Never Let It Be Said This Dude Doesn't Pay Off His Wagers. By Tom Danehy NOW THAT THE dust has settled, there are some things which need to be said: Arizona State may be the greatest football team in the history of the sport. And I'm not just talking about college football. The 1996 Sun Devils would've mistreated the Pittsburgh Steelers of the '70s so badly that Terry Bradshaw never would've become famous and wouldn't have gotten the chance to marry and divorce an ice skater. He would've married within his own social class--meaning a woman to whom indoor plumbing and natural teeth are only unsubstantiated rumors. Heck, The Sun Devils would've beaten up on those great 1960s Green Bay Packers teams so much that Vince Lombardi would be famous only as a loser. That way Jerry Stiller wouldn't have to take time out from playing George Costanza's father on Seinfeld to make those bizarre Nike commercials. The ASU Sun Devils are so good there are stories floating around that Ohio State won't even show up for the Rose Bowl. Better to lose by forfeit and live to see another day than to run into the buzzsaw that is ASU. Even as you read this, the state legislature of Ohio is convened in secret session, drafting legislation which would ban the Buckeyes from leaving the state to play Arizona State. (The legislation is fashioned after that which was enacted by the Mississippi legislature back in the early '60s in an attempt to keep the Ole Miss team from playing against--gasp!--Negroes in the NCAA basketball tournament. The team actually had to sneak out of the state to play in the game, where they got smoked by the forerunners to today's African-Americans.) The Big 10 Conference tried to draft a contingency plan in case the Buckeyes don't go. They offered the spot to Northwestern, which emphatically declined, adding, "Hey, we went out there last year and lost to sorry-ass USC. Imagine what would happen if we had to play The Greatest Team Of All Time." When they offered it to Penn State, legendary coach Joe Paterno said, "I'll retire first. Or vote Democrat. No way I want to line up against The Greatest Team In The History Of The Sport." Joe has it right. Do you realize that with this year's victory, ASU has now beaten the University of Arizona three times in the past 15 years? That's a full 20 percent of the time! Don't be surprised if UA Athletic Director Jim Livengood asks the Pac-10 to discontinue the UA-ASU series for a couple decades to let the Wildcats try to catch up. Ask any ASU fan and they'll tell you this year's win wasn't an aberration; it was the start of a trend. Speaking of fans, I have a good friend named J. Todd Judge who, in a most friendly way, tried to warn me the UA was going to get clobbered by The Greatest Team In The History of the Sport. I wouldn't listen. You might ask yourself what kind of parents would name a kid J. Todd Judge. I wonder that myself. I've never met them, but I assume they must be really white. I think the "J" stands for the way they spell "honkie" in whatever Scandinavian country they come from. Todd (he eschews the "J" part) spent some time at ASU, along with their 250,000 white people on campus and the 24 African-American athletes. This is not to say that ASU is a racist institution; far from it. Why, they started letting black people play sports as early as...oh, the mid-1960s, I think it was. They've always been on the vanguard of civil rights. Just a few years ago they started letting brunettes join their sororities (as long as their names ended in "i".) Actually, Todd's a really good guy. He and I talk sports all the time. We both love the Lakers and Dodgers, but he likes ASU. During the season, we made a friendly bet on the Big Game. If I lost, which I most certainly did, I had to write nice things about ASU, which I most certainly am. Here are some more: • Jake "The Snake" Plummer should win the Heisman Trophy by a unanimous vote. If he doesn't, the government should appoint a commission to find out what happened. That might be difficult considering that almost every able-bodied person in Washington, D.C., is already working for one of the 3,147 Special Prosecutors looking into Bill Clinton's stuff. In fact, I think that's the secret of all those new jobs Clinton claims he created; they're all special prosecutor-related. • In fact, the Heisman Trophy should be renamed The Plummer Trophy, and from here on out should only go to an athlete from ASU. • The Pac-10 should be renamed ASU and the Pac-9. Just like Diana Ross, and you know how everybody looks upon her favorably. • Everything in the football record books should have an asterisk denoting that the records are meaningless because the individuals and teams which set them didn't have to play against ASU, in which case they wouldn't have set the records in the first place. • Oh yeah, those weren't cheap shots that the ASU players took. They were just spirited reactions at being part of the Greatest Team In The History Of The Sport. And we should also thank those nifty ASU fans for dancing on the goal posts just to make sure everybody knew who'd won. Some of us weren't certain that 56 is more than 14. Having said all that, let me add...I'm Batman...I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille...I can.

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