Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2006 | 7:25 a.m.
JETS DELIVER KNOCKOUT PUNCH
Eric Mangini must be a fight fan. Or a Diego Corrales fan. Or both.
Instead of showing the New York Jets "Remember the Titans" for the 38th time, Mangini, the team's first-year coach, had them watch a clip from last year's epic slugfest featuring Las Vegas resident Corrales against Jose Luis Castillo in their first fight, the one where Castillo actually made weight.
That was the night Corrales was knocked down twice in the 10th round, only to rally like Rod Laver during the wooden racket days. Corrales picked himself off the canvas to knock out Castillo in a reversal so stunning that it made the scripts for all those "Rocky" movies seem believable.
The Jets watched the replay of the Corrales-Castillo fight on Saturday. Then, as only the football gods and Ebert and Roeper would have it, they reprised Corrales' routine some 16 hours later in their season opener against the Tennessee Titans. They blew a 16-0 lead in a grand total of 4 minutes, 48 seconds, only to rally with a 12-yard touchdown pass from Chad Pennington to Chris Baker for a 23-16 victory.
Afterward, Jets safety Kerry Rhodes said his teammates had learned a lesson from Corrales.
"(The Corrales fight) was like a metaphor for the day," Rhodes told the New York Daily News. "We were up, got knocked down, but we finished them off. Pretty symbolic, huh?"
Judging from the size of some of their offensive lineman, the Jets also have learned a thing or two from Castillo. It looks like they're having trouble making weight, too.
TRUCK STOP IN D.C.
Las Vegan Brendan Gaughan will unveil a Georgetown-inspired blue and gray paint job on the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series entry he will run at New Hampshire this week, to show his loyalty for his alma mater.
The race will cap a week of Georgetown-related activities for Gaughan, who once kicked field goals for the Hoyas football team and sat the bench for the basketball team, at least until John Thompson cleared it against St. Leo.
Gaughan plans to donate his winnings from this week's race to the university.
What he should do is change the number of his truck from No. 77 to No. 33. Then it would look like Patrick Ewing filling the lane on a fast break, and you know how frightening that can be.
AROUND THE HORN
This just in: the Mountain West officials assigned to Saturday's UNLV-Iowa State contest in Ames have finally agreed to review the last play of the game and have ruled that Aaron Straiten's foot came down in the vicinity of Cedar Rapids By now, you probably know the Rebels refused to leave the field for 15 minutes after Straiten's noncatch out of protest. While I'm not saying the Rebels are sore losers check that. That's exactly what I'm saying, although UNLV should be commended for taking a heavily favored Big 12 opponent to the final gun. And beyond On his TV show, and despite replays that showed Straiten was clearly out of bounds, Rebels coach Mike Sanford claimed the replays he watched (off the game film) were inconclusive. For his sake, I hope he never has to play tennis against John McEnroe This week's (literal) Big Man on Campus: Former Rancho High standout Ronnie Patron, a 6-foot-3, 290-pound offensive lineman at Doane College in Nebraska. His head coach is Tommie Frazier, the former All-American quarterback at Nebraska, so it can be assumed Patron knows how to run the option and the "fumble-rooskie."
69
Age of Las Vegan Daniel Gala, who shot a hole-in-one at the 150-yard No. 15 hole at the Legacy Golf Club on Thursday
1
Number of baskets scored by Brendan Gaughan during his Georgetown basketball career
39
Number of extra points Gaughan kicked (in 40 attempts) for the Hoyas football team in 1994
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