Sounds as if Dorrell has gone around the ‘Bend

THE LAST time UCLA played at Notre Dame, Karl Dorrell was 10 months old and probably crying like most Bruin fans, who watched the Irish win, 24-0.

I was in the stadium that day in 1964 cheering for the Irish, a 14-year-old high school freshman, living on the Notre Dame campus and attending Holy Cross Seminary. Early on, as you can see, I was preparing to deal with sinners.

Things change, of course, sometimes quickly and it would be only a year before I’d try to pick up Ara Parseghian’s daughter, two years before kissing Sandy Ooh-La-La in front of the Our Lady of Fatima Retreat House, and I probably don’t need to explain why I was sent home after my junior year to finish high school elsewhere.

By then I had come to love the ND football experience, and hate USC after the Trojans made my mother weep, ruining Notre Dame’s bid to go undefeated in ’64. If I remember correctly, the first time she saw Ooh-La-La, she also wept, although I will never forget the smile on the old man’s face.

I thought it’d be a good idea to return to ND this weekend, staying in Elkhart where Ooh-La-La used to live only because there were no rooms available in South Bend. That’s my story, and you can do an Orbitz search if you like -- just like the wife did.

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THINGS CHANGE, all right, I love USC now and I’m told I’d have a better chance of bumping into Ooh-La-La at one of the Sparks’ sponsored Gay Pride nights than in Indiana.

I worry, though, this trip will be no different for UCLA than the last one, especially knowing now that Dorrell has never been to Notre Dame for a game.

“It’s just another football game and a 100-yard field,” he said the other day, but wait until he looks up, wonders what just hit him and finds himself staring into the eyes of Touchdown Jesus.

If we were getting along better these days, I’d take him to the pep rally Friday night, although he’d probably stick out -- the only guy in the building who doesn’t look excited. Yet, I wish he could feel what’s coming.

“We’re going to approach this just like another Pac-10 game,” Dorrell said, and that ought to really fire up the Bruins, who have already lost to Pac-10 teams Oregon and Washington. Do you think playing a game at Stanford or Arizona is like playing a game at Notre Dame?

How do you like the Bruins’ chances knowing they are going with a backup quarterback who can’t talk because of inflammation around his vocal cords? How do you like his chances of being heard over the Leprechaun & Co.?

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I WORRY the Irish might demolish the Bruins, at a time when we should be talking about the possibility of Dorrell’s scoring a huge win for the program and his own resume.

You see, I really like Dorrell, although he said this week he finds that hard to believe. But I really do. He has worked hard to do a job that was too much for him when hired, and while he’s still in over his head at times -- check out the Oregon game -- he has some grand plans.

Instead of grand plans, though, I’d feel a lot better if he was going to Notre Dame with a game plan that called for him calling all the offensive shots.

Dorrell came to UCLA as an offensive expert, and yet when questioned about the team’s inept offense, he has reminded everyone he does not call the plays.

Earlier this season he thought the team should be throwing the ball more, but it appeared to be news to his assistants. In the first quarter against Oregon -- UCLA down, 13-0 -- the Bruins ran the ball on third and three, lost yardage and settled for a field goal. Dorrell said it wasn’t a call he would’ve made, noting the critical situation and how important it was to score a touchdown.

“Don’t you have a button on your headset that allows you to take control?”

“If I did that,” he said, “I’d be doing it all the time.”

Amen, as they used to say back at the seminary, it’s time for Dorrell to control his own destiny, all right, and what better time to do it than just another football game at ND?

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A SHORT time after Oscar De La Hoya instructed the CEO of Golden Boy Enterprises, Richard Schaefer, to start making plans for a May 5 fight -- and possibly in Staples Center -- we sat down over lunch so I could talk him out of boxing again.

“I made the decision to retire and told [Schaefer], but then took a ride on my boat all by myself and did some thinking,” De La Hoya said Tuesday. “I decided that I wasn’t ready to retire, and now I’ve decided to fight. And I don’t care who I fight.”

However, he did say Nov. 4 would be a big day for him because Floyd Mayweather Jr. is scheduled to fight. A win sets up a mega bout.

“If not Mayweather, then any Joe Schmoe will do,” De La Hoya said. “This isn’t about winning or losing. This is about closing the book on my career and doing so while I’m healthy and still able to give it my best. When I retire, I’m really going to retire.”

Then he was off to the set of “Dancing with the Stars” to visit friends, he said, although I wonder if he’s already making plans for life after boxing.

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THE DODGERS have elected to keep Steve Lyons and use him on those games when Vin Scully chooses to stay home, making the point, I guess, it really doesn’t matter who calls the games if it’s not Scully.

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TODAY’S LAST word comes in e-mail from Chas Glazer:

“Interesting how you are now a race horse owner, what with all the trashing you have done to the sport ... racing does not need a person like you involved in any part of its sport.”

Relax, I have no intention of risking his life and running him at Del Mar.

T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.