Coaches' corner.

BOB DEVANEY, after the Nebraska AD hired a young man named Tom Osborne as freshman coach: "It made me feel real good. I knew I no longer would have to worry about who would replace me if I lost more than one game in a row."

JULIE KRONE, the great female jockey: "it's dumb for racing fans to be prejudiced against female jockeys. Do the horses knew the difference?"

VINCE LOMBARDI: "I was the greatest thing that ever happened to the Green Bay Packers. The players hated me so much it unified the team."

PHIL FULMER, on the low point in his career: "On the first day of practice, my three quarterbacks showed up in the library."

SAMMY BAUGH: "I made only one mistake when I tried out for the Pittsburgh Pirates after the football season. I told them to play me or trade me. Who'd dream they'd listen to me?"

LARRY BOWA, the Philadelphia Phillies' volatile manager: "The Phillies fans are the greatest. Hundreds of them send me birthday cards every year, wishing it's my last."

JOHN McKAY, former USC and Tampa Bay Bucs football coach: "The Breakfast of Champions is not a cereal to tough football teams. It's the opposition."

CRAIG NETTLES, former slick third baseman, making an airline trip with the New York Yankees: "We got a problem. Luis Tiant wants to use the bathroom and it says no foreign objects allowed in the toilet."

KEITH JACKSON, college football's all-time announcer, on awards: "if you can't eat from it, drink from it, or cash it, don't bother showing up for it."

PAT RILEY: "I've never believed that stuff about it being better to be lucky than good. The truth is that the harder you work, the luckier you get."

EARL WEAVER, former Baltimore Orioles skipper, on when he knew it was time to retire from managing: "When I got up one morning in a strange bed in a town I couldn't remember, I knew If was time to get off the road."

TIM KAWAKAMI, columnist for the San Jose Mercury News, after Serena Williams pulled out of the Bank of the West Classic: "You can do such things when you already own the Bank of the East, North, South, and Midwest."

TIM KAWAKAMI, one more time: "Why is Dennis Rodman looking to sign with an NBA team? Why can't he get a job at Fox Sports Net just like every other mildly deranged former athlete?"

RICH RINALDI, when he was the Baltimore Bullets' last man on the bench: "After every game we won, the coach would say, 'Way to go, Arch. Way to go, Jack. Way to clap, Rich."

BILL WALSH, to his quarterbacks: "Always understand that humility is just one play away."

ARNIE PALMER, on heaven to a golfer: "When you're playing so good that the hole is always getting in the way of the ball."

JACK KEMP, former pro QB and member of the U.S. House of Representatives, on why pro football gave him the perspective for polities: "I'd already been booed, cheered, sold, bloodied, and hung in effigy. What else was left?"

TOO TALL JONES, former Dallas Cowboys' defensive lineman, on why he refused to play offense in football: "When you're great on defense, you stay on the field for three plays. If you do your job on offense, you could stay out there forever."

BARCLAY TAGS, TRAINER OF FUNNY CIDE, after the horse finished third in its bid for the 2003 Triple Crown: "I don't knew what happened and he still won't tell me."