The National Football League championship game is too big for one simple test of fan knowledge, especially when there are so many different levels of expertise. As a result, we present a warmup or starter quiz today, with two more increasingly difficult installments to come.

You might want to make copies for distributing at Super Bowl parties or family gatherings on Sunday. Tests I, II, and III can be compiled into one test if you prefer, or they can be used separately to gauge how much self-proclaimed beginners, intermediates, and experts really know. Answers can be found here.

1. What is the name of the Super Bowl trophy?
   1. Stanley Cup
   2. Lombardi Trophy
   3. Davis Cup
   4. Heisman Trophy
2. In reaching this year's Super Bowl, Seattle beat the Carolina Panthers , 34-13, in the National Football Conference championship game. What mix of scoring plays (touchdowns, extra-points etc.) did the Seahawks need for their winning total?
3. Which one of the following teams has never won the Super Bowl?
   1. San Francisco 49ers
   2. Dallas Cowboys
   3. Denver Broncos
   4. New Orleans Saints
4. Match these championship teams with their quarterbacks:

   Phil Simms Troy Aikman Terry Bradshaw Kurt Warner

   Dallas Cowboys St. Louis Rams New York Giants Pittsburgh Steelers

5. The sales of what food product peak at Super Bowl time?
   1. strawberries
   2. garlic
   3. avocados
   4. bananas
6. The first Super Bowl was played between the NFL champion and the champion of what rival league?
   1. American Football League
   2. World Football League
   3. Arena Football League
   4. United States Football League
7. Which of the following entertainers has never performed during a Super Bowl halftime?
   1. Bono
   2. Michael Jackson
   3. Yanni
   4. Paul McCartney
8. If the game is tied at the end of regulation, what happens?
   1. An extra 15-minute quarter is played
   2. Teams alternately are given the ball at the opponent's 25-yard line and try to score.
   3. Sudden death, in which the first team to score wins
   4. Placekickers try matching field goals until someone misses
9. Which is the only team to play in the Super Bowl that doesn't have an animal nickname?
   1. Denver
   2. Tampa Bay
   3. Atlanta
   4. Cincinnati
10. A "false start" occurs when...
    1. the referee inadvertently blows a whistle
    2. the game clock is started before players are ready
    3. offensive players move forward before ball is snapped
    4. a quarterback tricks defensive players to rush offside before the play has begun

For answers click here

With Kobe Bryant lighting up NBA scoreboards this season, I'm reminded of "Pistol" Pete Maravich, perhaps the most unforgettable "gunner" I've ever seen, either in person or on TV.

Playing for his dad, Press Maravich, the coach of Louisiana State, the skinny kid with the mop top, floppy socks, and showman's instincts enjoyed carte blanche to shoot almost every time down the floor. He was a one-man offense who averaged an incredible 44.5 points a game during the 1969-70 season, which remains the NCAA's Division I record. And he kept up the production during three seasons, finishing with a career average of 44.2 points.

In retrospect, this pace is all the more impressive because it was recorded before college basketball adopted either a shot clock or the 3-point basket. Given the Pistol's penchant for tossing up long-range shots, it's hard to imagine his average not reaching 50 points with modern rules. (Wilt Chamberlain once did this in the professional ranks, in 1962, the season he scored a record 100 points in a single game and wound up with a 50.4-point  average).

During his 10-year NBA career, Maravich led the league once in scoring - in 1977, when he averaged 31.1 points playing for what was then the New Orleans Jazz (later moved to Salt Lake City)

Maravich was one of the most stylishly distinct players I've ever seen, a gangly guy who was loose and limber and played as though he was auditioning for the Harlem Globetrotters. Behind-the-back and through-legs dribbling, as well as no-look passes, were highly entertaining, deeply ingrained parts of his game.

As sports columnist Robert Lipsyte once described him on ESPN Classic, "Pete Maravich was Showtime before there was Showtime. ...A team was Pete Maravich and anybody who was inbounding to him."

My personal memories of Maravich, who died in 1988 while playing in a pickup three-on-three game less than a year after his Hall of Fame induction, came years apart. The first occurred as a young sportswriter who caught up to the rookie star of the Atlanta Hawks in the Boston Garden in 1970. The Hawks had lost yet again, and I was the only writer who approached Maravich in a deathly silent visitors locker room. Maravich had no interest in talking and uttered the sparest of meaningless answers under his breath.

While covering college basketball's Final Four tournament in New Orleans in 1980s, I noticed that he was slated to appear in the menswear department of a downtown department store. I made it a point to see how the locals would receive one of the area's greatest college stars, now retired as a player. Maravich looked relaxed and friendlier than he did as an NBA rookie, but oddly, few fans arrived to get his autograph. Without a basketball dancing at the end of his fingertips, it seemed, one of the game's greatest solo artists was just another guy in street clothes.

What most people forget is that Maravich closed out his NBA career, spent mostly on lesser teams in Atlanta and New Orleans, by playing 26 games with the Boston Celtics. The year was 1980 and Larry Bird was Boston's rookie superstar. It was a brief fling in a reserve role on a team that won the Atlantic Division title.

After hanging up his sneakers, Maravich reportedly struggled to discover new meaning in life. He did eventually, finding religion, giving up drinking, and turning his attention to producing Pistol Pete's Homework Basketball.

Hosting the Super Bowl seems the best Detroit fans can hope for. The Lions surely have never been a serious threat to play in the game. They've won just once in the playoffs during the past 48 years, which must be one of the sorriest postseason records by any team in any major professional sport. The only older NFL team to never play in the Super Bowl is Arizona, which began as the Chicago Cardinals in 1901 (even before the NFL existed), and spent 28 years in St. Louis before moving to Phoenix.

The irony this year is that the Super Bowl is being played at Ford Field, which draws attention to the Lions' association with the Ford Motor Co., just as the automaker has announced thousands of layoffs and numerous plant closings. These layoffs and closings will be occurring around the country, but America thinks of Detroit as the epicenter of the auto industry, so in some ways the Lions and Ford share the same need for an overhaul.

While the Lions have been a perennial disappointment, the good citizens of Detroit really have nothing to complain about when the city's overall sports landscape is considered. Since the Lions won their last NFL championship in 1957, the Tigers have won the World Series twice (1968 and 1984), the Pistons the NBA championship three times (1989, 1990, and 2004), and the Red Wings the Stanley Cup three times (1997, 1998, 2002). And for good measure, in women's basketball, the Detroit Shock won 2003 WNBA title.

Remembering Motown's first Super Bowl

I happened to cover the first and only other Super Bowl Detroit hosted in 1982.  It was the first northern Super Bowl and was something of an experiment. The game itself was actually played in outlying Pontiac at the Silverdome, and if I'm not mistaken, the NFL's traditional Friday night megaparty was held in a suburban mall.

The game was played on a cold, gray winter day, not that it mattered, except it felt very odd being bused to the Silverdome while snow fell. The game produced the first of  San Francisco's four Super Bowl triumphs with Joe Montana at quarterback, but it took a dramatic goal line stand to hold off the Cincinnati Bengals.

Touching other bases

• Where I live, at least, serious recreational cyclists (the kind who wear Tour de France-style jerseys while riding on 10-speeds) seem to enjoy the camaraderie and social aspects of their sport almost as much as golfers.

• Say what you will about tiddlywinks, but you've got to love the game's amusingly inventive terminology: squidger, squop, scrunge, gromp, and doubleton.

• If you're beginning to contemplate family travel plans for the summer and love minor-league baseball, you might want to pencil in a trip to Sauget, Ill., to see the Gateway Grizzlies. They play in GMC Stadium, last year's Ballpark of the Year according to digitalballparks.com. The five-year-old park has lawn seating in right field and down the third base line, a couple of picnic areas that overlook the field, and a large kids' zone.

• Super Bowl rings are practically the definition of gaudy. Last year, New England's were encrusted with 124 diamonds - each! Thankfully, the Lombardi Trophy, presented to the winning team, is a thing of understated elegance, a silver football held up dramatically by a simple, silver pedestal.

• Bob Knight, Texas Tech's basketball coach, has long advocated linking college athletic scholarship with graduations. Using his suggestion, a school wouldn't be able to free up a scholarship slot until the athlete who currently holds it graduates. Even Knight's severest critics might struggle to find fault with this idea.

• Since Jose Canseco has admitted to using steroids, should he have to forfeit the baseball MVP award he won in 1988? If so, outfielder Mike Greenwell of the Boston Red Sox would move up. In fact, Canseco has said Greenwell can have it.

• When the Steelers head for Super Bowl XL, they'll only need to travel roughly 300 miles to Detroit. As short as that distance is, other participating teams have played even closer to home. In 2000, the Tennesee Titans (based in Nashville) headed 250 miles south to play Super Bowl XXXIV in Atlanta.  In 1985, the San Francisco 49ers never left the Bay Area in playing Super Bowl XIX in Stanford, Calif., about 27 miles away. The shortest commute in Super Bowl history, however, occurred in 1980, when the Los Angeles Rams pretty much stayed home, playing Super Bowl XIV at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.

You know the Super Bowl is fast approaching when the DIY Network shares idea for football buffets.  Its "Weekend Entertainment" show suggests using green artificial turf for a table cover, fashioning goal posts from white PVC pipes, and making placemats from a new chalkboard-like fabric that can be used for diagramming plays during the game.

This is too much fun to stop there. Why not try coming up with your own decorating and entertaining ideas? Here are some untested brainstorms that I offer with no guaranteed results:

• Make a football ice sculpture by cutting in half an inexpensive rubber or plastic toy football to use as a mold. Turn the halves inside out (for pebble graining), fill with water, and reassemble using duct tape until water freezes the parts together.

• Line a field of molded green gelatin using cream cheese squeezed from a plastic sandwich "pastry" bag.

• Cut out rye or whole-wheat finger sandwiches in the shape of a football, then use the above technique to decorate the top with cream cheese laces.

• Apply color football photos or sports pages to a large serving tray fashioned from corrugated cardboard. Cover with plastic wrap and use for arranging sandwiches or cookies.

• At halftime, serve up special Super Bowl turnovers (get it?).

• Arrange a vegetable platter to spell out "XL," as in Super Bowl XL.

• At the end of the party, distribute goodie bags, labeled "Quarterback Sacks," with some take-home treats for your guests.

Touching other bases

• If I were an NFL or college football coach I think I'd tell runners to cool it with the dives and lunges for the end zone. Some guys are getting a little too eager to "break the plane" by launching themselves with ball outstretched at the 5-yard line.

• Does it ever strike you as odd that neither St. Louis, Cincinnati, nor Pittsburgh has an NBA team?  The Hawks and Royals, respectively, once occupied the first two cities, but moved out years ago. Pittsburgh was briefly an ABA outpost for the Pipers. Who knows, St. Louis might still have a team today if they hadn't traded Bill Russell, the second overall pick of the 1956 college draft behind Sihugo Green, to Boston. Russell led the Celtics to 11 NBA titles in 13 seasons, and it's conceivable he could have made the Hawks a team no city would relinquish.

