He Didn’t Take It Seriously Enough Until It Was Too Late

Braxston Banks, the running back who forfeited his final year at Notre Dame by making himself available for the NFL draft, only to be passed over, was the subject of a column by Jim Litke of the Associated Press.

Last week, a U.S. District Court judge denied Banks’ attempt to regain his NCAA eligibility.

Litke related an anecdote from the fall of 1989: “Each season, Notre Dame’s sports information department sends around a form asking players to finish, among others, sentences that begin ‘My goal in life is . . . ‘ and ‘My favorite breakfast as a kid was . . . ‘

“To the one that began ‘College sports would be better if . . . ‘ Banks scribbled: ‘it wasn’t taken so seriously.’ ”

Trivia time: Who won the first championship of the American Basketball Assn., in 1967-68?

Bigger fish to fry: In August of 1989, during President Bush’s Maine vacation, the Portland Press Herald ran a daily scoreboard that eventually read “Bluefish 18, President Bush 0” before Bush boated a small one.

Bush complained that the flotilla of Secret Service boats scattered the bluefish, which reportedly were thick in the Gulf of Maine.

Last week, when Bush began his vacation, despite events in the Middle East, the paper omitted the scoreboard. And not necessarily for diplomatic reasons. Said Will Plumley of the Press Herald sports staff: “He caught one too soon this year, and there was no point going through with it.”

Another day older: Quarterback Major Harris of the British Columbia Lions said his agent, Ed Abram, “probably said some things he shouldn’t have” when he told reporters Friday that the Lions should either play Harris, trade him or release him, and that Harris would rather be shoveling coal than playing for the Lions.

Lion Coach Lary Kuharich put it another way: “I don’t think Major wants to shovel coal, but maybe Abram should.”

Sportswriting 101: Terry Price of the Hartford Courant covered the World Boxing Council’s welterweight championship bout in Reno Sunday. Price began his story:

“There was blood everywhere. In rivulets on the champion’s face and oceans on his once-white trunks; on the mat; on the shirt of referee Mills Lane and the challenger’s trunks.

“But mostly, there was blood in Maurice Blocker’s eyes, enough to drain the life out of Marlon Starling’s world championship.”

Huh?

Marquee player: Roger Craig, the San Francisco 49er running back, must have made an impression with his recent underwear ads in Bay Area newspapers.

Craig will make his film acting debut this fall. Last week, producer Roger Corman changed the movie’s title from “Dark Obsession” to “Naked Ambition.”

A hit off his hero: Jerry Jeff Walker, the country singer who wrote “Mr. Bojangles” and “L.A. Freeway,” recently wrote a tribute to Nolan Ryan’s 300th victory.

Sunday, Walker sang it for Ryan in the dugout before the Texas Rangers’ game with the Chicago White Sox.

Walker, who began writing the lyrics during a sound check in Oklahoma City about a month ago, finished the tune around the time Ryan won his 298th game. He told AP: “Then he had to win that 300th because I had that already written.”

Trivia answer: The Pittsburgh Pipers.

Quotebook: Pete Rose Jr., a third baseman with the Class-A Frederick (Md.) Keys, on playing in his father’s shadow: “Until I get my 4,257th hit, people are going to come to see Pete Rose play, not Pete Rose Jr.”