Tanner Can Still Serve It Up There With Best of Them

A recent innovation in tennis is the use of radar guns at tournaments to measure the speed of serves. And when the speed of a player’s serve is measured, the name Roscoe Tanner invariably comes up.

Tanner, who turns 40 next week and is now the director of tennis for the Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, ranks as the leader in the fast-serve category, having been clocked at 153 m.p.h. during a tournament in Palm Springs in the late 1970s.

Among the big servers of the game today, Pete Sampras and Boris Becker are consistently clocked in the high 120s. The fastest serve recorded on the tour this year was in the mid-130s, by Marc Rosset of Switzerland.

So how would Tanner rank now, at his age?

“I was in Palm Springs a few weeks ago,” he said recently during a media tennis day at Sherwood. “Somebody was wondering the same thing. So they put a gun on me, and I hit one 134 (m.p.h.).”

Unfortunately for the other players in his age group, Tanner plans to play regularly on the senior tour next season.

Trivia time: Two schools are almost equal as the winningest programs in Division I women’s college basketball since 1982. Name them.

Experienced bunglers: Chris Mortensen of The Sporting News offers good news and bad news concerning the future of the Indianapolis Colts, who have dumped Coach Ron Meyer this season.

The good: The Colts have two picks in the first round of the 1992 draft--theirs and Tampa Bay’s--and, considering the two teams have one victory between them, both picks should be in the top five.

The good: The Colts have two picks in the first round of the 1992 draft--theirs and Tampa Bay’s--and, considering the two teams currently have one victory between them, both picks should be in the top five.

The bad: After the Colts finished 2-14 and fired Coach Mike McCormack in 1981, they owned two of the first four picks in the draft. With those picks, the Colts drafted quarterback Art Schlichter and linebacker Johnnie Cooks.

Mikan redux: A recent Morning Briefing trivia answer said that former NBA star George Mikan of DePaul started his professional career in 1946-47 with the Chicago Stags, who competed in the Basketball Assn. of America. Reader Paul Lightfoot of Claremont correctly points out that Mikan actually signed with the Chicago American Gears of the National Basketball League.

The Gears, who won the NBL title with Mikan, then joined the Professional Basketball League of America the next season. That gave professional basketball three leagues--the BAA, NBL and PBLA--in an assortment of Eastern and Midwestern towns such as Fort Wayne, Ind.; Oshkosh and Sheboygan, Wis.; Rochester and Syracuse, N.Y., and Toledo, Ohio. When the 24-team PBLA collapsed after about two weeks, the best players were put into a special NBL draft. Mikan was selected by a new franchise, the Minneapolis Lakers.

With the 6-foot-10 Mikan at center, the Lakers won the NBL championship in their first season.

Whistle while you work: Because of budgetary problems, no bands were present when University High and San Pedro High met for a season-opening football game at Daniels Field in San Pedro. Nonetheless, the game did begin with a version of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Longtime stadium announcer Bill (Tiger) Reese whistled along with a record over the press box public address system.

Trivia answer: Texas and Louisiana Tech. The Lady Longhorns are 297-37 (.88922), the Lady Techsters 296-37 (.88889).

Quotebook: Isiah Thomas, on his image: “There’s always been the sense of, ‘There’s something about this guy. I don’t like him. I don’t trust him.’ There’s always been the sense that I’m up to something, but if I was up to something, wouldn’t I be through with it by now?”