`Swim Move' Keeps Randle Away From Minnesota Malls

Rosie Randle has known her husband, John, a defensive tackle for the Minnesota Vikings, for six years, but she's still afraid to take him shopping.

"You know that `swim move' the defensive linemen do?" Rosie asked. "John's always doing that to me in the grocery store, in the mall, wherever we go. It gets embarrassing. But I've pretty much accepted John can't sit still."

TIGHT FIT

Karl Malone might find his customized 18-wheeler a little primitive now that he's experienced a jet fighter.

The 6-foot-9 Utah Jazz star crammed into the rear seat of an F-16B Fighting Falcon training jet at Hill Air Force Base in Utah yesterday for an hour-long flight.

"We're talking power here," Malone said. "You can't imagine what it was like. Nothing in the world compares to it."

TOWING LOGS

Jeff Lenihan of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune writes, "John Randle makes the Energizer bunny look lazy. He is to energy what Madonna is to suggestiveness.

"Randle's offseason training regimen is the stuff of legend - much to the dismay of his San Antonio neighbors."

"John takes a log, ties a rope to it and then fastens it around his waist," Rosie Randle told Lenihan. "He runs back and forth and up and down hills with it. I had to tell the neighbors he wasn't crazy."

ANGRY ENOUGH TO SPIT

Some Medicine Hat Tigers are upset with a new Western Hockey League policy banning chewing tobacco.

"I consider us professional athletes, and I don't think our lives should be run from outside forces," said defenseman Aaron Boh, who says he's been chewing since he was 12. "That's like telling somebody who works at a car plant that they can't smoke cigarettes on their break."

Goaltender Sonny Mignacca said, "If there are guys who want to do it, then they should be allowed to do it. It's not like we're getting boozed up and passing out."

NO EYEGLASSES NEEDED

Nobody needs directions to Mollenkopf Athletic Center in West Lafayette, Ind., anymore. Not since a 26-foot-high sign went up this month welcoming visitors to "Purdue University, Home of the Boilermakers."

From the "P" in Purdue to the "y" in University, the sign spans 192 feet - 17 times as big as the largest sign allowed by the Tippecanoe County zoning board. As a state entity, the university isn't bound by local zoning laws.

HOW'S THAT AGAIN?

Tim McCarver observed recently that Eric Hillman, 6-foot-10 pitcher for the New York Mets, looks extra tall atop the 10-inch pitcher's mound.

Broadcast partner Ralph Kiner replied: "So that would make him 7-foot-10."

THEY SAID IT

-- Brian Schmidt, Orlando Sentinel, on the value of NFL exhibitions: "The preseason is like your appendix. You simply don't need it."

-- Billboard promoting NHL's Dallas Stars (formerly the Minnesota North Stars): "The Ice of Texas are Upon You."

Compiled by Chuck Ashmun, Seattle Times