Cheap Seats
Leave it to the NCAA
A dinner with Arnold Palmer resulted in an NCAA sanction against Tiger Woods, the Stanford golfing standout and two-time U.S. Amateur champion.
Seems Arnie picked up the check, a violation of NCAA rules. Woods’ eligibility was restored only after he agreed to reimburse Palmer, according to Golf World magazine.
“I was pretty angry,” Woods said. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Like doing something wrong has anything to do with breaking NCAA rules.
Walk the walk, Dawk the Dawk
The scouting report on 38-year-old Darryl Dawkins’ brief tryout with the Boston Celtics: too old, too fat, still funny after all these years.
What did Chocolate Thunder weigh? “I haven’t hit a reporter in five years,” Dawkins replied, smiling. “Let’s just say I weigh more than I care to.”
Can he still break backboards? “No, but I can rattle ‘em pretty good. I am not the man I once was, which may be good or bad.”
How did he like playing in Italy? “Those fans are crazy. They set our gym on fire. Our team in Forli was winning most of its games at home, but we weren’t doing too good on the road, so the fans from Rimini set our gym on fire. They burned about a quarter of it. The good thing about the fans in Italy is that I’ve always been somewhat of a ham, and they like hams over there.”
Knick-picking
The season hasn’t even started, and the New York Knicks are sniping. First, it was Patrick Ewing wondering aloud about coach Don Nelson’s decision to start bricklayer Anthony Mason at small forward.
“I think we need a small forward who can shoot the ball,” griped Ewing, who has been under fire himself for taking a few practices off.
“Everything starts in practice,” Knicks forward Charles Oakley chimed in. “You can’t practice, you can’t do it in the game. He’s the key to the offense. He sits out practice. Hey, it’s up to him. He’s hoping to get the ball in the game. He’s got to realize practice makes perfect.”
Ewing swatted Oakley’s words into the third row, just missing Spike Lee. “If the guys aren’t used to me by now, then they’ll never get used to me,” Ewing said. “Regardless of what the system is, they know where I get the ball and what I am going to do.”
Sounds like the East Coast version of the SuperSonics.
Whoa, it’s Todd
Michael Ventre claims Notre Dame’s 38-10 thumping of favored Southern Cal a couple weeks back shouldn’t have been a surprise.
As Ventre put it in the Los Angeles Daily News: “I should have known that USC was in for trouble against Notre Dame when I heard that the Fighting Irish invited Scott O’Grady, the pilot shot down over Bosnia, to speak to the team and watch from the sidelines, while the Trojans’ special guest was Todd Marinovich.”
The last word …
“The only way Stanley is going to make weight is if we cut off one of his legs.”
- Clippers coach Bill Fitch, on center Stanley Roberts
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo