This Might Have Livened Up Sydney Games

From the Web site Oddities and Wonders on AOL:

* Contrary to popular belief, the original Olympians did wear clothing. Then, one runner’s loincloth fell off during a race in 720 BC.

He kept right on going, and won the race handily. Like athletes of any era, the losers copied the techniques of the winners and subsequent competitions were held without clothes.

* The first yo-yos were used as weapons in the Philippines. They had a weight of four pounds, and the strings were 20 feet long. The first two yo-yos appeared in America in 1929.

* Miniature golf was originally called Tom Thumb golf.

*

Trivia time: Which is the only Rose Bowl game that ended in a scoreless tie?

*

Too complicated: Sally Jenkins in the Washington Post on college football:

“Math is for sissies. It’s time to take college football back from the abacus crowd and put it where it belongs--in the hands of weepy alumni, beery students and fiercely loyal Jaycees. That means getting rid of the BCS rankings, a system that I would explain, except that I can’t; nobody can, except for maybe some guy buried in the library stacks at Caltech who owns a cat named Archimedes and thinks that when it comes to color and pageantry, color needs to be pixilated and pageantry needs defragmenting.”

*

Get with it: Reading a graphic describing the effects of the drug Ecstasy that accompanied a Ty Law story, Boston Globe columnist Will McDonough told his wife, “It’s supposed to make you more exciting and give you grandiose ideas.”

To which his wife replied, “Why don’t you try some?”

*

Understatement: Northwestern quarterback Zak Kustok, after his team was routed by Nebraska, 66-17, Saturday night in the Alamo Bowl: “Right now, today, we’re not where we want to be.”

*

Kindergarten next? From the Vent column of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “If the policy for holding kids back in elementary school is put into effect, a lot of guys will be entering the NBA from the third grade.”

*

And this: “These athletes who retire because they want to spend more time with their children will wonder about that decision after the first month at home.”

*

What, no stables? Anna Kournikova, who used to live in a two-room Moscow apartment, spent Christmas showing friends her new $5.2-million Miami Beach house: seven bedrooms, seven baths, a five-room guest house and yacht moorings.

*

Elite company: Robby Portalatin, a left-hander, rolled a perfect 900 series Thursday in Jackson, Mich. He is only the fourth bowler to accomplish this feat, according to the American Bowling Congress. The others:

Jeremy Sonnenfeld, 1997, in Lincoln, Neb.; Tony Roventini, 1998, in Milwaukee, and Vince Wood, 1999, in Moreno Valley.

*

Stalled: Tampa Bay running back Warrick Dunn, on the intensity level of the playoffs: “You can see it in the eyes of the players all over the field. People say the NFL is 100 miles per hour. Well, the playoffs are 200 miles per hour.”

Obviously, the Buccaneers weren’t up to speed, losing to the Philadelphia Eagles, 21-3, on Sunday.

*

Words of wisdom: Former Stanford and Dallas Cowboy offensive lineman Blaine Nye’s philosophy on the game: “It’s not whether you win or lose, but who gets the blame.”

*

Looking back: On this day in 1933, USC defeated Pittsburgh, 35-0, in the Rose Bowl game. The undefeated Trojans won the national championship in 1932, giving up only 13 points in 10 games.

*

Trivia answer: California and Washington & Jefferson in 1922.

*

And finally: A post-election observation from Bud Geracie of the San Jose Mercury News: “As a Nebraska congressman, Tom Osborne promises to be tougher on crime than he was as a Nebraska football coach.”