It takes tough love to go here

The yearly rite of winter, steeped in tradition, is almost comforting in its sameness for sports fans.

It’s where manly men face the ultimate test. They’re called modern-day gladiators -- proud warriors in an era gone soft.

The Super Bowl, right?

No, not that walk in the park. It’s the Tough Guy Challenge, in which thousands of competitors -- hale and hearty men, and some women -- slog through the woods, bogs, icy rivers, lakes and mud on a horse sanctuary near Wolverhampton, England.

“It is the original survival ordeal, a test of physical and mental endurance designed to take you beyond your limits on torture rack obstacles known as The Killing Fields, following a wild terrain warmup,” says the event’s website, www.toughguy.co.uk.

Oh, yeah, there’s always the matter of crawling under barbed wire, called, gruesomely, the Stalag Escape.

“The only way to pass is to lay face down in the mud and belly crawl the 40 feet under it to (comparative) safety at the other side. DON’T LOOK UP.”

Suddenly, running with the bulls in Pamplona doesn’t look so dangerous.

Trivia time

Who is the last player to return a kickoff for a touchdown in the Super Bowl?

Mascot love

Wolverhampton is known for more than the Tough Guy Challenge. The soccer team there has not one but two mascots, Wolfie and Wendy.

According the team’s website, Wolfie is “famous for his fight with the three little pigs from Bristol City!”

Trivia abounds on the team’s site. Who out there hasn’t always wanted to impress British pub pals with meaningless facts?

Try this. The team states that the Wolves were involved in the shortest game on record after a blizzard hit in 1894. The game against Stoke was called after three minutes. Incredibly, 400 people were said to be on hand watching.

Say what?

Cliche-ridden conference calls are often the norm with basketball coaches. But Washington State’s Tony Bennett stirred reporters and had them laughing with this verbal slip on Tuesday’s call.

He was asked about the Cougars’ improvement this season -- they are ranked 18th.

Said Bennett: “I think we had some sex during games ... I mean, some success during games ... “

Trivia answer

Jermaine Lewis of the Baltimore Ravens in the 2001 Super Bowl. Note: Ron Dixon of the New York Giants had returned a kickoff for a touchdown 18 seconds before Lewis.

Digging dirt

Defending Toshiba Classic golf champion Brad Bryant on embracing his “Dr. Dirt” nickname: “That’s one of the things where I realized early on that I would either embrace it or enjoy it or I would die by it because the guys decided that’s what they were going to call me.... For a while on tour, I had a gold bag made that had ‘Dirt’ on it rather than my name.

“One of the funniest things that ever happened is that I got a threatening letter from a guy here in California. At one point, a guy threatened a lawsuit against me if I didn’t stop using the name Dr. Dirt because he had some kind of landscaping thing here and called himself Dr. Dirt.”

And finally

Incoming ESPN baseball analyst Dusty Baker, to Sports Illustrated’s Richard Deitsch, on whether broadcasting success would keep him from managing again: “I hear you, brother. But like Arnold Schwarzenegger says, ‘I’ll be back.’ In the meantime, I’ll enjoy where I am.”

lisa.dillman@latimes.com