If all goes well when Lamar University president Dr. Jimmy Simmons meets with his board of regents the latter part of this week, an announcement on a football coach shouldn’t be far behind. The top three candidates, according to my sources, are Navarro JC head coach Ray Woodard, West Brook head coach Craig Stump and former North Texas offensive coordinator Ramone Flanagan. Woodard, who was a teammate of Todd Dodge at the University of Texas, seems to have the inside track to getting the job . . . Cardinal basketball coach Steve Roccaforte is looking for two assistants for next season. Brandon Aldrich left a few weeks ago to take a job outside coaching and Don Skelton was announced Friday as the new head coach at Jones Junior College in Ellisville, Miss. While Skelton will certainly be missed, there is an upside to having him back in the Mississippi JC ranks that have been such a productive pipeline for Roc and the Cardinals . . . Lamar State College-Port Arthur AD Bill Worsham said Friday that he’s hopeful of naming a basketball coach prior to June 1. Worsham and his nine-person committee have narrowed a list of some 50 applicants down to 10. He said he’s hoping to have that trimmed to five on Monday and to be able to bring three finalists on campus the following week. Roccaforte, who has gone over the list with Worsham, says there are some coaches he knows and really likes.

Port Arthuran Jana Barnes got some exciting news this past week that bodes well for the Gulf Coast Pop Warner League. Barnes, who has been diligently pursing a big name Dallas Cowboy as part of a Pop Warner fund raiser, landed a whopper. That would be Hall of Famer Emmitt Smith, who will be coming to Southeast Texas to speak Thursday, Oct. 2. Barnes is still formulating plans for the event and looking for sponsors willing to help underwrite the cost of Smith’s appearance. She can be reached at 728-9045 . . . Speaking of the Cowboys, Jerry Jones has added another member of the Garrett family to the organization. To go along with offensive coordinator Jason Garrett and tight ends coach John Garrett, a third brother, Judd Garrett, has been named assistant director of pro scouting. It’s a good thing Wade Phillips is not insecure, and he really isn’t. With both the Dallas media and the national media calling Jason Garrett the Cowboys head coach in waiting, an insecure guy would be even more insecure with a third Garrett on board . . . I can’t wait to see if NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has the cojones to really hammer New England’s Bill Belichick after seven more Spygate tapes dating back to the 2000 season were delivered to him by former Patriot employee Matt Walsh. Included were tapes of defensive signals the first time New England played division members Miami and Buffalo after coaching changes, and games against Cleveland, San Diego and Pittsburgh. Don’t believe for a second that Belichick wasn’t gaining an advantage. If he wasn’t gaining something, he wouldn’t have bothered to break the rules. He should be suspended for a significant number of games.

Don’t think I’ve ever had a better telephone interview that the one with Florida Atlantic’s Howard Schnellenberger last week. I was hoping for five or 10 minutes of discussion on what it’s like to start a football program from scratch and wound up getting 55. What I really enjoyed was that he’s not political, that he just comes out and says what he thinks. Like, for instance, he can’t understand why schools able to recruit the way Texas, Michigan and Alabama can are fooling around running spread offenses. Beyond not liking the offensive philosophy, he said it’s difficult to develop defensive toughness practicing against the spread . . . Former Texas A&M offensive coordinator Les Koenning, who was swept out in the Dennis Franchione purge, will be part of a start-up football program next season, just not the one he wanted. Koenning, the one-time Hamshire-Fannett star, had hoped to land the Lamar job. Instead, he’s the offensive coordinator at South Alabama, which is on the roughly the same timetable as Lamar. It’s Koenning’s second stop in the state of Alabama. He was with Franchione at the University of Alabama from 2001-03 . . . . . . Here’s why you shouldn’t be too impressed with the NCAA’s new academic performance guidelines that mainly penalize schools at the mid major level. The Ann Arbor News did a study on University of Michigan athletes and what degrees they were pursuing. The study, which zeroed in on 74 players on scholarship in 2004, found that 58 of them were majoring in something called general studies. They also found that only 176 other students out of 26,000 at Michigan were majoring in general studies. Can you say basket weaving? And don’t think for a minute think Michigan is alone in “athlete friendly” academic programs.

Let me strongly encourage everybody to read George Vecsey’s column on today's front sports page about former Arizona Cardinal safety Pat Tillman. Most of you know the story of how Tillman gave up a high dollar pro football contract

because he felt an obligation to fight for his country. You need to know how his country deliberately deceived his parents over how he died in order to use him as a propaganda tool, and the extreme measures taken by our so-called leaders to sell a coverup . . . George Fischer of Groves got my attention last year by twice winning the “I Beat Bob West Contest.” One of his wins was with a remarkable 20-5 effort in the bowl games. Later, I learned George was battling Lou Gehrig’s disease and went to visit him at Magnolia Manor. Not only did I discover him to be a fascinating guy, I learned he was Wade Phillips’ catcher when Wade pitched at PN-G. I encouraged Wade to call him and he did. Sad to say, George passed away on Wednesday. Visitation is Sunday from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Broussard’s in Nederland . . . Another death last week had local sports ties. Port Arthuran Baltazar (Junior) Flores won three straight Texas Golden Gloves championships (1953-55), then compiled a 23-4 record in five years as a professional boxer. In 1955, he was part of a bout at the fairgrounds in Beaumont that strained the loyalty of Port Arthur fight fans. Flores, a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Army, lost that fight to fabled Port Arthur featherweight Paul Jorgensen. He was laid to rest on Friday.

Dale Davis, who will be 79 on his next birthday, authored what was arguably the best story in sports last week. Davis who has limited peripheral vision but can’t see straight ahead, bowled a perfect game at the Century Lanes in Alta, Iowa. Enhancing a truly remarkable feat, it was the first 300 game at Century Lanes in over 34 years. According to the AP report, customers in the establishment’s bar and restaurant got word of what was going on, came streaming out to watch and erupted in wild cheering when the final pin fell . . . Looks like the Cotton Bowl is maneuvering to again become a major player in the bowl scene. After too many years of playing at 10 a.m. on Jan. 1, next year’s game has been moved to 1 p.m. on Jan. 2. The following year, of course, the Cotton Bowl will relocate from the Texas state fairgrounds to JerryWorld in Arlington. As soon as the BCS gets around to adding another game, the Cotton Bowl will be well positioned . . . Kentucky basketball coach Billy Gillispie raised more than a few eyebrows last week when he reached out to an 8th grader and a 9th grader for verbal scholarship commitments. The 8th grader is Michael Avery, a guard from Thousand Oaks, Calif. The 9th grader is Vincent Zollo, a forward from Greenfield, Ohio. Kentucky president Lee Todd, by the way, endorsed the move, “telling USA Today, “I can’t fault coach for trying to build a pipeline.”

Sports editor Bob West can be e-mailed at rdwest@usa.net. His Sportsrap radio show airs Mondays at 8:05 p.m. on KLVI (560-AM).