These Games Might Be Decaffeinated

Writing on the controversy over how much (if any) beer sales the Mormon Church will allow at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, Alan Friedman of the SportsBusiness Journal cites another beverage issue:

“The Mormon Church may have bigger beverage worries on its hands.

“The frosty temps won’t do much for beer vendors, but they’ll certainly push sales of another drink also prohibited by the church: coffee.”

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Trivia time: Who played and who won in the first football game at the Coliseum?

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For what it’s worth: The Lakers lead the NBA in hits on its Web site by a wide margin. The Lakers have an 18.2% rating for all those calling up an NBA Web site. The Chicago Bulls are second at 8.8%.

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Sizing them up: Ring Magazine ranks Pomona’s Shane Mosley No. 1 in its pound-for-pound rankings. Roy Jones is No. 2, Oscar De La Hoya No. 3.

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Add boxing: Ring Magazine’s top 20 all-time middleweights list is headed by 1920s champion Harry Greb.

Writes William Dettloff of Greb: “He trained on whiskey and whores, in that order. He didn’t have Sugar Ray Robinson’s skill or Stanley Ketchel’s power or Carlos Monzon’s cool. But he got more business done at middleweight than any of them.”

Dettloff ranks Robinson No. 2, Monzon No. 3.

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Believe it or not: Think there are too many sports in the Olympics?

U.S. Olympic Committee spokesman Darryl Seibel recently told NFL Insider writer Bob Woods, “We hear conversations about a number of sports looking to make their way onto the Olympic program. Among them: Golf, Frisbee and marbles.”

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That wascally wabbit: SportsBusiness Journal writer Steve Cameron, waxing nostalgic over London’s soon-to-be demolished Wembley Stadium:

“Of all the sports that have been contested in Wembley’s 77 years, perhaps the most intriguing was greyhound racing, in part because the dogs once drew huge crowds.

“A crowd of 50,000 was present one night in 1927. In those days, real rabbits were used instead of mechanical ones. In the third race that night, one of the dogs actually caught the rabbit. No blood was shed, as the rabbit escaped and actually fled the stadium.”

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Too troublesome: In Pro Football Weekly’s poll of “NFL Insiders” as to who most deserves a shot at coaching in the NFL, Stanford’s Tyrone Willingham was ranked first, followed by LSU’s Nick Saban and Mississippi State’s Jackie Sherrill.

One unnamed “insider” is quoted as saying of Sherrill: “If he were not so hard to get along with, I would hire him.”

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Trivia answer: On Oct. 6, 1923, USC’s freshman team defeated Santa Ana High, 30-0. Then, in the second game of a doubleheader, USC’s varsity defeated Pomona College, 23-7.

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And finally: Clipper Coach Alvin Gentry, on his youthful team, which includes a 19-year-old and four 20-year-olds:

“We’d be the second-youngest team in the Big Ten.”