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Izzy or isn’t he extinct?

The much-criticized mascot for the Atlanta Olympics wasn’t allowed to appear at the opening ceremonies and his likeness has all but disappeared.

Even Blaze, the mascot of the Atlanta Paralympics, now appears on Georgia license plates, but no one can find Izzy. “Izzy was an unqualified disaster,” said artist Trevor Irvin, who created Blaze. “It just didn’t work, and it wasn’t going to work. It was embarrassing to me as an Atlantan. Every time you go through an airport, every time you mention where you’re from, someone mentions the blue thing.”

We don’t buy it, Sonny

Sonny Vaccaro, the sneaker salesman who revolutionized basketball, inventing such phenomena as the high school all-star game and the bought-and-paid-for college coach, concedes it might not have been for the best, even if it was legal.

“Go ask coaches why they don’t refuse to take our money,” Vaccaro told The New York Times. “Ask college presidents why they don’t stop big-time sports.”

Vaccaro, who began paying coaches while working for Nike, was subsequently fired and now engages in a blood feud with the company, working for rival Adidas.

The change has pitted him against former Washington State coach George Raveling. Raveling stood up at Vaccaro’s wedding. Now Raveling works for Nike and he and Sonny are former friends.

Of course, in the sneaker business, they’re playing for ever-higher stakes and Vaccaro doesn’t hesitate to take his own shots at his former employers.

“Did you sense something creepy in that Junior Griffey-for-president commercial?” Vaccaro asks. “Nike is the best sports company in the world and (company President) Phil Knight is brilliant. Can you imagine if they put all their resources and smarts behind a candidate?

“Nike is the big, dark cloud that’s going to envelop everything, poison the minds of kids and ruin the game. Now we’re paying high school coaches so we can tie up their kids… .

“Look, I play by the rules… . For God’s sake, go change the rules.”

Hey, Sonny, go get a conscience.

Finds market to be a lot of bull

A year ago at the Atlanta Olympics, Mike Gostigian crossed the finish line of the final event of the modern pentathlon - the cross-country run - wearing red, white and blue bathing trunks and an expression of total exhaustion.

But afterward he became a stockbroker and found out what it was to be really run ragged.

“After a solid eight months of staring at a computer screen intensely, I felt my muscles atrophy. I felt unhealthy. I saw a lot of guys who were millionaires by the time they were 30 and having heart attacks when they were 40… . I wanted to get in touch with the person I used to be.”

Now he’s rediscovered that person as a fitness instructor who has returned to competition.

The move also took care of the void in his wallet created while struggling to succeed on Wall Street.

“You walk out the door in New York and you’ve spent $40, and you don’t even know how.”

The last word …

“Evander Holyfield told reporters that he will not fight Mike Tyson again. In response, Mike Tyson said, ‘That’s okay, I hate leftovers.”’

- Conan O’Brien

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo