He Just Wasn’t Ready to Hang It Up

Coach Sam Wyche of the Cincinnati Bengals can make it to the top of the National Football League ladder today in the Super Bowl, and if he does, Wyche can thank Alexander Graham Bell for inventing the telephone.

Wyche was a graduate assistant at South Carolina in 1968 when a Gamecock assistant coach made a telephone call that got Wyche a tryout with the Cincinnati Bengals.

Although he was anything but a great player, Wyche’s knowledge of the game allowed him to stick around for a 9-year NFL career with 5 teams.

Once retired, Wyche opened a sporting goods store. Even though his business was successful, Wyche missed football. In 1979, he decided to coach but was turned down for a high school job because he didn’t have a teaching credential.

Then he got a telephone call from his quarterback coach with the Bengals, who now was a head coach in the NFL. He wanted Wyche on his staff.

The first call was made by Lou Holtz, the second by Bill Walsh.

Add Wyche: He obviously is an intelligent man, but reporters covering the Super Bowl have more than worn out that angle. Wyche had a little fun with them when he said: “You are what you think, you are what you eat, you are what you are. I’m asparagus, basically.�

Prison officials at Idaho State Penitentiary in Boise are trying their best to defuse a tense situation among the inmate population.

The prisoners are angry, but not because of bad food or abuse from the guards.

The prison’s underground television cable went out a few days ago, and workers may not be able to fix it in time for today’s Super Bowl.

The inmates offered to pay for the repairs and to dig trenches to reach the cable. But George Miller, acting deputy warden for programs, refused both offers.

Said an inmate, “This is definitely fueling our animosity.�

Rookie Andrew Lang of the Phoenix Suns and his wife, Bronwyn, who met while both played basketball at the University of Arkansas, are expecting their first child next spring. Bronwyn Lang had a better shooting percentage in college than her husband, a 6-11 center.

Said Sun Coach Cotton Fitzsimmons: “I’d like to have the draft rights to that baby.�

Alternate game plan: John Kordic of the Toronto Maple Leafs expressed his regret, sort of, for using his stick to break the nose of Keith Acton of the Edmonton Oilers, which got Kordic a 10-game suspension.

Said Kordic: “I regret breaking his nose with my stick, but I don’t regret breaking it. I should have just dropped my gloves and beat him up. I would have (been penalized), but I would not have been suspended. If something like that happens again, that’s what I will do. I won’t use my stick, I will just use my hands.�

From Speedy Morris, LaSalle basketball coach: “When I first got the job at LaSalle, the phone rang and my wife told me it was Sports Illustrated. I cut myself shaving and fell down the steps in my rush to get to the phone. And when I got there, a voice on the other end said, ‘For just 75 cents an issue . . . “

Quotebook

Coach Jerry Reynolds of the Sacramento Kings, whose 11 victories include wins over the Lakers, New York Knicks and Houston Rockets, when each was a division leader: “Now we’ve beaten three of the division leaders. Cleveland’s on our list, and I know they’re scared to death.