Famous frivolity turns 29

ROGER CARLSON

Irrelevant Week turns 29 with Monday’s Arrival Party for the Oakland

Raiders’ last pick in the recent National Football League draft. And

one can only wonder what’s next?

Maybe everyone will arrive believing there is a “Summer Sale” at

the Newport Dunes Resort, which is in the shadows of nearby Fashion

Island, where Andre Sommersell will be unveiled as Mr. Irrelevant

XXIX.

Considering the history of Irrelevant Week, anything is a

possibility in a venue which celebrates the last pick of the NFL

draft and treats him as if he were royalty.

The first, the University of Dayton’s Kelvin Kirk, missed his

flight and did not arrive at LAX until noon, with the Arrival Party

stirring up to the 1 p.m. event.

How do you adjust?

Irrelevant Week founder Paul Salata found a butcher at Sir Roger’s

Meats in Newport Beach to take his place at the podium and no one had

any idea he wasn’t for real.

When Kirk finally showed up, Salata just calmly made the switch,

booted the butcher and left everyone wondering “What was the gag?”

The butcher had already been presented Kirk’s gold watch, but

Salata simply confiscated it and the show went on. Hey! That’s show

biz!

Last year was another example of the ability of Salata & Co. to

audibilize.

Out of the blue, the president, athletic director, coach and

sports information director of Gustavius Adolphus in Minnesota, with

a considerable religious reputation, decided to join the party with a

late appearance.

It was virtually a day before the big bash and Hoag was tuning up

for his part at the Carson Palmer Tribute with, well, some easy

goings at a local pub. Trust me on this, it wasn’t the right

combination for the school’s administrators.

Salata’s solution called for a replay of an earlier bay cruise. He

got UC Irvine Athletic Director Bob Chichester and some Newport Beach

VIPs to help out, and the incoming party was taken on a bay cruise

and, later, dinner at the Cannery.

It wasn’t until around 10 p.m. when the question arose, “Where’s

Ryan?,” which apparently drew a few shrugs. All went well the

following night at the big showdown with the exception of a couple of

Salata’s cronies from USC days who got carried away before an

audience which was, for the first time, not a stag affair.

At Irrelevant Week XXV, they invited all of the previous Mr.

Irrelevants back and 18 of the 25 accepted the Godfather’s

invitation.

The problem came with the banquet that night. Everyone got into

jet skiing and lost track of time. As a result, the banquet began

with a virtually empty head table. Basically, everyone was missing,

except Salata.

Another interesting moment came when one of the Irrelevants was

given the chance to motor around the bay in a boat with several

“cheerleaders” and, well, became distracted and crashed. The boat’s

owner, one of three, was nicked for $10,000 in repairs.

One of the Irrelevants came with an uninvited fiancee and sadly

left empty-handed when she proved herself equal to Leona Helmsley in

terms of temperament and aggressiveness.

One Mr. Irrelevant came from another world, I guess. “Mean,” is

the one-word description the Irrelevant Week group still uses for

him.

Mr. Irrelevant II, Jim Kelleher, had a back injury and traction

forced the Salata crew to scramble again. And did they ever! First

they went to the second-to-last man drafted, then they found out who

would have been last had Kelleher not been drafted. They wound up

with future Pro-Bowler Bill Kenney and USC product Randy Simmrin.

But, by the time the banquet arrived, so had Kelleher and they had

three Mr. Irrelevants to deal with. Kenney and Simmrin were forced to

sit while Kelleher played.

For a while, during the early going, they used to bring Mr.

Irrelevant in at the airport on a crop duster.

That’s not the only thing that hasn’t lasted.

A night of bar-hopping was stopped in its tracks when two straight

Mormon youngsters were chosen, and the goofiest golf tournament ever

failed to survive, I guess, because most football players don’t have

a whole lot of game in their clubs.

One Irrelevant Week got so irrelevant they did everything

backwards, with the final day dedicated to the Arrival Party.

One of the all-time ideas arrived in the form of Stanford trombone

player Gary Tyrell, the chap who was obliterated by Cal’s Kevin Moen

in the end zone as the Bears pulled out a 25-20 victory with the

multi-lateral kickoff return as time ran out in 1982, one of the funniest and most incredible plays in NCAA history.

Tyrell was to play the Stanford fight song as often as possible

for Mr. Irrelevant VIII, Cal’s John Tuggle.

But he just kept tooting the trombone in timed intervals like

“blurp ... blurp ... blurp ... blurp,” with no tune to speak of at

all. Salata was beside himself and got nose-to-nose with this

expensive import, only to find out that Tyrell’s part in the song was

just that. That’s all the “third trombone” plays in the song and he

had no idea how to play the rest of the song!

Salata’s reputation for contacts took a big boost in 1978.

They took Mr. Irrelevant III, Lee Washburn of the Dallas Cowboys,

to the track and gave him a few bucks to take his shots. He chose a

horse, “Cowboy’s Dream,” a longshot, and it won. Stunned, Washburn

turned to the Irrelevant gang and happily said, “You really have some

pull.”

Mr. Irrelevant XVII, Matt Elliott, who went on to a standout

career with Washington, Carolina, Atlanta and Denver, was spooked

badly by a run-of-the-mill earthquake, and, later, after borrowing an

auto from Salata’s daughter, Melanie, simply left the car and walked

away when he ran out of gas on the San Diego Freeway in the early

morning hours.

When Sam Manuel was San Francisco’s pick in 1996, they invited his

identical twin, Sean, to the festivities. The press complained it

could not tell who was who, so they solved it with name tags and

amused themselves while watching everyone eye one, then the other,

with the tag of “S. Manuel” on each of them.

In 1991, they decided to invite the last soldier out of Iraq, Sgt.

Whittaker, who spent most of his time admiring John Wayne’s statue at

the airport. It was a no-harm, no-foul deal. Whittaker, with

virtually no interest in Salata, Irrelevancy or Newport Beach, found

himself in paradise with the presence of the late Wayne, and was

enraptured with a luncheon with Aissa Wayne.

Mr. Irrelevant XXVI, Tevita Ofahengaue of the Arizona Cardinals,

was a native of Tonga and brought an entourage of 65 family members.

The Irvine Marriott picked up the tab for the entire clan and gave

them an entire floor while they were here.

As it was their custom, they turned the tables on Salata & Co,

baring various gifts.

“It was wild,” mused Melanie Fitch, who was there in the beginning

as an Irrelevant “cheerleader.”

It’s Melanie, of course, who is the source of these items.

A big surprise came when Ronnie McAda, the 1997 edition, arrived.

On College Night he and his dad grabbed guitars and dropped some jaws

with a standout performance.

The dad was known as “Little Ronnie Mac” down Texas way and

sizzled.

Everyone was delighted with Ron McAda and there has been a long

series of positives, especially with Super Bowler Marty Moore, No. 19

in the series, Manuel, Jim Finn in 1999. Ofahengaue and last year’s

delight, Hoag.

Jim Finn was at the draft in New York and at the podium with

Salata in 1999, and was eventually an advisor on “The Bachelor,”

television show. Picked by the Bears, he is presently with the

Giants.

Over the years, it has always been a subject of amusement in the

NFL, lately to the point that at the annual rookie orientation camp,

Mr. Irrelevant gets more recognition than the No. 1 pick.

But that’s the nature of this game. Nothing’s too good for Mr.

Irrelevant.

It all starts on Monday at the Newport Dunes, at 5:30 p.m. Don’t

be late.

Hey! See you next Sunday!

* ROGER CARLSON is the former sports editor for the Daily Pilot.

His column appears on Sundays. He can be reached by e-mail at

[email protected].