, Wooden agreed, then added: “But I have the right to decide who plays and who doesn’t.”

Murray Williamson, the coach of the 1972 U.S. Olympic hockey team, used an even stronger motivating ploy, according to a new book, “Striking Silver: The Untold Story of America’s Forgotten Hockey Team” by twin brothers Tom and Jerry Caraccioli.

Tim Sheehy, a member of the team that won an improbable silver medal at the Winter Olympics in Sapporo, Japan, was one of five players who had gotten a leave from the Army to try out for the team. At that time, the Vietnam conflict was still going on.

Sheehy says Williamson told them: “Either make the team or you go to Saigon.”

Trivia time: What former King coach was a member of that 1972 Olympic team?

No love for luge: “The luge is the only sport that I’ve ever seen that you could have people competing in it against their will,” says comedian Jerry Seinfeld. “I want to see that event: the involuntary luge.”

Another luge hit: Bill Maher, on his “New Rules” segment on his HBO show, said, “New Rule: If you play a sport where most of the speed comes from gravity, you’re not an athlete, you’re a weight.”

Unnatural rivals: David Thomas of the Fort Worth Star- Telegram, on the bitter rivalry between U.S. speedskaters Chad Hedrick and Shani Davis: “Not to sound like an old-timer yearning for years gone by, but I remember the good old days when rivals were countries, not teammates.”

A busy bunny: Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle, on why Oswald the Lucky Rabbit -- traded for Al Michaels in that celebrated network swap -- never became as famous as fellow cartoon characters Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck: “Because they sold out, built their careers around formula comedies, while Oswald took on challenging dramatic roles. That, and the 2,493 paternity suits.”

Looking back: On this day in 1985, Coach Bob Knight was ejected five minutes into Indiana’s 72-63 loss to Purdue when he threw a chair across the court.

Knight, after two fouls were called on his team, was hit with his first technical. While Purdue was shooting the technical, Knight picked up a chair from the bench area and threw it, earning his second technical.

Trivia answer: Robbie Ftorek, who became the Kings’ coach during the 1987-88 season and resigned after the next season with a record of 65-56-11.

And finally: When Ftorek, who was from Needham, Mass., went to Olympic tryouts near Boston, his father didn’t tell him they were Olympic tryouts. He found out his second day there from a reporter.

“I had no idea I was at the Olympic tryouts,” Ftorek says in the Caracciolis’ book. “I was 19 years old. Ice was ice. It was free, so I was on it.”

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