Coaches' corner

Coach and Athletic Director, August, 2003

BILL SCHEFT, Sports Illustrated columnist: "The Tampa Bay Devil Rays sent foul-tempered John Rocker to a minor league team to develop a change-up to go with his straight bigotry."

MARTHA BURK, chairperson of the National Council of Women's Organizations, responding to Tiger Woods' refusal to go on record against the gender barrier at the Augusta National Golf Club: "If more people in the past had refused to speak out against prejudice, Tiger Woods might now be a caddie at Augusta rather than a player."

STEVE RUSHIN, Sports Illustrated columnist, struck dumb at the sight of the Canadian hockey legend, Jean Beliveau, immaculately suited with his silvery mane shining under the lights: "All I can say is that if God ever got a $500 haircut, he'd look like Jean Beliveau."

GEORGE STEINBRENNER, on the secret of his success: "There are only so many ulcers in the world and I make certain that other people get them."

JOHN WOODEN, upon meeting LeBron James and asking him whether he intended to finish school: "I was thrilled to death when he told me he was, until I realized that I was thinking college and he was thinking high school."

SCOTT OSTLER, S.R Chronicle: "You gotta love Pete Rose. He won't admit that those betting slips were his, but he has vowed to spend the rest of his life searching for the real gamblers, starting with the recreation room in Disney World."

JIM ARMSTRONG, Denver Post, on the hardest thing to do in sports: "Flunking out of college on a team coached by Jerry Tarkanian."

MIKE MCALLISTER, Dallas Morning News: "The first time Allen Iverson read the Pyramid of Success, he was so impressed by its rules that he observed every one of them in his next game and scored three points."

LARRY MERCHANT, HBO's boxing guru: "Mike Tyson had a great week. From Monday to Wednesday, he skipped workouts. On Thursday, he missed a flight to Memphis. On Friday, he had his face tattooed. On Saturday, he fought the fight, picked up his check for $13 million, and announced his retirement from boxing for the rest of the week."

IAN THOMSEN, Sports Illustrated's NBA beat writer: "The Pistons are putting an attendant in each rest room of The Palace at Auburn Hills. Next year, they are going to put two in each room and play zone."

MICHAEL JORDAN, it is rumored, has asked the Washington Wizards to extend his retirement contract for three more years."

JIM MURRAY, the late L.A. Times scribe, on why Hank Aaron kept griping as he approached Babe Ruth's home run record: "Every time he hit a homer he expected the umpire to stop the game and give him the ball park."

DICK YOUNG, the late N.Y. sports columnist, on how the old American Football League used to inflate the attendance figures: "They used to count fingers instead of behinds."

BILL PARCELLS, on how brilliant his old Giants quarterback Phil Simms, used to be: "Three minutes after The Last Supper, he could tell you how much they were tipping the waiter."

MARIO ANDRETTI, on the importance of soccer in Italy: "First, mother love. Second, soccer. Maybe a photo finish."

RALPH HOUK, former major league skipper, on how he persuaded Kirk Gibson to pick baseball over football: "What do you want in life, a bonus or a limp?"

DON ZIMMER: "The first thing that young, impressionable country boys learn to do in Major League Baseball is speak profanity."

MRS. DON SHULA, on how she discovered that the NFL strike of 1982 was over: "When I awoke at 6 a.m. the next morning, Don was gone and I didn't hear from him until he called six weeks later and asked me what we were going to do on New Year's."