Cheap Seats

Now that’s what we call freestyle

Well, it was quite a confirmation for a church youth group in Milwaukee. The 17 young Christians were being taken on a tour of Brookfield East High School when principal Ted Carlsen ushered them into the pool area. There they got an eyeful of the boys swimming team taking a nude dip.

Coach Mike Rose said the nine boys from East’s Woodland Conference championship team were letting off steam between high-intensity practices. Alas, it was the school board which was really steamed. Rose was suspended from his coaching duties for last week’s regional finals and this weekend’s state meet.

“Our students are not going to engage in that kind of behavior under any circumstances,” said Carlsen after learning the nude dip is a tradition at East.

Sure hope East doesn’t have a fencing team.

Dole in ‘96

President Clinton greeted the Super Bowl champion Dallas Cowboys at the White House last week - for a third time - and picked up a casual endorsement from team owner Jerry Jones.

“Ever since Bill Clinton got elected president of the United States, the Dallas Cowboys have been winning Super Bowls,” Jones said. “We’ve got to get Bill Clinton re-elected.”

Clinton acknowledged that traveling to the White House has become something of a habit for the Cowboys.

“This is beginning to be boring for them, I think,” the president said. “This is the only thing that happens at the White House as regularly as the State of the Union address. In some ways, it’s better. It’s shorter.”

Clinton congratulated “my longtime friend and fellow Arkansan,” coach Barry Switzer, for his championship season. “He was second-guessed so much, for a while I thought people had mistaken him for the president.”

Hey, they’re easy to confuse. Both have been known to “go for it” when they shouldn’t.

We would have thought ‘Magic’

Move over Scientific Mapp. The McNeese State women’s basketball team has a player named Miracle Fingers.

57 channels and nothing on

According to Cablevision magazine, these channels will debut in 1996: Gaming Entertainment Television, Women’s Sports and Entertainment Network, S-TV The Surfing Channel, The Boating Channel and Fitness Interactive Television.

Notes Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News, “No ESPN3 is on the horizon, nor will Chris Berman spin off his own channel, Boomerlodeon.”

Jose can you see?

Brazil’s national soccer team is in training with emphasis on the throat. Coach Mario Zagalo is annoyed that his young players don’t know the words of Brazil’s national anthem.

“We will rehearse to sing it right and pretty,” he said. “I’ll be watching.”

The last word …

“I want to start and finish my career in Indiana. You have one bad game in New York and you can’t go out and pick up your dry cleaning.”

- Reggie Miller, on rumors he’ll sign with the Knicks

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo