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Stumping for a job

Hours after accepting the head coaching job at Phoenix College, former NFL running back Stump Mitchell turned down the position after being told he couldn’t continue to coach at nearby Casa Grande High.

“I feel like I have an obligation to the kids at Casa Grande, kids that I care about,” he said. “I can’t just run off and leave them hanging.”

Maybe Stump should’ve considered that before he accepted the job.

Take a number, Scottie

“Applying the old Casey Stengel system of lining up alphabetically according to height, Scottie Pippen still would not be at the head of the line of people who do not like Jerry Krause,” writes Chicago Tribune columnist Bernie Lincicome of the corpulent Bulls general manager.

“But give Pippen credit for emphasis and concede him a special distaste for the least popular man in sports. Trade me or him, says Pippen. That’s no choice. Pippen is the only one who is worth anything.

“Well, perhaps Krause would bring some office supplies and a bag of lint.”

And a few days before Orlando forward Horace Grant returned to Chicago to play against his former teammates, he was asked what he might write on a postcard to Chicagoland.

“To my old teammates, I’d say, ‘I wish you were here,”’ he said. “To the fans of Chicago, I’d say, ‘I want to thank you for all your support.’ And to Jerry Krause I’d say, ‘Jenny Craig. See her.”’

What about the five-day waiting period?

Pro Football Hall of Famer Doug Atkins is remembered by Mary Foster of The Associated Press for his intimidating style both on and off the field.

Atkins, 6-foot-8 and 280 pounds, played for Cleveland, Chicago and New Orleans from 1953-69.

“Atkins would arrive at training camp each summer packing two .44-caliber magnums, several derringers and a shotgun,” Foster wrote. “Sometimes, when the Saints trained in San Diego, he fired his shotgun at destroyers off the coast, claiming that (Rams) coach George Allen was spying on the team from the ships.”

Bring on George Foreman

For a boxer with only one pro bout to his credit, Eric “Butterbean” Esch is a big deal - and not just because he’s 6-1 and a scale-rattling 330 pounds.

Esch, the 1993 and 1994 national Toughman contest runner-up, is featured in a Toughman video game scheduled to go on the market by the end of March.

“I’m real excited about it,” Esch said from his home in Alabama, where he works in a mobile-home factory. “The idea of the game is for your fighter to make it to the finals, where he fights me.”

The last word …

“I don’t really care about what my public perception is, because I look at myself as not having a lot of class.”

- Miami Dolphins linebacker Bryan Cox