Cheap Seats

Herbie Husker has his price

Harley Horton is a Cornhuskers fan to the cob, sort of. He’s hanging on to his vanity license plates that read “HUSKERS” but only after learning he isn’t allowed to sell them to the highest bidder.

Horton, 44, took out about $200 in newspapers ads to attract offers for the plates he obtained in 1989 through a drawing.

“He can relinquish the plates,” said Cynthia Bowman of the Nebraska Department of Motor Vehicles, “but we already have applications on file for those plates.”

He could go ahead and sell them, though - and then be in a position to make himself some new ones.

UConn job

John Chaney wanted to kill John Calipari. Maybe that would be easier than pinning the Massachusetts basketball coach down. Now that his Minutemen have risen to No. 1 in the polls and undefeated Connecticut is No. 2, the debate over whether these two neighbors and one-time rivals - who last met in 1990 - will ever play each other again has been revived.

Calipari’s position? It depends on when you ask.

Feb. 1, 1990 in the Hartford Courant: “Hopefully, Connecticut will keep playing us. I think it would be good for us.”

Jan. 23, “We don’t need any more tough games. I’d rather not play the game.”

Jan. 12, “My stance hasn’t changed in seven years. I think it would be great for college basketball in New England.”

Calipari has suggested UConn’s “regional” schedule doesn’t jive with his own “national” schedule - never mind that the Huskies play Duke and Kansas, and that UMass is about as regional as you can get.

“It’s time to pick up the phone and talk about it,” said UConn coach Jim Calhoun. “That’s the only way it will get done.”

Advice a couple of local colleges should heed, as well.

Cameo appearance

Most may never make the big time, but players from two teams in the East Coast Hockey League will be able to tell their grandkids about the night they were in NHL uniforms and have the film to prove it.

The Johnstown Chiefs and Wheeling Thunderbirds impersonated the Pittsburgh Penguins and Chicago Blackhawks on Tuesday night as the cameras rolled for the upcoming movie “Sudden Death,” which stars Jean-Claude Van Damme.

“It was great,” said Johnstown forward Dennis Purdie. “Everyone wanted to wear the NHL jersey and just pretend for one night.”

It must have been pretend - no one was locked out or went on strike.

The last word …

“What does that mean? That I dance around a fire?” - Barry Switzer of the Cowboys, after Bill Walsh called him a “ceremonial coach”