• When people look back years from now and see photos of major-league baseball helmets adorned with the red-and-white Red Cross insignia, they may wonder, what was that all about? The connection with hurricane Katrina won't be that obvious because New Orleans has never had a big-league baseball team.

• With political correctness so "in" these days, it's ironic that a team called the Redskins represents America's capital. Shouldn't Congress demand a change? Interestingly, the team began in 1932 as the Braves in Boston, but switched its name before moving to D.C. in 1937.

• If football players feel they need eye protection, let them wear clear plastic eye shields on their helmets, as many do. But please, let's get rid of those tinted visors that dehumanize the players. Obscuring their faces makes them look like something out of Star Wars, even a little like Darth Vader. During the college bowls, I noticed at least one player wearing a mirror-like shield and another a bright, see-through yellow protector that matched one of the school's colors. I sure hope they don't start a fashion trend.

• If you think pro football goes into mothballs after the Super Bowl Feb. 5, think again. The NFL season will end, but the Arena Football League, which opens its 20th season on Jan. 27, is only just beginning. For the true diehards, there are 4-1/2 more months of football, that is, if you don't mind watching the peculiar-looking Arena game, played indoors on 50-yard fields.

• What tends to get overlooked in all the talk about Seattle making its first Super Bowl appearance in 30 years is that it's been 26 years since Pittsburgh last won an NFL championship. The Steel Curtain dynasty of the 1970s left such an impression, we tend to forget that it's been that long. Pittsburgh did make it to the Super Bowl in 1996, but lost to Dallas.

During the Super Bowl media blitz, it's very possible that more words will be written about Pittsburgh's Jerome Bettis than the Washington press corps has devoted to Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito.

Bettis is a "perfect storm" as Super Bowl interviews go. He's a wide-track running back with a great nickname, "The Bus," and great statistics to match. Despite being a so-called short-yardage power runner, he has rushed for 13,662 career yards, the fifth-most in NFL history. Add to this:

• A near-disastrous goal-line fumble in the playoffs that almost sent him into retirement wearing goat horns.

• The fact that he'll be playing the final game of his career in Detroit, his hometown, where he has played only once previously in his 13 NFL seasons.

• The special relationship he has with his parents, who've missed only two games (preseason NFL contests) since he began playing organized football. That includes more than 300 games, home and away.

Clearly, there's a lot to talk to Bettis about, and a scribbling horde of sportswriters will hang on his every word in the coming days.

Remembering Rod Dedeaux's long baseball run

A former sports colleague recently attended a funeral service for Rod Dedeaux, the former University of Southern California baseball coach. He was not alone. Dedeaux was so admired and well known that the service was held at the LA's massive Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in order to accommodate the more than 3,000 people who attended.

As an alumnus, Trojan parent, and coach, Dedeaux was associated with the school for more than 70 years. His teams won 11 College World Series crowns, including an unmatched five in a row beginning in 1970. They also had fun, singing "McNamara's Band" after every victory.

A successful trucking business owner, Dedeaux didn't need the money and, according to some accounts, coached USC for $1 a year. Befitting a guy who loved baseball, ballparks, and all the sport's traditions, hot dogs and hamburgers were served at the reception after Dedeaux's service.

Touching other bases

• Have you noticed how steep they make stadium upper decks these days? Some almost look more like rock-climbing walls than seating areas. The idea clearly is to improve the viewing experience by putting spectators as close to the field as possible. But if you ask me, there's a happy medium that's been crossed. Fans should feel comfortable getting to and from their seats, and not just enjoy the view once in them. If I owned upper-deck seats at Denver's Invesco Field, I think I'd want to take rappelling lessons first.

• Sometimes there are benefits when a big televised game fails to deliver much in the way of drama or suspense. The NFC championship game was a case in point. Because the Seattle Seahawks took command of the game early, watching the second half was optional. When clicking from station to station, I found "To War and Back," an outstanding MSNBC documentary hosted by Tom Brokaw. The program caught up with seven buddies and fellow National Guardsmen from Glen Falls, N.Y., who unexpectedly wound up in the middle of war-torn Iraq. This was much more riveting TV than the Seattle-Carolina game.

• It's a good thing Steeler quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has such broad shoulders. His surname barely makes it on the back of his jersey. That's 14 letters, the same as Bengals wide receiver T.J. Houshmandzadeh.

• Look at Bill Cowher barking on the sideline and you figure the Steelers' intense head coach eats and breathes football 24/7. Well, that's sort of right, except that as the father of three daughters, all of whom play basketball, he still finds time to follow their athletic pursuits. In fact, the day after the Steelers won the AFC championship game, Cowher attended the Fox Chapel Area High School game in Pittsburgh to witness middle daughter Lauren, a senior, score her 1,000th career point. Assisting on the play was younger sister Lindsay, who fed Lauren the ball on a lay-up.  Their older sister, Meagan, is sophomore at Princeton University, where she's just been named the Ivy League Player of the Week for the second time this season.

Life is filled with all sorts of intriguing human intersections in which people's paths cross and sometimes recross years apart in seemingly random, yet meaningful, ways. John Wooden and Birch Bayh surely knew this feeling at this month's National Collegiate Athletic Association convention in Indianapolis. The two distinguished Hoosiers (one of whose lives fleetingly intersected with my own – more on that later) were honored as co-recipients of the Gerald R. Ford Award in the capital of their home state of Indiana, which also serves as the home of the NCAA.

Because the convention marked the beginning of the NCAA's centennial, receiving the award carried special significance. Both men were deeply moved by standing ovations in recognition of their ongoing leadership and support of the intercollegiate athletic community.

