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Overemphasizing academics?

Some schools have to beg their athletes to go to the library. Utah Valley State College has now ordered one to stay away.

David Sawyer, a freshman basketball player from Las Vegas, was dismissed from the school for stealing four magazines - three copies of Hot Rod and one Car and Driver.

Good news for the library: the kid didn’t try to steal its book.

How low can you go?

If Poland’s Andrew Golota avenges his controversial disqualification loss to Riddick Bowe in their upcoming rematch, he might have to give a bonus to his tailor.

Golota has been pounding the only heavy bag in existence that has been specially equipped with oversized boxing trunks.

“We had ‘em made up by Dennis Clancy of Everlast,” trainer Lou Duva said. “The idea is for Andrew to hit above the belt line. Every now and then, he messes up and goes a little low. Anything close, I holler at him.”

Golota, despite being docked three penalty points for low blows by referee Wayne Kelly, seemingly was on his way to a stunning upset of Bowe when one shot too many strayed south in the July 11 fight in New York. Kelly’s seventh-round disqualification of Golota precipitated a mad dash across the ring by Bowe’s enraged manager, Rock Newman, and members of his entourage. The 36-minute riot that followed was not one of boxing’s brightest moments, but all that sound and fury has made Bowe-Golota II one of the most eagerly anticipated fights of the year.

“If anything, I’m trying to teach him to be more aggressive,” Duva said. “I’m sending my guy out to go to the body. A fighter like Bowe, you have to work the body in order to wear him down.

“This time, though, I’m going to insist that the referee not let Bowe wear his trunks up so high. You’re supposed to wear them below the navel.”

Really? Maybe that’s what’s causing the chafing in our armpits?

Fat city

Clippers coach Bill Fitch has been looking forward to the Whipped Cream Bowl, the confrontation between his double cheeseburgers of Kevin Duckworth and Stanley Roberts against Dallas’ Oliver “No Scale Can Hold Me” Miller.

“If they all stood on one end of the floor together you could do a commercial on floor strength,” said Fitch, adding about his Twin Tummies of Roberts and Duckworth: “If we run a double pick with them and the guy doesn’t get free on that, we’ll ship him out. You’ve got to get in shape to run around them.”

You are what you shill

Having hacked Shaq onto the injured list last season, Hornets center Matt Geiger expressed little remorse about his recent clubbing that left Detroit’s Grant Hill with a sprained right wrist.

“I saw those commercials,” Geiger said of the new tough-guy image Hill has espoused recently. “I thought that’s how he played.”

The last word …

“I don’t like Lou Holtz. I won’t play for a college coach. I won’t play for somebody like Lou Holtz. I don’t like that guy.”

- Vikings linebacker Jeff Brady, on rumors Holtz will go from Notre Dame to the NFL

, DataTimes