Cheap Seats

Referee stops contest

Roy Bohannon was ahead on all judges’ scoresheets when his scheduled four-round bout with Jerry Smith ended on a boxing card in Nashville. Or did it?

Smith claimed there were two more rounds to go. Referee Billy Collins consulted promoters Robert Moore and G.L. Van Horne, who returned a split decision. Van Horne said four rounds; Moore said it was replacing a canceled sixer and should continue.

Collins was prepared to start a fifth round when Smith charged Bohannon and threw a wild punch.

Bohannon’s father, who trains and manages his son, charged into the ring to separate the fighters. Smith’s cornermen followed. Their man was knocked out of the ring during the melee.

The Tennessean newspaper quoted an unidentified police officer accusing Collins - the referee - with throwing the first punch at Roy Bohannon Sr.

“I’ve been to a lot of fights, but that’s the first time I’ve ever seen a referee throw the first punch,” the officer said.

Not that Mills Lane hasn’t wanted to.

Give a boy a mike

Meet the new archrival of the Texas Longhorns:

Baylor?

Their basketball rematch in Austin on Wednesday figures to be a real towel-snapper. The Bears upset the Longhorns 76-72 last month, but the upsetting part came afterward. Before the Texas players were excused to the showers where they had to dry themselves with tiny, dingy towels, they were insulted by Baylor’s chest-puffing, public-address announcer.

Brad Cox gushed into the microphone that the Bears had “embarrassed Tommy Penders and his 23rd-ranked Texas Longhorns.”

Did Cox mean to suggest that Texas was embarrassed because it had lost to such an atrocious team? Or that Texas is humiliated in every defeat?

“I’ve never heard that on a P.A. before,” Penders said, “not even in World Wrestling. We’ve never had a rivalry with Baylor, but there will be now.”

Trash P.A. talk is one thing, but the towel business really hurt.

“It looked like a rag box at my house,” said Bill Little, Texas’ assistant athletic director. “There was a postage-size pink one. They were all different colors. One was an old Gatorade towel that had been washed so much, you could barely read ‘Gatorade’ on it.”

But the smell and the stickiness confirmed it.

He was the one right next to Elvis

A lot of people thought they spotted the late Vince Lombardi in a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel photo showing fans welcoming the Green Bay Packers home after the Super Bowl.

A man in the lower right-hand corner of the picture was shown from behind. He was wearing a tan overcoat and dark hat similar to those often worn by Lombardi. He had his hands in his coat pockets, as Lombardi was often depicted.

Reincarnation isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.

From deadly to just dead

Dominic Young of Fresno State has been wearing a black armband with a letter “J” on it this hoop season.

Did somebody close to him die? “The J,” Young explained, “is in memory of my jump shot.”

The last word …

“So, did you kill ‘em out there today?” - Doug Booth, head pro at Tijeras Creek Golf Club, to O.J. Simpson after 18 holes

, DataTimes