Notes on a Scorecard - Feb. 14, 1994

Not enough attention was given to the death of Bud Wilkinson. . . .

He might have been the greatest college football coach ever. . . .

His Oklahoma teams put together winning streaks of 47 and 31 games, won three national and 14 conference championships in 17 years, and had a record of 144-29-4. . . .

He won for all the right reasons. . . .

He did it without a hint of scandal, treated everyone with dignity, and took pride in his players’ high graduation rate. . . .

“I’m broken up,” Larry Merchant said last week after receiving the news that Wilkinson had died of a heart attack at 77. . . .

Merchant, an HBO boxing analyst and former sports editor and columnist, was a walk-on halfback from Brooklyn, N.Y., who practiced with the Sooners’ first national championship team in 1950 and was promised playing time a couple of days before he broke his shoulder. . . .

“Wilkinson was a great organizer who set high standards and projected the image and reality of someone you wanted to follow into battle,” Merchant said. “He was important beyond football. The image of Oklahoma was that of ‘Grapes of Wrath.’ He came down from Minnesota and restored confidence in an entire state.”. . .

Wilkinson had a master’s degree in English. . . .

“What other coach would see you reading ‘Moby Dick’ on the train on the way home from the Sugar Bowl and sit down and discuss the meaning of it with you?” Merchant said. . . .

Wilkinson recruited mostly in Oklahoma and Texas and believed in speed when others went for size and bulk. In those days, players who had all three were rare. . . .

He wasn’t adverse to a trick play or two, but he kept his offense simple. Operating out of the split-T formation, his 1955 national championship team rushed 664 times and passed only 95. . . .

“I attended a reunion of one of his teams a couple of years ago and found that every single player graduated in four years,” Merchant said. “He cared deeply about you on and off the field. I was a 155-pound walk-on who never played a down, but he always introduced me as one of his former players.” . . .

*

How refreshing to see a skier, Tommy Moe, become the United States’ biggest headline maker at the Winter Olympic Games. . . .

I had to wait 12 hours after hearing the news of Moe’s victory in the downhill to see it on CBS. I understand why the network wanted to save one of the Games’ glamour events for prime time, but a Tonya Harding news conference would have been treated with far more urgency. . . .

Look-alikes: Greg Gumbel and Washington State basketball Coach Kelvin Sampson. . . .

Tony Granato had an excuse, but how come the rest of Kings didn’t show up Saturday at the Forum for the game against the Washington Capitals? . . .

The Mighty Ducks are 0-8 against California teams. . . .

UCLA won ugly over Washington and Washington State, which was an improvement over losing ugly to Notre Dame. . . .

USC freshman center Avondre Jones sure picked a lousy time to get suspended for violating a team rule Friday. With Lorenzo Orr in early foul trouble, Jones probably would have logged a lot of time against Washington Saturday and might have been the difference in what was a one-point Trojan loss. . . .

You know it’s a wide-open year when No. 1-ranked North Carolina blows a 15-point lead at home to Georgia Tech. . . .

Don’t look for the Sensations to repeat their victory over the Phenoms in the NBA rookies game next year. . . .

It is mind-boggling to hear Bobby Hurley say that, after his near-fatal auto accident, he still needs to be reminded to fasten his seat belt. . . .

Humberto (Chiquita) Gonzalez, who needed some steam to reduce to the junior-flyweight limit of 108 pounds the first time he fought Michael Carbajal, is down to 109 five days before the rematch at the Forum. . . .

The move to “quick official” was a good one for Santa Anita. Now, if the track can just start every race at post time. . . .

Best wishes for a speedy recovery from open-heart surgery to San Francisco Giant scout George Genovese, one of the best in the business. . . .

If Chicago White Sox General Manager Ron Schueler drafted his daughter, why wouldn’t he give Michael Jordan a tryout? . . .

Flash: A Forum team soon will announce a coaching change--the Blades of Roller Hockey International.