And now, with a break in the action, our annual offering of the arcane from the pages of college basketball press guides . . .
– You`ve heard of tongue-twisters and side-splitters. Now, a tongue-splitter: One of the reasons Southern Cal`s Harold Miner is known as ”Air” is his tendency to play with his tongue hanging out. Once, in a collision during a practice, he bit down on it so hard he needed four stitches to close the resultant wound.
– Pop, pop, popping along: Once again, right there among astronaut Neil Armstrong and novelist Booth Tarkington, is popcorn king Orville Redenbacher, listed as another of Purdue`s famous alums.
– Lights, camera, action: As a 12-year-old, Pitt point guard Sean Miller gave a dribbling exhibition on ”The Johnny Carson Show,” and a year later he shot free throws on ”That`s Incredible.” His teammate, Bobby Martin, was a 5th-grader when he starred in a production of ”Jesus Christ Superstar.”
– For their next trick, they will part the waters: Pitt`s roster includes Ahmad Shareef, Omo Moses and Gandhi Jordan, which has prompted Panther assistant coach John Sarandrea to use this line on the banquet circuit.
”If,” says he, ”guys with the names Gandhi, Ahmad and Moses can`t take you to the Promised Land, then nobody can.”
– Guess coaching genius just wasn`t in the genes: George Halas still owns the record as the winningest coach in NFL history. But, alas, his brother Walter resigned after three unsuccessful years as Notre Dame`s basketball coach, where he ran up a 25-39 record between 1921 and 1923.
– What? No Nose Pickers? Back in 1946, J.W. Harrelson, then chancellor of N.C. State, launched a campaign to change its nickname from the Wolfpack by noting that Nazi subs were called that in World War II and that ”the only thing lower than a wolf is a snake in the grass.” Cultivators, Cotton Pickers and Pinerooters were among the alternatives suggested in a following contest, yet sentiment so strongly favored retaining Wolfpack that Harrelson abandoned his campaign.
– Reach out and touch someone: The Arizona basketball team was on tour in the spring of 1989 when it heard that Chris Mills had decided to leave Kentucky. So Wildcat coaches began recruiting him with phone calls from Darmstadt, West Germany; from Madrid; from three Canary Islands; and finally, from Zaragosa, Spain. It worked, and Mills is now an Arizona star.
– An olden-goldie: Gene Williams, dad of Arizona center Brian, was an original member of the Platters, one of rock `n` roll`s legendary groups.
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– First Mickey, then Donald, and then: Sparky, the Sun Devil mascot at Arizona State, was created in the late `40s by an illustrator who was working for Walt Disney. It was then reportedly sold to the university (for copyright purposes) for the princely sum of $75.
– Burp: Big Red III, an Australian wild boar that began service as the Arkansas mascot in 1975, was killed two years later by an irate farmer after he escaped from an exhibit and barged into an animal pen on the man`s farm. Ragnar, the wild hog that succeeded Big Red, killed a coyote, a 450-pound domestic hog and seven rattlesnakes before dying of unknown causes in 1978.
– Late night with: David Letterman is always trotted out as Ball State`s most famous alum. But also on that list are Jim Davis, the creator of Garfield (the cat), and actress Joyce DeWitt, who played Janet (the smart one, relatively speaking) on ”Three`s Company.”
– No, Bo wasn`t the first to know: Cal guard Ryan Drew is the nephew of Gene Conley, who back in the `50s played for the Knicks and Celtics and pitched for the Phillies and the Braves (in both Boston and Milwaukee). One of his teammates, by the way, is Brian Hendrick, the son of former St. Louis Cardinal star George.
– If their kids don`t become coaches, start an investigation: Dayton coach Jim O`Brien is married to Sharon Ramsay, the daughter of retired coaching legend Jack.
– Dear son, send money: The director of athletics fundraising at Dayton is Jim Paxson, father of Bulls guard John and former Blazers and Celtics guard Jim.
– So. Can his luck possibly hold? The number of former Bob Knight assistants holding head jobs is now 13: Dave Bliss, New Mexico; Jim Crews, Evansville;
Bob Donewald, Western Michigan; Gale Dougherty, Ohio Northern; Mike Krzyzewski, Duke; Tates Locke, Indiana State; Tom Miller, Army; Lionel Sinn, Southern Indiana; Kohn Smith, Utah State; Ray Swetalla, Marycrest College;
Royce Waltman, DePauw; Bob Weltlich, Florida International; and Joby Wright, Miami, Ohio.
