THE ROSE Bowl officials rented three event suites at Staples Center and bought 160 tickets for the Nebraska football team—at a cost of approximately $24,000—to watch the Lakers take on Toronto.
     One of the players also participated in a halftime contest, and won round-trip tickets on Southwest Airlines—I can't imagine anything worse than living in Nebraska and winning round-trip tickets. Anyway, I immediately contacted the NCAA in the hope these "extra benefit" violations will result in the entire team being suspended before Thursday night's national championship game, which would correct the injustice of the Cornhuskers being here in the first place.
     The Laker crowd booed the BCS-blessed Cornhuskers during a pregame ceremony, again at halftime and louder yet when the team was shown on the overhead scoreboard late in the game. This allowed me to save my voice.

     I KNOW the women in Nebraska are corn-fed and a little more substantial than our starlets, but the players lined up to have their pictures taken with Brad Pitt, while ignoring Heather Locklear on the other side of the court. I'm sure that will make their mothers happy—I know my mother would have just loved a picture of Pitt—but still, you would have thought the guys from Nebraska would have enjoyed seeing a pretty woman for a change. But some of them even passed up Locklear to make acquaintances with Jon Lovitz and Ronald McDonald.