Wooden's contributions to the world of sports are far more widely known to the general public. As the gentlemanly coach of UCLA's men's basketball team, he led the Bruins to 10 national championships, including seven in consecutive years, from 1967 through 1973. During that stretch, UCLA set the all-time NCAA winning streak with a run of 88 straight victories. Bayh, who served in the US Senate from 1962 to 1980 before the current tenure of his son, Evan, is not a sports figure in the same way, yet his impact on participation by girls and women is immense. He is often called the "father of Title IX," after the landmark 1972 legislation that mandates equal opportunity for both genders in federally funded education programs, including sports.

Both men graduated from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., although years apart – Wooden in 1932, when he co-captained the Boilermaker basketball team that was voted the national champion, and Bayh in 1951. Wooden was from small-town Martinsville; Bayh from more citified Terre Haute, roughly 50 miles away.

As befits two Hoosiers, basketball connects them. Wooden's first college coaching job was in Terre Haute at Indiana State University, which today is most famous for being Larry Bird's alma mater. Bayh's father coached there as well and later became a referee. Occasionally, the elder Bayh officiated games that Wooden played in.

After being saluted at the NCAA awards banquet, the two compared notes about their home state, which Wooden visits once a year even now that he's in his mid 90s.

My personal recollection of the Wizard of Westwood, as Wooden was known, dates to 1977. Two years after retiring, he came to Boston to speak at a coaching clinic. I arranged an interview at the sprawling suburban hotel where the clinic was held. When I called from the lobby to announce my arrival, Wooden said he'd come down to meet me. I wasn't enthusiastic about the prospect of conducting such an important interview in such a public place, but who was I to argue?

Fortunately, the lobby was very quiet at first, as the coaches were off learning their Xs and Os. Once the strategy session ended, though, the coaches spilled into the lobby, and before long a dozen or so were hanging over us listening to his every word. Although the rapt audience of experts didn't make me feel very comfortable, Wooden kept his focus. Eventually one bystander couldn't restrain himself and jumped in with a question, to which the revered celebrity said something along the lines of, "I'm sorry, I'm being interviewed by this young man from The Christian Science Monitor right now. You'll have to wait until I finish."

I've never forgotten that small act of courtesy, which speaks volumes about Wooden's values and principles. 

Looking back on the story I subsequently wrote based on our conversation, one quote stands out to me today, especially given the unrestrained displays by many modern athletes. It's what he said during a final timeout each time UCLA was on the verge of winning another championship. "During these time-outs," he explained, "I reaffirmed to everyone that when the game was over we shouldn't act like fools. I told them it was a basketball game, and nothing more."

As any of his players, from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to Bill Walton, will tell you, Wooden is an educator in the broadest sense of the word, concerned not simply with teaching basketball skills, but life skills. His famous "Pyramid of Success," inspired by his high school coach's "Ladder of Achievement," has five foundational building blocks: industriousness, friendship, loyalty, cooperation, and enthusiasm.

Last year, a friend of mine who has taught high school art in Evansville, Ind., for many years, enjoyed his own encounter with Wooden. The friend was the recipient of a statewide teaching award presented in conjunction with the John R. Wooden Tradition, a benefit basketball doubleheader in Indianapolis. Wooden was present for the Tradition's banquet and the games that followed at Conseco Fieldhouse.

My friend managed to get a few minutes with the coach and mentioned that a couple of our classmates at Evansville's Harrison High School had been members of the team that lost to UCLA in the 1970 NCAA championship game.

It was not the most memorable of many wins during Wooden's 40 years as a head coach, yet to my friend's amazement – and mine as well – Wooden was not only able to name the opponent, Jacksonville (Fla.) University, but the players: Vaughn Wedeking, a starting guard, and Greg Nelson, the first reserve off the bench. This was 35 years after the fact!

People who know Wooden well have paid wonderful tributes to him, as Walton has done on a personal website where he speaks of his former coach as a "positive force."

Wooden is not one to immodestly revel in past glories, In fact, he was hesitant to let UCLA dedicate its Pauley Pavilion basketball court in his name. What convinced him to accept the idea was when the university suggested in 2003 that the court be named for his late wife, Nell, as well as himself – and that Nell's name come first.

The two had been high school sweethearts and forged what one observer has called the most enduring love affair in Los Angeles sports history, a 53-year marriage that ended with Nell's passing in 1985.

Today, UCLA's home floor is officially the Nell and John Wooden Court, a name printed right on the gleaming hardwood planks. "She was always first with me," he explains. "It just sounds better that way."

An old friend just sent an interesting column about middle school basketball from our hometown paper, the Evansville Courier & Press in Indiana. The columnist, Dan Korb, had attended the same elementary school as we did at roughly the same time. Thirty-five years after playing his last game at Harper School (now K-6), he decided to cover a middle school basketball tournament to see how the game has changed.

Korb says he and his teammates did well to learn how to set a proper screen, drop back into a zone defense, and finish a fast break. At the recent tournament,however, Korb was struck by the sophisticated level of play.  He said he saw low screens, high screens, trapping zones, and help-side defense. "I've come to expect that from high school players," he observed, surprised to find younger guys absorbing the same lessons.

Tracing what has changed over the years, Korb tracked down his old Harper coach, Terry Yunker, who today is a principal at a different school but who speaks from years of experience coaching young athletes. He too had seen tournament champion Helfrich Park play, and noticed "their quickness and their transition game and their ability to get the ball up the floor quickly on the fast break, and they were also very physical and strong."

Yunker chalks up the progress to several factors:14-year-old boys play a lot more, on school as well as youth-league teams of various kinds, including on "travel teams"  that hit the road to play teams in other communities. Some also polish their skills attending summer sport camps.

Korb had no grandiose recollections of his own, simpler playing days. "My only memories are a basket that was waved off when I got called for traveling, once committing three fouls in less than a minute, and something called Basketball Field Day," he writes, then adds, "There was no city championship. But we had fun."

Oddball jersey numbers don't cut it

Athletes can get pretty attached to their jersey numbers. Northern Illinois University associate athletics director Dee Abrahamson knows the lengths to which players will go to keep a favorite number. In the NCAA News, she related a story about a request she'd once received as the NCAA's softball rules secretary.

A coach called about three players who all wanted to wear No. 1. One took jersey No. 1, another settled for No. 11, and a third, an incoming freshman, asked if she could be 0.1. Technically, that was valid, since the rules state that numbers between 0 and 99 are valid, But Abrahamson said that it wouldn't work for a public-address announcer  to say, "Now batting, number one-tenth, Suzy Smith." The next year the rule was changed to specify that only whole numbers were valid.

Many years earlier, the fractions idea came to maverick major-league baseball owner Bill Veeck, who tapped its promotional value. In 1951, he hired 3 ft. 7 in. midget Eddie Gaedel to play for the old St. Louis Browns, later to become the Baltimore Orioles. Gaedel pinch-hit once and walked while wearing the number 1/8. His strike zone reportedly measured 1-1/2 inches, from top to bottom.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association can be pretty good in running a reverse when necessary. Before this month's Rose Bowl national championship game, the NCAA first suspended, then quickly reinstated Southern Cal quarterback Matt Leinart for appearing in a promotional segment for ESPN.  His actions were ruled "unintentional and inadvertent," not surprising in light of the fact that his absence could have ruined a much-ballyhooed multimillionaire-dollar TV game. A lack of common-sense accommodation in the case of a far less prominent college player, however, appears to  reveal a double standard on the NCAA's part.

Heritier "Dee" Diakabana, an unrecruited walk-on Army defensive back, was very far from being a star player. Yet he, too, seems have earned all due consideration from the NCAA, only he didn't get it, at least not in timely enough fashion.

Briefly, here's his story: Diakabana's family fled war-torn Zaire in 1994 and settled in Pawtucket, R.I. After high school he joined the Army and served in Iraq, where he was awarded a Purple Heart.  Upon his return to the States, he enrolled at West Point, where he went out for football, which he'd played in high school. Coach Bobby Ross told the Times Herald-Record in Hudson, N.Y., that he loved having the ex-soldier on the team. "He is a great example for these guys for what he's accomplished," Ross said.

There was only one catch, a technicality really, which the NCAA discovered early last season. Because a public high school that Diakabana had first attended failed to provide his needed transcript, the NCAA declared him ineligible. If he'd had poor academic credentials, such caution would have been understandable, but Diakabana had subsequently attended Principia Upper School in St. Louis, a well-regarded prep school, where he was a straight-A student.

Instead of waiting for things to get sorted out, he switched to Army's rugby team, a club sport not subject to NCAA regulations. Wouldn't you think, though, that the NCAA might cut a model citizen a little more slack - even if he isn't a Heisman Trophy winner?

Whatever its origins, instant replay grabs viewers

The origins of instant replay may be as disputed as the birthplace of baseball. Some claim the innovation made its debut on Dec. 7, 1963, at the Army-Navy football game. That's when the announcer warned viewers that the 1-yard touchdown run they were seeing was "not live" and that "Army has not scored again." Others, however, say that replay was rolled out during the 1962 Boston College-Holy Cross game, when quarterback Jack Concannon, who died Nov. 28, was BC's big star.

Whichever date is correct, there's no arguing that the technology has made a phenomenal impact on spectator enjoyment and more recently on the officiating of games.

Football, in particular, has benefited from challenges of calls on the field. With so many replay angles available at televised games, it was virtually a must to provide officials with the same footage as home viewers, lest miscalls and questionable game outcomes be allowed to stand. Football, of course, has considerable time between plays (a limit of 40 seconds), which means there's a built-in window for coaches to ask for a limited number of video reviews.

Major League Baseball has thus far resisted using replays to backstop its umpiring crews.  Yet there is  increasing consideration for the idea, especially after controversial plays have sprinkled recent postseasons.

The US Open tennis tournament, by the way, has announced that it expects to use replays to assist in officiating this year for the first time. Too bad they weren't around when John McEnroe was castigating linesmen.

• Lynn Swann, who tossed his hat into the political ring recently by entering Pennsylvania's gubernatorial race, probably stood a better chance of becoming governor of Pennsylvania when he played for the Pittsburgh Steelers than he does today as an official candidate. At least then, he was a key player on four championship teams and the MVP of Super Bowl X, in which he gained 161 yards on four pass receptions.

For many years now, he's been a sideline reporter on ABC's college football telecasts. Maybe if he'd been in the booth, he would have remained more solidly in the public limelight. But the sidelines are no place from which to launch a political career.

A member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Swann is a virtual unknown, politically speaking, having never before run for public office. Where he comes down on the issues remains to be seen, although he is a Republican who opposes abortion rights and says he supports cutting business taxes.

Even if he doesn't receive the state GOP endorsement over two other party candidates, he says he'll still consider entering the May 16 primary. Whoever wins that would most likely face Gov. Ed Rendell, the Democratic incumbent.

In the unlikely event that Swann were to go the political distance, he's said he would bow out of being a football commentator, even on a part-time basis. The voters, it seems, should expect nothing less than a full commitment.

Football fame, by the way, has positioned others for successful entries into politics. Most notable presently is former University of Nebraska coach Tom Osborne, now a third-term Republican congressman for that state's third district. Osborne retired in 1997 and was elected four years later.

Former players with congressional experience in their résumés are J.C. Watts and Steve Largent, both of whom played college ball in Oklahoma (Watts at OU and Largent at Tulsa). Watts, who now runs a business development and communications company, served four terms in Congress and was the first African American elected from a southern state to a federal office in 120 years. He bowed out of politics in 2002.  Largent, yet another Republican, was elected to Congress in 1994 shortly after retiring as a record-setting wide receiver with the Seattle Seahawks.  In 2002, he ran for governor of Oklahoma and lost by less than 7,000 votes. Today he's a marketing and advertising consultant.

Nothing golden about Giant's goose egg

Any team good enough to make the NFL playoffs ought to be able to score some points, even when experiencing an off day. That's the theory, anyhow, only the New York Giants shot holes in it with their 23-0 first-round loss to the Carolina Panthers. It was a shutout that will weigh heavily on the minds of Coach Tom Coughlin and the team's young quarterback, Eli Manning, since the Giants hadn't been held scoreless at home in the postseason since 1943. And they never got closer than 39 yards to scoring a touchdown.

Ironically, the Washington Redskins were just as ineffective as the Giants in their playoff opener, yet with the help of their defense, they managed to beat Tampa Bay 17-10 while netting the least yards (120) of any winning team ever in the NFL postseason.

Touching other bases

• Am I not paying attention, or is the "wave" really passé these days? Not that I miss seeing fans doing the rolling-wave maneuver.

• Is there any doubt that Fox in-studio analyst Terry Bradshaw is the broadcast descendant of former Monday Night Football commentator Don Meredith, a guy who injects good-'ol-boy fun into pro football telecasts?

• Have you ever wondered what that prominent green "V" is doing on the back of Fresno State's red football helmets? It's a reminder that the Bulldogs represent all of California's central valley, since there is no other major college football program in the region. Forty-three percent of their players came from this incredibly fertile area this past season.

• According to a media account, University of Texas quarterback Vince Young talked with two people about his decision to forgo his senior season to enter April's NFL draft: his coach Mack Brown and his pastor. The latter choice of adviser was a refreshing change of pace. By the way, if I were the Houston Texans, I'd make Young the league's No. 1 draft pick, hold onto starting signal-caller David Carr, and find a way to have Young split time between quarterback and running back. He's capable of doing both, and opponents would be hard-pressed to know how to defend against both Carr and Young.

•"Breaking the plane" has become a familiar rule to football viewers, who know that the ball has only to penetrate an invisible vertical plane above the goal line to score a touchdown. But until I saw this year's Orange Bowl, I'd never thought of the rule's application to a player going in the opposite direction, namely, trying to get out of end zone. It required multiple replays to reveal that a Florida State runner had barely gotten the nose of the ball to penetrate the field of play, thus preventing Penn State from scoring two points for a safety.

• There simply isn't any doubt that college football's alternating-possession overtime format, in which each team gets to try to score from the 25-yard line, is far superior to the NFL's sudden death, in which a team can lose without ever having a chance to score. The NFL would be wise to swallow its pride and acknowledge that the colleges have a better idea that deserves the league's adoption.

• Football broadcasters really do overuse the word "huge" – as in huge play, huge catch, and huge touchdown.

• When Southern Cal tailback Reggie Bush made a full-speed, headlong dive to complete a TD run in the Rose Bowl, ABC commentator Dan Fouts perplexed some football fans (including this one) when he remarked: "It's a game of Quidditch for Reggie Bush. Where's the broom?" Fouts, I've learned since, was referring to the magical airborne ball game that Harry Potter and other characters play in the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling. Fouts is to be commended for the very apropos description, even if it was a little obscure to non-Potterites.

Given all the creative ways football players celebrate touchdowns, why don't they come up with some fresh new way to celebrate victory? Dumping a bucket of Gatorade on the coach's head has gotten old, and surely there's a better way to salute him than with a icy on-field shower, especially if the mercury is hovering near freezing. Even in Tempe, Ariz., soaking Ohio State's Jim Tressel at the Fiesta Bowl was oh-so-predictable.

If nothing else, some team should use that old Harlem Globetrotters gag and fill the bucket with confetti. Or maybe they could pick up on all the chest-bumping that occurs between players after touchdowns and do an all-team chest bump as the final seconds tick away. Or for old time's sake, some team might even want to carry the coach off the field, as used to happen.

For the sake of review, the origins of the Gatorade prank date to 1986, when New York Giants teammates Harry Carson and Jim Burt drenched Coach Bill Parcells during the last seconds of a victory over the Washington Redskins. As the story goes, Burt felt the gag would be a way of getting back at Parcells, who'd been ragging on him all week in practice. The conspirators reportedly held off until Parcells removed his headset as a precaution against an electrical shock.

NFL is the dress-down league

Wouldn't you think a professional sports league would support a coach's desire to dress well during a game? In fact, the National Football League told Mike Nolan that he couldn't wear a suit and tie on the sidelines this season during his first season at the helm of the San Francisco 49ers. 

Nolan's dad had worn a coat and tie as  the Niners' coach in the 1960s and '70s, when that was common attire for NFL coaches, and the son thought a return to that style would make a nice tribute. But the league likes uniformity and wants its coaches modeling licensed team sportswear for the TV cameras. After all, it has has a 10-year, $250 million apparel contract with Reebok, not Brooks Brothers.

The irony is that the National Basketball Association has gone to a "business casual" dress code for the players when off the court, and the league's coaches all try to outdo each other with their impeccably tailored suits. If the league wanted to make more money from endorsements, it simply could sign up a famous-brand suitmaker as its official clothier.

