Now He Can Dance the Super Bowl Duffle

Rich Marotta had given up hope of ever again seeing one of his most prized possessions -- a 1984 Super Bowl ring given to him by the Los Angeles Raiders when he was the team’s radio commentator.

The ring was stolen in 1997 from his hotel room while he was in Baltimore to call a fight for Fox Sports Net. But last week he got it back, thanks to a good Samaritan -- Tony Ash of Laurel, Md., who found it, caked in mud, at the bottom of a duffle bag.

Ash, who lives in a trailer park, was given the duffle bag by a neighbor whose husband had been jailed after a drug bust.

After cleaning the ring, Ash was offered $8,000 for it. But instead of selling it, he searched the Internet for Marotta, whose name is engraved on the side, and contacted him through KFI, where he works.

“I offered a reward, but it was for a lot less than $8,000,” Marotta said. “The only problem is, when I got the ring, it wouldn’t fit on my finger. I guess I’ve put on a few pounds.”

Trivia time: Minnesota Viking Coach Mike Tice’s coach at Central Islip High on Long Island was later a Viking defensive coordinator who also had a brief stint as football coach at Notre Dame. Who is he?

Mind control: Manchester United goalkeeper Tim Howard, featured on CBS’ “60 Minutes” tonight, talks about how he can excel at soccer even though he suffers from Tourette’s syndrome.

Howard says he controls the condition through willpower.

“If you told me to sit in a room and you had a million dollars stacked right there and said, ‘Don’t move, don’t twitch, don’t do anything,’ ” Howard tells Steve Kroft, “without a doubt, the million dollars would be mine.”

Reminded that if the Tourette’s ever gets the better of him at the wrong time, a twitch could cost his team a game, Howard said, “I’ll just say something was in my eye.”

Survey says: “A Gallup Poll indicates half the nation’s sports fans don’t care if the NHL doesn’t play again,” noted Jerry Greene of the Orlando Sentinel, “and the other half said, ‘What? It hasn’t started yet?’ ”

Not impressed: South African golfer Retief Goosen prefers rugby, cricket and soccer to baseball, football and basketball.

According to Associated Press, he has been to only one baseball game.

“Forty-five minutes,” he said. “Nothing happened. I went home.”

Trash talk: Indianapolis Colt kicker Mike Vanderjagt said last week that the New England Patriots would be “ripe for the taking” today, prompting Patriot safety Rodney Harrison to call him “Vanderjerk.”

Trivia answer: George O’Leary, who was the Notre Dame coach for five days in December 2001 before resigning because of allegations he lied on his resume. O’Leary is now the coach at Central Florida.

And finally: Tice, quoted in the St. Paul Pioneer-Press, said about his team’s us-against-the-world mentality: “We’ve put a big barbed-wire fence around the bandwagon, and we’re not letting anyone on it.”

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