Cheap Seats
Cry ‘Uncle’
The smiling newcomer at USC claimed to be Magic Johnson’s nephew, and campus police say he did manage a slick steal before taking off on a fast break.
Stephen Johnson, real name unknown, vanished last week as students began reporting CD players, backpacks, cameras and clothes missing from their dorm rooms. He also owed money to students who believed his “uncle” would help repay loans.
“He would go to one dorm and find an empty room and act like he was a new arrival, caught up in the bureaucracy of the system,” said Robert De Vega, a detective for USC.
At Trojan Hall, the impostor told classmates about growing up in Magic Johnson’s hometown of Lansing, Mich. He put a sheet in his room where they could sign up for Lakers seats, courtesy of his famous uncle.
Freshman Greg Long said he stayed in a cabin with “Johnson” for three days on a retreat to Catalina.
“He was a friendly guy,” Long said. “We played basketball and I thought, ‘He’s not that good.”’
Yeah. If he was really good, he would have been Michael Jordan’s nephew.
Down with the man who wears the star
He also serves who only refuses to sit.
That would be Olden Polynice, who put up a stink about the furniture when the Kings passed through the Delta Center in Salt Lake City last week.
It was sometime in the first quarter that Polynice noticed that the chairs which form the team benches are adorned with the Texaco logo. Polynice then declined to sit unless he was provided a “non-Texaco” chair.
“I’m not sitting in any chair with ‘Texaco’ on it,” said Polynice.
The oil company is a target of a boycott called by prominent African-American leaders, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson, for corporate policies they claim are unresponsive to blacks. Top company officials were caught on tape making racist cracks about affirmative action policies.
When Polynice balked, one fan sitting near the Kings bench yelled for the veteran center to sit down.
“If the chair says, ‘Texaco,’ I’ll sit on the floor,” Polynice said.
Delta personnel quickly found an unoffending chair, while other Kings players covered the Texaco logo with towels. A Jazz spokesman said Texaco has been a club sponsor for four years with a deal worth “well into six figures.”
MVP of the HOV
The mystery of the disappearance of a mannequin of Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman from the Miami Dolphins dressing room has been solved.
Defensive lineman Daniel Stubbs said a teammate borrowed it so he could drive home in the carpool lane.
The grim reaper
One of the rituals that NHL coaches must endure is that of telling players they won’t be in the starting lineup that night, but Florida Panthers coach Doug MacLean says it’s not too stressful.
“The players don’t get too excited when they see me skating up to them,” he said. “It’s kind of like high school, how the girls acted when I was coming up to ask them to dance.”
The last word …
“Do these thing happen by accident or is there some sort of undiscovered intergalactic pull at work: Dwayne Schintzius, Clippers?” - San Francisco Chronicle columnist Tim Keown
, DataTimes