Touching other bases

•The National Collegiate Athletic Association, which is wrapping up its annual convention in Indianapolis, comes in for a lot of criticism of its big-time programs and multimillion-dollar athletic budgets. As flush with money as some athletic departments are, however, the association thinks the big-business analogies are overdrawn. An article in the NCAA News addresses this by pointing out that while Ohio State University's athletic budget is $88 million, the amount would run the overall university for only 11 days. Furthermore, what sneaker/sportswear giant Nike takes in in two weeks is what the NCAA earns in a year.

•While it's nice to know that ice-dancing champion Tanith Belbin, a Canadian, was cleared to take the express lane to US citizenship, facilitating this hardly seemed to belong in a congressional appropriations bill. Nonetheless, President Bush signed the bill, paving the way for Belbin to compete at the Winter Olympics with American partner Ben Agosto.

•Has anyone ever put a pedometer on Penn State coach Joe Paterno?  He's an All-American when it comes to pacing the football sidelines.

•Some of those designs that bowl games paint on the 50-yard line to plug their game and its sponsors have become overlarge distractions. It's time to shrink them before the fields wind up looking like billboards.

•Judging from the names on their uniforms, it appears more and more African athletes or ones with close current ties to Africa are playing American football. One of the best in the collegiate ranks this year is defensive lineman Mathias Kiwanuka of Boston College, an excellent pass rusher and a sure first-round NFL draft pick. Although he grew up in Indianapolis, Kiwanuka's paternal grandfather was the first prime minister of Uganda and a majority of his relatives still live there.

Sportswriters dug deep into their mental thesauri for descriptives of Texas quarterback Vince Young after his spectacular Rose Bowl performance. A noun that comes to my mind is "marvel,"  a word that doesn't often find its way into my vocabulary. It really seems to fit this Houston native.

Some QBs struggle to rush for 200 yards in an entire season, but here's a guy who did it in one game against a Southern Cal squad trying to extend its winning streak to 35 games.

The temptation is to think of Young as a runner first and foremost. Yet how is that accurate when he completes 30 of 40 passes against the same vaunted opponent? This only underlined why he led the nation in passing efficiency and managed to complete an impressive 63.9 percent of his attempts.

Young clearly possesses an unusually balanced skill set, which, practically by turns, enhances both his running and passing ability. His ability to run slows down pass rushers who must remained controlled and disciplined to have any hope of containing him. His passing ability, on the other hand, means defensive backs and linebackers must pursue receivers downfield until they're absolutely sure he's given up on the pass and is running. In other words, defenders can't be anticipating the run and cheating up to stop it, lest Young burn them with a touchdown toss.

• One thing that makes Young so exciting as a runner, besides his yardage-gobbling speed, is his instinct for turning up field quickly rather than running laterally. In other words, he is as efficient running as he is throwing.

• No doubt about it, he benefited from playing behind an offensive line that was the 21st century version of the Seven Blocks of Granite, and surehanded tight end David Thomas. He also has a coach in Mack Brown who is astute enough to cut Young some slack and realize that overcoaching him would only stifle his natural development.

• Oddly, because it probably seems like such a small thing, what most impressed me about Young was what he did after scoring the Rose Bowl's game-winning touchdown with 19 seconds left. For a split second it appeared he might want to throw the ball up into the stands. But instead, with the crowd going bonkers, he calmly tucked the ball under his arm and avoided all the usual gyrations that accompany such euphoric moments. He seemed aware that he was carrying a valuable bit of football history and didn't want to lose his head.

• Next season, assuming he comes back for his senior year (as he says he will) and barring some unforeseen circumstance, Young should finally win the Heisman Trophy. Even if he's got competition for the award, the voters should give it to him for "lifetime achievement."

How, I wonder, can Southern Cal's Trojans be bidding to do something a team with a much longer winning streak never did, namely win three consecutive national championships?

The answer lies in the fact that until 1965, the season's top ranking was awarded before the bowls were played. As a result, the team Sports Illustrated rates as the greatest dynasty in college football history, Oklahoma, won 47 straight games between 1953 and 1957 but only has two national championships to show for it. (SI, incidentally, says that the current USC squad will vault from No. 7 to No. 3 on the its all-time dynasty list if it beats Texas in the Rose Bowl for its 35th successive win.)

Although Oklahoma's streak began with the third game of the 1953 season, the 9-1-1 Sooners finished fourth in the final pre-bowls Associated Press poll, their victory over No. 1, undefeated Maryland in the Orange Bowl a nonfactor in the rankings. The next year, they rolled through a perfect 10-0 campaign, but had the misfortune to finish behind two similarly undefeated teams, Ohio State and UCLA. Oklahoma finally secured national championships in 1955 and '56 before its streak was ended by Notre Dame on Nov. 16, 1957.

Stripped-down football 'Royal-ty'

Believe it or not, it's been 35 years since the University of Texas, or any team from the football-crazed Lone Star State, finished as the nation's top-ranked team in any poll. The coach of the 1970 Longhorns was Darrell Royal, a man venerated by the UT faithful. Most people will think of him as the imperial sideline mastermind, but my own personal memory is far less lofty.

As a young sportswriter, I once had an opportunity to interview Royal in a Boston hotel room before Texas played Boston College. To my surprise, Royal did the interview in an undershirt and boxer shorts.

Speed-read through a bowl wrap

Because New Year's Day fell on Sunday this year, when no college bowls were played, every game played up through Dec. 31 fell into what can be called the Lesser Bowl Season. These were games that didn't have some Top 10 national ranking riding on them, but they were notable in various ways and, in some cases, produced some amazing moments. Here's a quickie inventory:

New Orleans Bowl: In a triumph for the storm-ravaged Gulf Coast, the University of Southern Mississippi prevailed in a game relocated to Lafayette, La. Southern Mississippi 31, Arkansas Sate 19.

