Pringle’s Next Record Should Come After Coaches View Film

Give Cal State Fullerton’s coaching staff enough time and they will find a rushing record for Mike Pringle.

Correction of a five-yard error by a Titan statistician last week resulted in Pringle tying the NCAA Division I rushing record of 357 yards. That record was broken Saturday by Indiana’s Anthony Thompson, who rushed for 377 yards against Wisconsin.

Now Fullerton coaches have found a record everyone missed: most yards gained, two consecutive games.

Pringle set the record Saturday by rushing for 269 yards against Cal State Long Beach. Combined with his 357 yards against New Mexico State, he had 626 in two games--breaking by one yard the record set last season by Oklahoma State’s Barry Sanders, the Heisman Trophy winner.

Said Pringle: “They keep coming up with records I don’t know about. I just wait till Monday now to find out what I did Saturday.”

Failures in relief: Soccer officials in Zimbabwe banned four members of the army’s first division Tongogara side for life after they urinated in front of several thousand spectators at a stadium in eastern Zimbabwe Sunday.

Nelson Chirwa of the Zimbabwe Football Assn. said the players were practicing tribal witchcraft in an attempt to change their side’s fortunes. It was losing, 1-0.

“I would like to advise all football teams that next time they should go to a better witch doctor,” Chirwa said.

The Tongogara players probably agree. Their spell failed, 2-0.

Trivia time: What jockey won the first three runnings of the Hollywood Gold Cup?

Marching on their stomachs: San Francisco running back Roger Craig was on the bench in the fourth quarter of the 49ers’ 45-3 victory over the Atlanta Falcons after having rushed for nearly 100 yards. The 49er offensive linemen asked Coach George Seifert to put Craig back in the game; Craig has a deal with his linemen that if he gains more than 100 yards, he will buy them dinner. Craig finished with 109 yards.

Trivia answer: George Woolf, aboard Seabiscuit in 1938, Kayak II in 1939 and Challedon in 1940.

Rematch is off: Steve McCarthy has withdrawn from his rematch with Steve Wilson scheduled for tonight in Reading, England. McCarthy, who has the flu, was to have fought Tony Wilson in a rematch of their light-heavyweight fight in September that was halted when Wilson’s mother, Minna, climbed into the ring and hit McCarthy with a high-heeled shoe.

Quotebook: Chicago Bears Coach Mike Ditka, on the crowd-inciting antics of Green Bay Packers linebacker Tim Harris: “Sometimes, God gives you physical talent and takes away the brain.”