Cheap Seats
Added ankle support?
The basketball shoe Nike named for former Texas Tech star Sheryl Swoopes-Jackson is hitting stores this week. Suggested retail price: $85 a pair. “I have several pairs,” Swoopes-Jackson said. “I’ve played in it and I love it.”
She said she helped come up with the design for a lightweight shoe with good ankle support. The shoes apparently aren’t perfect, however: Swoopes-Jackson was forced to miss several recent USA Women’s practices, having been sidelined with a sprained ankle.
Like father, like son
The season hasn’t even started and problems have surfaced for Jerry Tarkanian’s Fresno State hoops team. Assistant Danny Tarkanian, the coach’s son, and three players were searched by police at gunpoint outside a Fresno restaurant last week.
Police said Tuesday they had received a report of a man with a gun creating a disturbance. No weapons were found.
One of the players, 20-year-old Chris Herren, said he had been drinking several beers at the restaurant bar when two men began harassing him early Friday. He said Roberson and Gray had arrived to drive him home when police arrived.
“We were in our car when all of a sudden, boom, boom, boom, cops everywhere,” Herren said. “They had guns - I mean sawed-off shotguns, all that kind of stuff. They made us get on our knees.”
Danny Tarkanian, who told police he had two beers and a shot of liquor, was driven home by officers.
Who says the clothes don’t make the man?
Don Nelson is going his own way as the new coach of the Knicks - not just in his approach to the game, but in his approach to fashion. While his New York predecessor, Pat Riley, was a walking Armani fashion plate, Nelson signed with designer Tommy Hilfiger.
“I want to give him a stately but approachable look that conveys his commitment to his team and to the city of New York,” said Hilfiger.
Too bad Hilfiger couldn’t find something to convey the petty, vindictive coach who played shameless head games with Chris Webber a couple of years back.
Fans keep throwing and throwing and throwing
St. Louis running back Ron Wolfley offers a geographical guide to NFL fans: “On the West Coast, they throw food. The farther east you move, the larger and harder the objects become. In Midwest cites like Chicago, it’s an AA battery. When you get to Philadelphia, it’s a D battery. I’m serious. I’ve been hit with a D battery in Philly.”
Imagine that
San Francisco Chronicle columnist Scott Ostler asks a fair question: “Gary Player wins a senior tournament, says, ‘This new driver has given me unbelievable confidence,’ and isn’t it a zany coincidence that the driver is made by Gary Player Golf Equipment?”
The last word …
“I wanted them to X-ray it and give it back to me. (Former A.L. president) Bobby Brown split the bat open so it’s in two pieces. And he knows what he can do with those two pieces.”
- Cleveland’s Albert Belle, after the bat he used to hit a game-tying homer vs. Boston was confiscated to check for cork
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