Their Alternative Plan Includes Pi in the Face

After Georgia Tech had clinched the Atlantic Coast Conference football title with a victory over Wake Forest, Atlanta Journal columnist Terence Moore razzed the Yellow Jackets.

Moore chided them as poor representatives of such a prestigious academic institution. Why, he wondered, couldn’t they come up with a game-ending celebration more imaginative than “this Gatorade thing?”

But Tech offensive lineman Joe Siffri argued: “This wasn’t just any old dumping of the Gatorade on the coach’s head. We’ve got several engineering majors on the team, so we did some calculations before we proceeded. We figured out the exact velocity of the wind, for instance. We were able to douse our coaches at the appropriate angle to provide the maximum amount of coldness for our victims.”

Trivia time: Who was the first junior to win the Heisman Trophy?

Talk about defense: For 50 years, Norah and Muriel Mason have lived in a two-bedroom house adjacent to the 40,000-seat stadium that is home to the Liverpool soccer team, which has won 18 league titles and has four victories in the European Champions Cup.

In the 12 years since the team bought the street adjoining the stadium in hopes of expanding the facility, the women have turned down 15 offers of alternative housing.

During that period, the team has demolished the street, and the Mason sisters’ house now sits in the middle of the stadium parking lot.

Finally, the team took the matter to Liverpool County Court. Wednesday, the sisters agreed to move out by the end of February.

No ordinary yawner: All the NFL’s British friends will be taking naps Monday so they can stay awake when Tuesday Morning Football presents the New York Giants and the San Francisco 49ers at 2 a.m.

It will be “Monday Night Football’s” debut in England, and Channel 4 spokesman Steve Pinder said: “The genuine fans are going to stay up for it.”

Pinder said he thought some fans would watch the beginning and tape the rest, but he was enthusiastic about the pre-showdown mood: “It will be like Liverpool-Arsenal in the English Soccer League. I think that’s the feeling people have for this game.”

Spicy Fry: Coach Hayden Fry of Rose Bowl-bound Iowa has a lot to be proud of this season, but he was absolutely gloating recently over his big victory against Sports Illustrated.

SI’s Douglas S. Looney, preparing for Iowa’s game against Illinois, planned a trip to Iowa City. Fry told Jim Ecker of the Cedar Rapids Gazette:

“I had the thrill of telling Sports Illustrated, ‘Don’t come in, because you’re not going to get any interviews.’ I’ve been waiting a long time to do that.”

Trivia answer: Halfback Doc Blanchard of Army, in 1945.

Quotebook: George Allen, Cal State Long Beach football coach, writing in Sports Illustrated that players hadn’t changed since he began coaching in 1948: “About the only difference I noticed was that when I read my Long Beach players part of a speech by Theodore Roosevelt, most of them didn’t know who Roosevelt was. So later, when I referred to Churchill, I said, ‘Winston Churchill, who was the prime minister of Great Britain. . . . ‘ “