Cheap Seats

Does he take them to the mat?

When he’s not in the Minnesota governor’s mansion or refereeing some wrestling event, Jesse Ventura can probably be found on the football field.

Ventura has been a volunteer strength and conditioning coach for Champlin Park High School’s football team for several years and takes no guff.

“Believe me, they don’t always enjoy me,” Ventura said. “There are days when I’m not the most popular guy. I’m also somewhat the disciplinarian. When there needs to be discipline done, that falls on to me also.”

Checking closets with his skeleton key When Paul Montville was hired as executive director of USA Boxing in the spring, he brought a new perspective with him.

“When you take a job like this,” he told the Philadelphia Inquirer, “what happens in the first few months is that every door you open is a closet that has a skeleton. You try to find out where that stuff is, and I feel we’ve done that.”

Uh, Paul, what are you trying to tell us?

Son of a sinker

It’s not in the genes, obviously. Australian swimmer Ian Thorpe smashed world records in the Pan Pacific meet in Sydney, but his father, he says, can’t swim a stroke.

Here’s some food for thought

The English magazine Golf World International has come up with a recipe to flavor those dull moments between tour events. It has compiled a list of golfers “good enough to eat.” A menu of examples, with the magazine’s accompanying comments: “Andy Bean, broad front-runner. Paul Curry, great takeaway. Terry Dill, sage of the Seniors Tour.”

It gets worse. There’s “Dottie Pepper, seasoned professional and Juan Nutt, cracks under pressure.”

And worst of all: “Steve Flesch, Hannibal Lecter’s favorite dish.”

A guy he can Bearly stand

Don’t count the Chicago Tribune’s Bernie Lincicome among the fans of potential Bears starting quarterback Shane Matthews.

“This guy is the original spare tire; not the one in the trunk, the one in the garage that you go to if the one in the trunk goes flat,” Lincicome wrote. “Matthews is the last resort, the player to be waived later, the designated driver of quarterbacks. And the Bears are going to start their comeback to glory with him?

“How awful must Cade McNown be?”

No cheering on the sidelines

Fed up with loudmouthed coaches and parents, a girls’ soccer league in Cleveland has proclaimed a game day of silence in October where the only sounds should be those coming from the field.

The 200-team Northern Ohio Girls Soccer League is calling Oct. 3 Silent Sunday and encouraging parents and others to be on their best behavior.

The idea comes in response to loutish behavior from parents in the stands and several cases of overzealous coaches, including some who verbally abused referees.

The last word …

“I sort of wish it was like hockey, where only five teams don’t make the playoffs.”

- Slugger Mark McGwire, whose St. Louis Cardinals will not be participating in postseason play.