A Monday Morning Prescription

According to Vito Stellino of the Baltimore Sun, when Chicago Bears Coach Mike Ditka was admitted to Lake Forest (Ill.) Hospital, the conversation between him and the cardiologist, Dr. Jay Alexander, went like this:

Ditka: “Hey, doc, who’s going to tell me about my restrictions and what I can’t do?”

Alexander: “I will.”

Ditka: “Oh, yeah?”

Alexander: “My specialty is hearts. Yours is football. I would never second-guess what you do on the football field.”

Ditka: “Yeah, but I bet you have.”

Alexander: “Well, a couple of times. . . . “

Add Ditka: The first two players to visit him? They were William Perry and Jim McMahon, two of the players he has had the most problems with over the years.

From Tony Kornheiser of the Washington Post, revealing that Donny Lalonde has had his right fist restructured and has had two operations on his shoulder, one to insert a pin, the other to insert a staple: “Is he a boxer or a set of instructions for putting up curtains?”

Add Kornheiser: Noting that Sugar Ray Leonard will be going for a fifth title tonight after Tommy Hearns won a fifth Friday night, he said: “Not long ago--when boxing had weight classes that stretched beyond 2 pounds, and weren’t subdivided by any group of jerks who could stick a spoon into a bowl of alphabet soup and come up with a few letters--holding three championships was an astounding accomplishment. Now you automatically get at least two for stopping at ringside to chat with Ferdie Pacheco.”

Trivia Time: In the movie “Brian’s Song,” who played the part of former Bear running back Brian Piccolo? (Answer below.)

Houston Oilers Coach Jerry Glanville told USA Today that he and Washington Redskins assistant coach Joe Bugel roomed together when they were assistant coaches at Western Kentucky in 1967.

“We used to live in a log cabin,” Glanville said. “No heat, no anything. We flipped a coin. He got the bed, I slept on the newspapers. Every Sunday he used to roll me over so he could read the funnies on the back.

“The things we do today we used to draw up on pizza boxes. We used to order pizza because that was all we ate. We used to draw our offenses and defenses on the boxes.”

Trivia Answer: James Caan.

Quotebook

Spud Webb of the Atlanta Hawks, asked when to expect his ghostwritten autobiography, which is due out this season: “I don’t know. It might be out already. I haven’t read it yet.”