She Has Changed Her Ways -- She Swears

Amy Trask, a USC law school graduate, the chief executive of the Oakland Raiders and the highest-ranking female executive in the NFL, said it took a while, but she finally began to recognize she had a problem.

“I quit cold turkey in February 2003,” she said.

Her habit: foul language.

“I could swear with the best of them,” she said.

So has she been able to quit?

“It’s not always easy,” she said.

Big man, big assist: Trask, in Los Angeles to participate in this week’s “NFL 101 and 201” football seminar put on by the L.A. Sports and Entertainment Commission, said 335-pound former offensive lineman Lincoln Kennedy, now an studio analyst with the NFL Network, played a key role in getting her to stop using foul language.

“At one point Lincoln told me he was going to go up in the stands, find my parents and tell them some of the words I was using,” she said.

Trivia time: What was Kennedy’s nickname, dating to his playing days at the University of Washington?

Good points: Tom Arnold, the first “NFL 101 and 201” speaker, said his wife has told him football is like life.

“But it’s better than life,” Arnold said, “because in football there are rules and boundaries and cheerleaders.”

Competitive hit: Arnold, who works for Fox Sports Net, in introducing “NFL 101 and 201” speaker Andrea Kremer of ESPN, said, “Is ESPN still on the air?”

A missing perk: Former quarterback Warren Moon showed up a bit late for the “NFL 101 and 201” session and apparently wasn’t aware that this year the classes, originally designed for women, had also been opened to men seeking to learn more about football.

There were mostly men in Moon’s class.

“Where are the women?” he said. “When you’re working for free, you want the fringe benefits.”

Who’s hot: For a one-year period ending March 31, the Raiders sold more licensed merchandise than any other team. It was the third consecutive year that the Raiders held that honor. The Super Bowl champion New England Patriots moved up from ninth to No. 2.

Terrell Owens had the hottest-selling jersey, followed by Michael Vick, Chad Johnson and Donovan McNabb.

Ricky Williams’ jersey was the No. 8 seller.

Looking back: On this day in 1921, Pittsburgh radio station KDKA and announcer Harold Arlin provided the first broadcast of a major league baseball game, in which the Pirates defeated the Philadelphia Phillies, 8-5.

Trivia answer: The Oval Office.

And finally: Channel 9’s Alan Massengale, suggesting the Dodgers’ recent trading binge may have been a way to avoid arbitration hearings and spending millions of dollars: “A penny saved is a Brad Penny in the rotation.”

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