Were They Out of Their Minds With This Site?

Brian Schmitz in the Orlando Sentinel, on San Diego as host city for the Super Bowl:

“As far as I’m concerned , the league could make this the permanent site. But then we couldn’t go to Detroit and freeze, could we?

“Oh, yes. A Super Bowl in Detroit. In 2006.

“The next two SBs will be played in Houston (2004) and Jacksonville (2005), hardly glamorous garden spots. Fargo and Topeka are also making bids.”

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Trivia time: Which UCLA basketball player became the school’s first first-round NBA draft choice?

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Turned off: Steve Zipay in Newsday, on the Super Bowl: “With less than five minutes to go in the third quarter, it was 34-3 Bucs and that succession of clicks you heard was millions of TV remotes changing channels.

“Glad I didn’t spend $1.9 million for a 30-second advertisement in the fourth quarter.”

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Almost historic: David Whitely in the Orlando Sentinel, on the Super Bowl: “The Bucs dismembered one of the best offenses in NFL history. If they hadn’t allowed two long touchdown passes after taking a 34-3 lead, we’d be comparing the Bucs to things like the Great Wall of China or the polio vaccine. Now those were great defenses.”

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Supporting cast: Tony Kornheiser in the Washington Post on the proliferation of assistant coaches: “These guys are everywhere. In the NBA they’re perched on the bench in expensive suits like mannequins. When the head coach calls a timeout, they all rise in unison, and move in a semi-circle like the Pips backing up Gladys Knight.”

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More Perry: “News flash: The Internal Revenue Service has filed a lien against Pete Rose’s $1-million home in Sherman Oaks ... because he owes $151,690 in federal taxes from 1998.

“The IRS, we hear, has already turned down Rose’s first appeal -- to go double or nothing.”

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Inflation: Phil Mushnick in the New York Post: “This year’s Super Bowl program cost $15 -- five dollars more than a ticket to the first Super Bowl. And it was printed before the AFC and NFC championships, thus the focus of the ... program is equally shared among the Bucs, Raiders, Eagles and Titans.

“The first Supe program cost $1.”

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Alert the AARP: After losing to her sister Serena in the Australian Open final -- the fourth consecutive Grand Slam final in which she was beaten by her younger sibling -- Venus Williams lamented that she didn’t want to be a player who wins “only” four Slam titles.

“When you look at the great players who have won 20 and all those kinds of numbers,” she said, “I still have a long way to go -- and not much time.”

She is, after all, 22.

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Trivia answer: Walt Hazzard in 1964, by the Lakers.

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And finally: Bill Lyon in the Philadelphia Inquirer: “A sweet-souled Texan named Bum Phillips once explained what separated Don Shula from other football coaches:

“ ‘He can take his and beat yours, and he can take yours and beat his.’ Which is essentially what Jon Gruden did in winning Super Bowl XXXVII. He took his and beat what used to be his.”