Rock On. . .

Career (meno)pause

Utah women's basketball coach Elaine Elliott made it official Wednesday that she's retiring.

Sort of official and sort of retiring.

The Utes' head coach for the last 27 years is taking a one-year leave of absence, following her 20th 20-win season.

Too bad. Rock On will miss the (women's) locker room humor.

"I sort of made a goal of not crying," said Elliott, turning emotional at her semi-farewell press conference, "but for anyone who has been hanging out in menopause, (crying's) not a problem."

Yesteryear calling

KSL-TV reported last week a Provo man bought a used cell phone from Deseret Industries and after powering it up, realized it previously belonged to sports tycoon Dave Checketts.

Among those on Checketts' contacts list: Bud Selig, Marv Albert, Patrick Ewing, Tom Brokaw and Wayne Gretzky. However, the buyer said he didn't want to capitalize by selling the phone on eBay, and he planned on returning it to Checketts.

Good for him, but honestly, who wants to contact those golden oldies, anyway?

Give Rock On the number of LeBron James and we'll talk.

Block out

Former NBA center Shawn Bradley recently told the Deseret News he plans to run for the Utah Legislature.

"I've always been interested in politics," he said, "and I would like to make a difference in people's lives."

At 7-foot-6, he'll certainly make a difference in the life of whoever sits behind him in the House chamber.

Stewing over loss

USU basketball coach Stew Morrill said one reason his team didn't advance in the NCAA Tournament this year was because his team couldn't invoke the "knucklehead" factor when playing Texas A&M.

Morrill said often teams can exploit an opponent's weaknesses by taking advantage of its dumb decision-making. But A&M showed "a zero knucklehead factor."

Rock On figures the only real knuckleheads are the people wanting to expand the NCAA Tournament to 96 teams.

Old home week

This note was unearthed a few weeks ago from an Associated Press story on the Jazz: "Utah is 10-12 on the road, and will play 19 of its final 31 games away from the Salt Palace."

Considering the Jazz haven't played in the Salt Palace since 1991, you have to ask: Where are they playing their road games, these days, the Cow Palace?

e-mail: rock@desnews.com