Like Clippers, Another Team Needs a Coach

Women’s professional basketball was followed quickly by women’s boxing.

Next up? Women’s football.

The Women’s Professional Football League has 15 teams and is scheduled to open its season Oct. 14. A 10-week schedule is to be followed by playoffs and a championship game Feb. 3, 2001.

One of the teams is the Colorado Valkyries, a club still without a stadium, coach or starting date for training camp.

But the Valkyries will play in the Central Division of the American Football Conference with the Chicago Blaze, Minnesota Vixens and the Milwaukee Minx.

Other teams in the league are the Atlanta Amazons, Austin Rose, Dallas Wildcatz, Daytona Beach Barracudas, Houston Energy, Miami Fury, Nashville Dream, New England Storm, New York Sharks, Rochester Galaxy and Tampa Tempest.

What, still no pro football in Los Angeles?

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Trivia time: Who holds the record for consecutive Wimbledon singles championships?

Carrying a big stick: Those who prey on senior golfers for $2 Nassaus may want to avoid Terry Dill. At 61, Dill leads the Senior PGA Tour off the tee, averaging 284.3 yards in driving distance on measured holes.

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A leap of faith: When the Boston Celtics made UCLA forward Jerome Moiso the 11th overall pick in the NBA draft, the feeling was that Moiso was more of a project than an immediate star. But Celtic Coach Rick Pitino sounds as if he has higher expectations.

“I’m not certain how much of an impact he can make this season, but I do know he can already do things athletically that nobody on our team can do,” Pitino said.

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Looking back: On this day in 1998, Mark McGwire hit his 37th home run in the St. Louis Cardinal’s 81st game, the halfway point of the season. The blow came off Kansas City left-hander Glendon Rusch. McGwire went on to hit a major league-record 70 home runs.

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Keeps his motor running: Before becoming interim president and chief executive of CART, Bobby Rahal was a known critic of former president Andrew Craig, who resigned. Now Rahal is gaining a better understanding of the job’s demands.

“Now I have a more precise idea of the amount of work a CEO has to do . . . promoter issues, team issues, sporting issues, commercial issues,” Rahal said. “I knew it was out there before I came on board, but I just didn’t know the full volume of it.”

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Tired of story: Drew Henson couldn’t be happier that Juan Gonzalez will not be wearing Yankee pinstripes.

Henson, 20, a highly touted minor league third baseman who also plays quarterback for Michigan, was to have been one of three players sent by the Yankees to the Detroit Tigers in a tentative trade for Gonzalez.

“It’s one thing if it’s news one day, but for it to be the same story without hearing anything new for four or five days, it gets to be pretty bad,” he said.

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Trivia answer: Martina Navratilova and William Renshaw with six each. Navratilova won six consecutive women’s championships from 1982-87. Renshaw won from 1881-86.

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And finally: Paola Boivin in the Arizona Republic, on Orel Hershiser’s being waived by the Dodgers:

“I never forgot the awkwardness I felt early in my career, walking into the Los Angeles Dodgers clubhouse. ‘Hold your head up and look like you own the place,’ Orel Hershiser said. ‘You deserve to be here.’

“That’s how I’ll remember Hershiser.”