He Stole the Show in Supporting Role

Actor Harold Sylvester’s 40th birthday was last Friday, but it was his 20th that was his most memorable.

On Feb. 10, 1969, it was his responsibility, as a member of the Tulane basketball team, to guard Louisiana State’s Pete Maravich.

Sylvester held Maravich to 66 points as Tulane won, 110-94. But Friday’s Morning Briefing, mentioning the game as a 20-years-ago-today item, had LSU winning.

Said Sylvester, with a laugh: “It was bad enough to wake up on my birthday and be reminded of that game. What made it worse was to see that it said we lost.

“What I remember most about that game is that Associated Press sent out a picture across the country of Maravich driving around me for two of the 66 points.

“Friends were calling me from all over, saying, ‘Hey, Harold, I thought you used to be a good player.’ ”

Sylvester, whose movie credits include “Officer and a Gentleman,” “Uncommon Valor,” and “Innerspace,” said he guarded Maravich six times during his career, never with much success.

However, when Tulane beat LSU, 101-99, in two overtimes earlier in 1969, Sylvester had 32 points and 22 rebounds.

Before last weekend’s National Basketball Assn. long-distance shooting competition, the Boston Celtics’ Danny Ainge said his biggest incentive was to shut up teammate Larry Bird, a three-time winner.

Ainge finished eighth in a field of nine, making 11 of 25 shots.

Asked if he expected to get a phone call from Bird, Ainge said: “Any abuse I get, I deserve. I stunk.”

Trivia time: Who leads the NBA in three-point shooting percentage?

Ben Johnson, stripped of his Olympic gold medal after testing positive for a steroid, lost a number of endorsement contracts because of it.

But a Swedish beverage producer reportedly paid Johnson $50,000 to do a 30-second commercial in which he drinks fruit juice in a locker room after a workout.

Swedish Olympic speed skating champion Tomas Gustafson said: “I was shocked. Something is wrong when a Swedish company lets him do a commercial when we are intensifying the fight against drugs in sports. It’s a lot of money and I think it could have been used much better.”

Sigvard Hallstedt, a spokesman for the juice company, has a different view. “This is an excellent thing,” he said. “The idea is to show him drinking the real stuff without any strange additives.”

Trivia answer: Miami Heat guard Jon Sundvold, who is 32 of 55 (58.2%).

Quotebook

USC basketball Coach George Raveling, scanning the newspaper Monday with an eye on future schedules: “I’m one of the few coaches in the country who reads the standings from the bottom up.”