Tryouts

They gave me wristband No. 147 out of about 200. I was standing in line for a casting call from Donald Trump's hit TV show "The Apprentice," and the first problem I noticed was that 99% of the other people were much younger. Then a TV news crew showed up to cover the spectacle at Universal City's theme park, and one woman started to jump for attention. She opened a big envelope while doing a pogo impersonation, pulled out her head shots and held them aloft. I should have gotten some head shots.

The Orange County Breakers, an expansion team of the National Women's Football Assn., have no stadium, no training facilities, no multimillion-dollar television contracts, and, before Saturday, they had no players. "I would have never thought I'd play professional football," said Kalena Johnson, 21, a fitness trainer who along with six other women showed up Saturday at an Irvine neighborhood park for the Breakers' inaugural tryouts All seven made it, but no surprise there.

He came to this annual Dodgertown tryout camp dressed as if he were going to have lunch at a beachfront restaurant. He wore a blue and white designer-type sweat outfit with a gray cap turned backward. They pinned the No. 521 on his back, which isn't the highest or longest he has been assigned because he has twice endured extended jail time in the last two years.

In the age of reality television, success isn't the only ticket. Failure, in fact, has created a new genre of fame. Ask William Hung, a Hong Kong-born student who cut class here last fall to try out for "American Idol." Hung was prepared for the stage fright, the long lines, even the disparaging judges. What he didn't expect was for defeat to turn him into an international cult celebrity.

I don't watch TV much. Of course, I hear news of this TV series or that. "American Idol," "The Bachelor/Bachelorette," "Survivor" and all it has inspired. I hear about them. But basically they go their way and I go mine. I don't criticize them; they don't criticize me. Then along comes a series that describes itself as the ultimate job hunt. And since that is the field in which I have plodded or danced for the past 30 years, the urge to say something has become irresistible.

New Dodger owner Frank McCourt began searching for a new general manager Friday, but the position he hopes to fill by the start of spring training is not yet vacant. In a bizarre and believed-to-be unprecedented twist, McCourt said that current GM Dan Evans would be a candidate ... for his own job.

Ask aspiring professional female football players why they enjoy the sport, and most answer with all the subtlety of a straight-arm: They like knocking their opponents to the ground. Sure, there's satisfaction in throwing a tight spiral or dodging tackles with fancy footwork, but the ultimate thrill comes from the crunch of body armor. "You get to hit people," explained Rachel Gallagher, a security guard and football fanatic who'd gladly trade her work uniform for pads and a helmet.

When her daughter was rejected by this year's Quartz Hill High School cheerleading squad, Liz Smith decided to make a goal-line stand -- in Los Angeles Superior Court. Smith is hoping a judge will force the local school board to fully investigate last spring's tryouts, when her daughter, Kelly, performed an ill-fated routine to the strains of "I Want Candy." The goal, attorney Brian Reed said, is to have cheer coach Tammy Stewart fired.

Re "Santa Ana Ends Lineup for Spots in Basics Schools," Jan. 20: Once again a judicial body in effect has said, "It's unfair to reward those who are willing to take responsibility and initiative to get something they want. The only way to get something is for it to be given to you, and that only by luck of the draw." When this is the law of the land, how do we teach young people the value of work? Of setting goals and priorities? Does this mean that team sports should select players not on the basis of tryouts but on a lottery system?

Almost a year ago, in the frigid, murky waters of the New Melones Reservoir near Sonora, a half-dozen divers and a remote-controlled vessel helped solve a crime more grisly than anyone had expected. Four people from Los Angeles had been kidnapped and missing for days. A fifth had been abducted months earlier, his body -- then unidentified -- found floating in the water.