GMAC Bowl (in Mobile, Ala.): The University of Texas-El Paso ended its season with a defeat for the 19th consecutive year. Toledo, 45, UTEP 13.

Las Vegas Bowl: Brigham Young University had the best-named coach on any bowl sideline, Bronco Mendenhall, but California had the best rusher in Marshawn Lynch, who nearly ran for a career high, with 195 yards and three TDs  in this Western showdown. California 35, BYU 28.

Poinsettia Bowl (in San Diego): Navy, the No. 1 rushing team in the nation, got a career night from Reggie Campbell, who not only ran for 116 yards, but scored five touchdowns (three rushing, two receiving) and gained 290 all-purpose yards, 85 on kickoff returns. Navy 50, Colorado State 30.

Fort Worth Bowl: Although not many teams manage to save their best for last, Kansas did, scoring a season-high. Kansas 42, Houston 13.

Hawaii Bowl: Any team that draws a bowl assignment in Honolulu is a winner, especially one that went 0-11 its previous season. Still, Central Florida's overtime loss to Nevada was pretty hard to swallow since a missed extra point was decisive. The bitter irony is that UCF placekicker Matt Prater had made field goals of 47, 40, and 46 yards and converted all three extra points in regulation. Nevada 49, Central Florida 48.

Motor City Bowl (in Detroit): Memphis owned practically a 300-yard rushing edge in this game, Akron nearly a 300-yard passing edge. The overall stats, just like the final score, were close. Memphis 38, Akron 31.

Champs Sports Bowl (in Orlando, Fla.): Colorado lost its fourth straight game, but at least respectably after the embarrassments of recent weeks, when they were outscored 100-to-6 in games against Nebraska and Texas. Clemson 19, Colorado 10.

Insight Bowl (in Phoenix): Maybe to help Southwesterners make the geographic connection between Rutgers and New Jersey, Insight Bowl organizers had actor James Gandolfini, who plays a New Jersey mobster in HBO's hit series "The Sopranos," handle the midfield coin-toss honors. Gandolfini, a Rutgers alum, won the flip. His tough-guy aura, however, didn't intimidate the Sun Devils, whose coin-flip rep was comedian Jimmy Kimmel, who attended but didn't graduate from ASU. Arizona State 45, Rutgers 40.

MPC Computers Bowl (in Boise, Idaho): When was the last time you saw sleet and hail at a bowl game? Boise had it as well as some steamed Boston College players, who didn't appreciate the pre-bowl banquet that felt a little too much like a Boise State pep rally. BC took a 27-0 lead, then held on for dear life to run it's nation-leading bowl winning streak to six games. The loss was Boise State's first at home in 31 games and closed out Coach Ben Hawkins's tenure as the Broncos coach. Next season he'll be at Colorado. Boston College 27, Boise State 21.

Alamo Bowl (in San Antonio): Funkiest finish of any bowl game ever, with Michigan attempting desperately to keep the last play alive with eight laterals. It was shades of Cal's famous game-winning kickoff return through the Stanford band, but without the same results. Nebraska 32, Michigan 28.

Emerald Bowl (in San Francisco): Despite losing its All-American quarterback and coach from last year's 12-0 team, Utah showed it was no flash in the pan.  Utah 38, Georgia Tech 10.

Holiday Bowl (in San Diego): Oklahoma's star running back Adrian Peterson split open his forehead celebrating a big play on the sideline, got stitched up, then ran better than ever. Oklahoma 17, Oregon 14.

Music City Bowl (in Nashville): Minnesota running back Laurence Maroney wasted no time telling a TV interviewer on the field after the game that he will forego his senior season to enter April's NFL draft. Virginia 34, Minnesota 31.

Sun Bowl (in El Paso, Texas): This game will forever be remembered for one thing: a pair of onside kick returns for touchdowns by UCLA's Brandon Breazell. Lesson to defenders, don't overrun the coverage. Oh, yes, UCLA fell behind 22-0 before making its greatest comeback in school history. UCLA 50, Northwestern 38.

Independence Bowl (in Shreveport, La.): This loss is going to rankle Steve Spurrier all offseason since his Gamecocks were up by 21 points before Missouri quarterback Brad Smith showed why he was once a Heisman Trophy candidate. He accounted for 432 or Mizzou's 504 yards. Missouri 38, South Carolina 31.

Peach Bowl (in Atlanta): Seldom do you see a team lie down as completely as Miami did. With one of the nation's best defenses, the Hurricanes might have shut down an opponent that was forced to go with its backup quarterback. Instead, LSU's Matt Flynn wound up the game's MVP. Sadly, LSU attempted a rub-it-in fake field goal and fake punt when way ahead, which may have triggered the after-game brawl. LSU 40, Miami 3.

Meineke Car Care Bowl (in Charlotte, N.C.): South Florida may have failed to score, (the only bowl team to do so), but North Carolina State deserved a zero for trying to douse Coach Chuck Amato with a Gatorade bucket and missing. The Wolfpack, however, got it right on a second try. North Carolina State 14, South Florida 0.

Liberty Bowl (in Memphis): Fresno State, which gave two-time defending national champion Southern Cal one of its toughest games during the regular season, continued its slide, with its fourth-straight loss. (Footnote: the Liberty Bowl had the best-looking natural grass field of any bowl.). Tulsa 31, Fresno State 24.

Houston Bowl: Texas Christian extended its winning streak to 10 games, third only to Southern Cal (34) and Texas (19), which means after the Rose Bowl (when one of those will invariably lose) the Horned Frogs will own the second-longest streak. TCU 27, Iowa State 24.