Dave Boling

The guy doing the bad John Rillie impersonation finally went away. He looked uncannily similar to the senior Gonzaga guard, but his errant jump shots gave him away as he made only one of his last 16 3-point attempts. Before anyone could check dental records or fingerprints, the guy who is really Rillie reappeared Saturday, knocking down five 3-pointers and scoring 25 points to lead GU to a 93-67 runaway win over Pepperdine.

This sort of motivation may not be politically appropriate in the 1990s. But it works nonetheless. Gonzaga men's basketball coach Dan Fitzgerald, having seen his Bulldogs get pushed around in six straight West Coast Conference losses, presented his team with a challenging statement before Thursday's matchup with Loyola Marymount.

1. Brown. Amateur Male - Jeff Brown, Gonzaga basketball. Averaged 21.1 points per game and named West Coast Player of the Year for league champs. Also named first team GTE Academic All-America. 2. Rice. Amateur Female - Mindy Rice, Idaho volleyball. Led Vandals to Big Sky title, first-round NCAA Tournament victory and earned second-team All-America honors. 3. Bledsoe. Professional - Drew Bledsoe, New England Patriots (Walla Walla). Completed league-high 400 passes for 4,555 yards, most in NFL, and 25 touchdowns. Named to Pro Bowl.< 4. Fitzgerald. Coach - Dan Fitzgerald, Gonzaga basketball. Directed Bulldogs to 22-8 season, first West Coast Conference championship and win over Stanford in NIT 5. Childs (team). Team - Washington State University football. Coach Mike Price's Cougars posted 8-4 record, defeated Baylor in the Alamo Bowl and finished 21st in final Associated Press poll.

The San Diego Chargers should be universally embraced by sports fans. For not being the Buffalo Bills. A fifth consecutive Super Bowl loss by the Bills - irredeemable in their almost-excellence - might have been enough to cause fans to call for the elimination of professional football and the ceremonial burning of all reminders of its existence.

Dan Fitzgerald hasn't gone as far as taking out a personal ad soliciting help. SBC (struggling basketball coach) desperately seeks CBP (clutch basketball players) for mutually satisfying relationship and maybe a victory or two.

The Gonzaga Bulldogs hoped to get a new streak going Saturday night. But they wanted it to be a winning streak. Instead, they lost their second straight men's basketball game at home - the first back-to-back defeats in the Martin Centre since the 1991 season - falling 68-63 to the visiting Saint Mary's Gaels. Thursday's overtime loss to Santa Clara severed GU's homecourt winning streak at 34 games, and apparently drained considerable emotion from the Bulldogs.

Spokane native was thrown into expansion draft by Cleveland. Photo by Associated Press

Care to test your aptitude as a handler of personnel in the NFL? You've got three quarterbacks. Quarterback 1 has experience as a starter in the NFL and compiles a quarterback rating of 78 during his playing time in 1994.

Perhaps now, after a surprising start to the season, the Gonzaga Bulldogs are doing what they're supposed to be doing. Not supposed to be doing, exactly, but what they were expected to do: struggle on the road, make the kind of mistakes that characterize an inexperienced team, and lose close games.

Thirteen years ago, Dennis Erickson stormed onto the University of Idaho campus - amid a cloud of confidence and high expectations - for his first head coaching job. "It sounds like you plan to pass the ball a lot, the fans should like that," a sportswriter offered in one of those vague question/statements.

Erickson

A lot of folks probably thought when somebody came up with the name "Nuggets" for Denver's NBA franchise, it was for reasons linked to the geological history of the region. Actually, they were just foreseeing a fiscal gold mine. And now, former Idaho athletic director Gary Hunter, as general counsel and vice president in charge of business operations for the franchise, is the guy responsible for shoveling in the gold and exploring new ways to tap the mother lode.

As far as Gonzaga in concerned, Jason Rubright has all the right stuff. Photo by Colin Mulvany/The Spokesman-Review

Against Gonzaga's Jason Rubright (35) and Scot Snider (34), Idaho's Harry Harrison has nowwhere to go but down. Photo by Shawn Jacobson/The Spokesman-Review

Tillman