This Meaty Morsel Could Be Bit Tough

Dish of the Day: This offering cooked up by Don Markus of the Baltimore Sun.

“If the University of Maryland basketball season were viewed as a meal, the first seven games have been a steady serving of hors d’oeuvres . The Terrapins feasted on Maryland-Eastern Shore, munched on Morgan State and barely swallowed Monmouth.

“After this mostly pleasant appetizer comes a rather meaty main course. It’s dinner at 8 for the Terrapins, who, after a 2-week layoff, play host to West Virginia. It starts a stretch of 5 games in 9 days that runs right through the Atlantic Coast Conference season opener Jan. 4 at Wake Forest.

“In this case, the meat could be a little tough.”

From Bob Sudyk of the Hartford Courant: “Carl Yastrzemski was a consummate lunch-pail, swing-shift diamond miner for 23 seasons with the Boston Red Sox. Nobody named him The Splendid Splinter, Double XX or Spaceman. He was simply Yaz. His nickname came at you like a clenched fist. And that’s the way he played.

“Baseball was never a game for Yaz. It was a grinding dawn-to-midnight sentence in a self-imposed sweat shop. The journey was a painful, cursing frustration, an unresolved and unfulfilled exploration and experimentation in the black art of hitting.

“He was no glamorous celluloid darling, only calloused flesh.”

Trivia time: Which three coaches who have won Super Bowl titles will celebrate their birthdays Tuesday? (Answer below)

Butch van Breda Kolff, the coach who keeps coming back, has returned to collegiate basketball at age 65, to a school where he once coached--Hofstra.

At a recent game against Navy, William Gildea of the Washington Post caught up with Van Breda Kolff’s wife, Florence, who was one of the few in attendance.

“I would predict,” she said, seated in the first row of bleachers behind the coach, “that they would carry him off the court. He’s not going to go on a fishing boat. Or watching Oprah Winfrey.”

Nevada Las Vegas Coach Jerry Tarkanian, who has been taking shots at Kentucky for almost 20 years, recently told the Louisville Courier-Journal when asked about National Collegiate Athletic Assn. allegations against the Wildcats’ basketball program: “I still don’t think Kentucky will get anything more than a 1-year probation. Then when it’s over, they’ll throw them an honors banquet, have a parade and get ready for next year . . . You just don’t mess with the Big Blue.”

Trivia answer: Hank Stram (64), who led the Kansas City Chiefs, Don Shula (58) of the Miami Dolphins and Chuck Noll (56) of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Quotebook

From seldom-used Washington Bullets forward Mark Alarie, a third-year player from Duke: “It doesn’t take a nuclear scientist to know I haven’t done much this season.”