Cheap Seats

Taking cover

Well, media guides are meant to attract attention, and Christopher Newport University certainly did that. Now the school is paying to put new covers on its women’s basketball guide originally published with a photo of players pointing rifles at the reader over the caption “Armed and Dangerous.”

“We were illustrating being accurate at a target and scoring, nothing to do with lives or killing anything,” said coach Cathy Parson.

Parson was shocked at what her family read into the message. Her sister, a counselor at a school for jailed youth, said the photo was “criminally exciting.”

“Competition is warfare,” Parson said. “If we had had bows and arrows, would it have been less offensive?”

Not with the recent spate of drive-by arrowings, coach.

Shunned Badly

That’s just one nickname being hung on 7-foot-6 stiff Shawn Bradley, the dormant Mormon the 76ers were so desperate to dish that they traded him to the Nets for Derrick Coleman - the prototype malcontent.

He’s also been dubbed “Missionary Impossible” and “The Great White Nope” on Philadelphia talk radio. Across the country, the Warriors’ Joe Smith - who worries about his own lack of bulk - said he heard of Bradley’s attempts to gain weight but didn’t think much of it until he matched up.

“I was guarding him one time, and I was saying, ‘Good God,”’ said Smith, who then struck a pose and flexed his right biceps. “I felt good. I didn’t want to leave.”

The final word from Philly columnist Bill Conlin: “I called for the Sixers to draft him. To trash the Shawnster after just two-plus seasons is front-running at its worst. But this alabaster wimp had to go.”

Fairness, shmairness - what about literacy

The University of Utah and Utah State scored in the bottom seven percent on a Fairness Index released by the Rainbow Commission for Fairness in Athletics - but at least they scored.

The index was based on a questionnaire analyzing, among other things, black graduation rates, black faculty and how many minority-owned vendors are patronized by athletic departments.

Weber State also responded to the questionnaire - sort of. It said, for example, that all athletic administrators and tenured faculty members were black and that all the vendors were minority-owned. Assistant athletic director Steve Rackley said he did not know who filled out the questionnaire.

Any reaction, Michael?

Offensive linemen toil in anonymity, but Houston Oilers guard Kevin Donnalley seems particularly fed up.

“I’ll pay $1,000 to anyone in print, television or radio who can go the rest of the season without interviewing (Oilers linebacker) Micheal Barrow,” he said. “I open the Chronicle every day, and Barrow’s quoted. I turn on television, and I see Barrow’s fat head.”

The last word …

” A fellow at the student newspaper at Northwestern said the place didn’t go crazy upon learning of the football team’s Rose Bowl berth, because Evanston ‘isn’t much of a night town.’ I think that’s where you’re supposed to come in, college guy.”

- Sacramento Bee columnist Mark Kreidler

, DataTimes