A Question That Bugs Him Even to This Day

Don Hewitt, the Los Angeles Rams’ equipment manager for 28 years, attended a memorial for his longtime volunteer assistant, Heckle Lynn, at DeLacey’s Club 41 in Pasadena last week. Lynn, 90, died April 8.

Hall of Famer Merlin Olsen also was at the memorial, which reminded Hewitt about the time a rookie running back from Miami asked him what kind of guy Olsen was.

Hewitt, declining to name the player, said, “I told the kid Merlin was a leader on the field and in the locker room, that he had gone to the Pro Bowl 14 times, and he was also Phi Beta Kappa.

“The kid said, ‘What’s Phi Beta Kappa?’ I told him it was a pest control company in Garden Grove.”

Trivia time: Olsen was an Outland Trophy winner from what school?

Namesakes: One aspect of Hewitt’s job with the Rams was to get players to autograph footballs that were given away to charities. Hewitt said there were about 1,000 team-autographed balls given away each year.

“I was always asking for autographs,” Hewitt said. “Only once did I ask for an autograph for myself.”

But that wasn’t from a player. He asked Bob Stenner and Sandy Grossman, the former lead football producer and director, respectively, for CBS, to get him an autograph from a colleague. That colleague was the creator and executive producer of “60 Minutes,” another Don Hewitt.

Rocky start: Danielle Amiee, 29, of Newport Beach, a former Long Beach State golfer, is one of two finalists in the Golf Channel’s “The Big Break: Ladies Only.” The 11-week reality series culminates Tuesday night at 9 with Amiee squaring off against Pamela Crikelair of Highland Beach, Fla., with the winner earning an LPGA Tour spot.

On the first day of taping, the 10 contestants were taken out on a course and, according to Amiee, someone said, “Up there by ‘the Rock’ is the series host.”

“I thought, ‘Wow, the Rock is the host.’ ”

She soon found out Vince Cellini, not wrestler and actor Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson, was the host.

No gift for gab: “Not that Mark McGwire has gotten overly sensitive or anything since his Capitol Hill grilling,” wrote Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times, “but when asked how his Christmas went, Big Mac reportedly replied, ‘I refuse to answer questions about the presents.’ ”

Looking back: On this day in 1950, Charles Cooper, a former Duquesne All-American with the Harlem Globetrotters, was drafted by the Boston Celtics, thus becoming the first black player in the NBA.

Trivia answer: Utah State. Olsen, who played for the Rams from 1962 to 1976, now lives in Park City, Utah.

And finally: Olsen always knew linemen approached football a little differently. He once said, “Football linemen are motivated by a more complicated, self-determining series of factors than the simple fear of humiliation in the public gaze, which is the emotion that galvanizes the backs and receivers.”

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Larry Stewart can be reached at larry.stewart@latimes.com.