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He may not know art, but he knows what he likes
Grant Long of the Detroit Pistons, who had 12 points and 11 rebounds in a game after losing his goggles, was asked whether he’d ever play without them again. “No way,” he said. “I felt like van Gogh without his ear.”
Oh. You mean, like, talented.
Even God gave it a rest on the seventh day
But not Steve Spurrier, whose sniping about Florida State hitting after the whistle has reached Biblical proportions.
Florida’s flappable football coach has carried his crusade to New Orleans, where the Gators and Seminoles meet again in Thursday’s Sugar Bowl. Spurrier still insists the Noles were guilty of up to 10 late hits on quarterback Danny Wuerffel in a 24-21 FSU victory last month.
He also insists nothing should be read into the fact that Wuerffel hasn’t complained.
“He’s like a New Testament person,” said Spurrier. “He gets slapped upside the face, and turns the other cheek and says ‘Lord, forgive them for they know not what they’re doing.’
“I’m more of an Old Testament guy. You spear our guy in the earhole, we think we’re supposed to spear you in the earhole.”
Spurrier will continue his crusade in a meeting with game officials - a meeting to which coaches routinely send assistants. FSU coach Bobby Bowden said he’d probably show up, too.
“But if I go, it seems like I’m there to try to talk them out of something,” he said. “I could be watching TV. They’ve got Bugs Bunny on at that time.”
Yep. Bugs Bunny over Mickey Mouse any day.
He’s in a different mind of state
Canadian broadcaster Mark Jones has been known to mangle geography during U.S. football assignments.
For example, he once called the turnout at a Las Vegas Posse game as “the largest crowd ever in the state of Las Vegas.” And at the 1991 LSU-Georgia game, the first played in Georgia’s newly enlarged Sanford Stadium, he called the crowd: “The biggest sports crowd ever in the state of Atlanta.”
Even schoolkids know Atlanta’s in the state of Bubba.
Titan up
The way Sandy Robey sees it, the mascot for Traverse City West shouldn’t be just one of the guys.
The Board of Education in the Michigan city decided to nickname the new high school’s athletic teams the Titans. Then Robey informed the board that her research into Greek mythology showed the first Titan - indeed, the mother of all Titans - was Gaea, and so the school mascot should be a female.
“Nothing against men, but symbols do mean a lot,” Robey said. “The mascot is the rallying point for the whole school. When it always has the male personification, it says something.”
So how about it: equal time in Orofino for a female Maniac?
The last word …
“A photography expert testified that the picture of O.J. Simpson wearing Bruno Magli shoes while commentating at a football game is a fake. Apparently, he could tell because in the background the Jets are scoring a touchdown.”
- Conan O’Brien
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo