IT'S ALL ROSES FOR STEVENS AT NBC.

Byline: TOM HOFFARTH MEDIA

The script says Gary Stevens sits next to Tom Hammond in NBC's perch at Churchill Downs and dispenses jock-talk for about an hour-and-a-half Saturday. That's about as specific as it gets.

Stevens, the 43-year-old three-time Kentucky Derby-winning jockey, needs no more direction than that to get into character. His first Run for the Roses as an official network broadcaster will call on him to ride as high or low in the saddle as he sees fit.

The media-friendly Stevens, always good for a quote during his competitive whip-snapping days, just recently made TV a full-time commitment after officially retiring, for the third time, last November. It hasn't been a very tough transition.

For your consideration, Stevens played George Woolf in the Academy Award-nominated Hollywood production of ``Seabiscuit'' in 2003 - and found a spot in People magazine's list of the ``50 Most Beautiful People.'' Since then, he's been making cameos on TV shows, taping pilots and earning his stripes at the Los Angeles-based TVG horse racing network over the last few months.

A camera is just a camera, right?

``The obvious difference with a film is you can do several takes, and on live television there is really no margin for error,'' said Stevens. ``You get one chance to do it, and it'd better be right or you've screwed up in front of a lot of millions of people. I would say there's definitely more pressure doing this than the acting bit.''

Sam Flood, who will produce NBC's Kentucky Derby coverage, already sees a comfort level with Stevens after just a couple of shows.

``His movie experience got him to the point where the cameras are the third person in the conversation, and he can accomplish anything,'' said Flood. ``A lot of people right out of the sport don't know how to explain what they are seeing or what the athlete has gone through and Gary has that unique ability. So far he's been spot on.''

In NBC's cast, Stevens replaces the recently retired Charlsie Canty, a former exercise- rider-turned- broadcaster. Stevens' ability to explain real-life jockey experiences has actually has the planners rethinking a few things, which may be noticeable in Saturday's coverage.

``I feel like I am getting a whole different view of the race,'' said David Michaels, who moves over to direct this year's event for NBC. ``It's opened up our ability to show intricate parts of the race that we might not have normally shown without someone who is an expert in analyzing the race... Gary's gotten us to take it up a notch. For me, Gary has truly opening new territory.''

Stevens says he doesn't go into an event like this with any sort of cribsheet of talking points, because reacting to things is more important -- just as it was as a jockey. A perfectionist who says he doesn't want to critique his own TV work yet, Stevens has a clear view on what he wants to make of this latest career move.

``I haven't rode the perfect race and I don't know if I'll ever do the perfect telecast either,'' said Stevens, who won more than 5,000 races in his 26 year Racing Hall of Fame career but won't have to worry this time about picking a Kentucky Derby ride for the first time in a while. ``I won't know what the feeling's going to be (Saturday) until the horses actually step out on the race track, but I've been back here for three weeks right now preparing and I'm thoroughly enjoying the event. For me right now, it's more exciting analyzing the race from the set, with the different styles of racing and all the great competitors that are in here.

``The feeling I've got right now is almost like I had when I rode my first Kentucky Derby. I've waked up every morning looking forward to Saturday, and in the last 15 Kentucky Derbys, I kind have lost that burn until the morning of the race. This is something very exciting.''

HOOP GAMES: Fox Sports Net's renewal of its Pac-10 Conference basketball deal through 2012 announced Thursday could lead to a regular Sunday night package with as many as eight games starting as soon as this fall. Games would air at about 7 p.m. immediately after the FSN's Atlantic Coast Conference contest that night.

The small handful of Pac-10 games that were on FSN Sundays with the ACC lead-in last season had a 30 percent increase in viewership, FSN said. The Pac-10 usually goes with a Thursday-Saturday schedule in conference play.

``The ACC has been a great lead-in and it's easy to promote the game afterward,'' said FSN president Bob Thompson. ``It's just a matter of getting the athletic directors and coaches to agree on the scheduling.''

Another option this contract renewal may present is moving the early March conference tournament from Staples Center to, perhaps, Arizona or the Bay Area on a rotating basis. FSN has one more year left on its deal with Staples Center as the host site.

``For a variety of reasons, we like having it in L.A. but we're not wedded to it,'' Thompson said.

WHAT SMOKES

-- What ever happened to Paul Olden, a former L.A. sports-talk host who had been doing play-by-play for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays? Having moved back about a year ago, he's on weekend sports updates at KNX-AM (1070) while trying to launch a career as a sports photographer. Some of his work is on display at pauloldenphotography.net. ``I've decided to settle in until the next play-by-play gig comes along,'' Olden emailed recently. ``I made some smart real estate investments in Florida, so my work at KNX is enough to take care on the basics while I do some other things.''

-- NBC's addition of Sterling Sharpe, the former Pro Bowl receiver who did a couple yars at ESPN's "Sunday Night Countdown," meas its pregame show for "Football Night in America" this fall has met its capacity: Bob Costas is the host, with Chris Collinsworth, Jerome Bettis, Sharpe and Peter King hashing out the day's events. The brother of CBS' NFL sudio analyst Shannon Sharpe, Sterling will continue to work for the NFL Network.

-- Lou Piniella has been officially added to Fox's Major League Baseball regular-season Saturday afternoon coverage, which begins May 20, pairing up with Thom Brennaman, Kenny Albert and Josh Lewin on regional games and likely to join Joe Buck and Tim McCarver again for the All-Star Game and post-season.

-- The usual crew of Jim Lampley, Larry Merchant and Emanuel Steward, with reporter Max Kellerman and scatter-brained scorer Harold Lederman, fills the HBO pay-per-view bill for coverage of the Oscar De La Hoya's self-promoted fight against WBC super welterweight champ Ricardo Mayorga on Saturday (6 p.m., $49.95).

WHAT CHOKES

-- Feeling who? Yup, that's XTRA Sports news update man and ``Loose Cannons'' contributor Vic ``The Brick'' Jacobs trying to contain himself behind the Lakers' Kobe Bryant after his game-winning shot against the Phoenix Suns last Sunday, as evidenced in a video clip captured by MSNBC.

-- And what a coup it was by Jim Gray, showing the tenacity to take credit for the first to report on ESPN.com the height and weight of Bryant's new baby girl Tuesday. The father, mother, baby and pseudo-reporter are all doing fine.

-- What possessed golfer John Daly to sit with Morley Safer for a ``60 Minutes'' grilling Sunday (Channel 2, 7 p.m.)? Why, to sell more books, we reckon. The gambling, drinking and other assorted misdeeds will be recounted from ``My Life In and Out of the Rough: The Truth Behind all that Bull**** You Think You Know About Me'' ($25.95, HarperCollins, 224 pages), which comes out Monday.

CAPTION(S):

photo, 2 boxes

Photo:

Vic "The Brick" Jacob and Kobe Bryant

Photo courtesy LARadio.com, from MSNBC

Box:

(1) WHAT SMOKES (see text)

(2) WHAT CHOKES (see text)