One Bruin he can bear
The seating assignments at the Cedars-Sinai Sports Spectacular fund-raiser Sunday in Los Angeles had Pete Carroll sitting next to a Bruin.
In some cases, putting a USC Trojan and a UCLA Bruin together might not be a good idea, but the Los Angeles Times reported Carroll was thrilled because the Bruin was John Wooden.
Carroll, Wooden and Jerry Rice received lifetime achievement awards at the affair, which was attended by more than 100 sports celebrities and raised $1.5 million to benefit the medical genetics birth defect center at Cedars-Sinai.
“I wasn’t sure why I would be getting a lifetime achievement award,” said Carroll, 53, “until I saw (former Dallas Cowboy coach) Jimmy Johnson here earlier, and he reminded me I have been alive and dead a number of times in my career.”
Wooden was introduced by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who, in turn, was introduced by former NBA opponent John Salley.
“It’s nice to get some kind words from John rather than a sharp elbow,” Abdul-Jabbar said.
Wooden got in his own jibe when he said: “What I’m most proud of is, so many of my players graduated and have done well in their chosen professions. Take Bill Walton, for example. Here was a kid with a speech impediment who is in a situation now where he can’t stop talking.”
Net proceeds
Andre Agassi’s name and image appear on new slot machines in the MGM Grand and will soon appear throughout Las Vegas. The games have a tennis theme and some of the proceeds will go to his charitable foundation.
“I think people will be glad to know that if they’re losing money playing the game, at least a portion will go toward making a difference in the community,” Agassi told Associated Press.
“Glad” may be stretching it.
It’s dangerous in there
San Diego Surf Dawg manager Terry Kennedy told the Orlando Sentinel that he was going to take struggling outfielder Ricky Henderson to dinner and try to get inside his head, although with great trepidation.
“If I get too far in there, I might never come out,” he said.
Sudden stop
Danica Patrick finished 13th at an Indy Racing League event Saturday at Texas Motor Speedway, putting the brakes on Danica-mania, which had been sweeping the land since the rookie’s fourth-place finish at the Indianapolis 500. Observed Gil LeBreton of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram: “Her carriage, as it turned out, handled like a pumpkin.”
That’s a hoot
Some parents of a youth baseball team in Taylor Mill, Ky., were so upset after learning that Hooters restaurant was its sponsor that they pulled their kids from the squad.
Writes Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times: “On the bright side, however, there’s suddenly no shortage of dads volunteering to drive the kids for postgame treats.”
A simple solution
“The NHL, always striving to improve, is undergoing three days of tests in search of changes that would make it more appealing to TV and advertisers,” says Jerry Greene of the Orlando Sentinel. “They might try, oh, I don’t know, playing.”
The last word
Jeff Gordon of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, on Deion Sanders’ new contract with Baltimore including $4 million in incentives: “What is he getting, $500,000 for every tackle he makes?”