– Numbers, numbers: Iowa was the only Big 10 team to sell out every home game last season and entered this year with 60 consecutive sellouts. . . . Purdue entered this year with the Big 10`s best conference record over the last decade (121-59).
– So it should be no surprise that its women`s program is so successful: In 1855, Iowa became the first state university to admit women on an equal basis with men.
– Play it again, Alan: ”Eye in the Sky” by the Alan Parsons Project is played at Rupp Arena during the introductions of Kentucky`s starting lineup. That`s the same song used at the Stadium when the Bulls are introduced.
– Is it fate, or what? The first president of LSU was General William Tecumseh Sherman, which is only appropriate since current Tiger coach Dale Brown often uses military analogies when speaking.
– And with the team he has this year, he`ll come close to doing it: Denny Crum, now in his 20th year at Louisville, entered it with 463 wins. That meant he could have gone winless for four years, and still have been averaging better than 20 wins per.
– Or the not-so-grandees, as the case may be: A contest was held in 1925 to change Loyola`s nickname, which was then the Maroon and Gold. Grandees, which had something to do with the Spanish origins of Ignatius of Loyola, was selected as the winner, but it never caught on and was replaced in 1926 by the Ramblers.
– He always did look good in a coat and tie: Former Bear and Viking defensive tackle Alan Page is on the University of Minnesota`s Board of Regents.
– Have to say he made the right decision: Texas coach Tom Penders played third base in the Indians` farm system, and advanced to Double A before abandoning the Tribe and taking up his current profession in 1968.
– We`ll take your tired and your poor, but we prefer your tall and your swift: Africa sends Minnesota`s Ernest Nzigamasabo (Burundi), Dayton`s Makor Shayok (Sudan), Illinois` Andy Kpedi and Southern Illinois` Emeka Okenwa
(Nigeria) and Georgetown`s Dikembe Mutombo (Zaire).
Australia sends Stanford`s Andrew Vlahov and New Mexico`s Luc Longley.
The Bahamas send Texas` Dexter Cambridge and Locksley Collie, Minnesota`s Mario Green and North Carolina`s Rick Fox, who was born in Canada and attended high school in Indiana but now lives in Nassau.
Brazil sends Houston`s Roger Fernandes, Southern Illinois` Marcelo da Silva and St. John`s Ron DeQueroz.
Canada sends Oklahoma`s Martin Keane and Oregon State`s Travis Stel.
Colombia sends Houston`s Alvaro Teheran and Rafael Carrasco.
Finland sends Florida`s Martti Kuisma.
Germany sends Duke`s Christian Ast and North Carolina`s Henrik Rodl.
Haiti sends Georgetown redshirt Pascal Fleury, who went to high school in Canada.
Israel sends LSU`s Dannyel Moscovitz, Boston College`s Lior Arditti, Connecticut`s Gilad Katz and Seton Hall`s Assaf Barnea.
Italy sends Seton Hall`s Marco Lokar.
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Lithuania sends Seton Hall`s Arturas Karnishovas.
The Netherlands sends LSU`s Geert Hammink, Villanova`s Paul Vrind and Oregon`s Eric van der Veen.
Panama sends Texas` Guillermo Myers.
Spain sends LSU`s Mike Hansen.
Sweden sends Oklahoma State`s Mattias Sahlstrom.
And Yugoslavia sends Arkansas` Davor Rimac, Georgetown`s Vladimir Bosanac, Pitt`s Dominik Dumancic, Southern Illinois` Mirko Pavlovic and Oregon State`s Teo Alibegovic.
– And finally, here`s Xavier coach Pete Gillen on Princeton`s Pete Carril:
”He`s like Columbo. He anesthesizes you, and after you`re asleep, he removes your colon. You look around and it`s up there on the bookshelf somewhere. He`s a surgeon. He cuts you and you don`t even know you`re bleeding.”
And on his profession: ”Coaches are like fiddlers on the roof, if you`ll allow me to be a little theatrical. It`s shaky at best. You can be playing a pretty good tune, but all of a sudden you could be in the drainage bin with leaves all around your neck.”
And on himself: ”I`m just Joe Bag of Donuts, Harvey Sweatsocks, Joe Slice of Pizza.”