Belle Oaks golf pro/superintendent Bryan Jackson got a graphic picture of how folks feel about him Saturday as 130 golfers braved bone-chilling conditions to particpate in a fund-raising tournament to help offset his rising medical expenses from breast cancer treatment. Especially impressive was the fact none of the headliner celebrities begged off because of a wind chill factor in the low 30s. Early indications are the bottom line from donations, raffle tickets sold on a golf cart, a Friday night auction of celebrities and donated items and tournament entry fees will crowd $30,000. Noteworthy from the auction was Chris Stroud bringing $1,500, a Tony Romo autographed football going for $500 and a Jamaal Charles autographed Kansas City Chiefs jersey selling for $475. I’ll have a lot more on the tournament, including the winners, on Wednesday’s golf page . . . Among the countless spinoffs of the New Orleans Saints beating Minnesota for the NFC Championship was the day-after absentee rate in city and parish schools. The 44,000 student Jefferson Parish public school system, for instance, reported 8,800 Monday absentees, compared to 3,500 on a typical day. Area private schools also reported a similiar jump in absences. As a result of that, school officals throughout the New Orleans region are considering canceling classes on the day after the Super Bowl . . . From a pure football standpoint, after watching the Vikings push the Saints around and basically give away a game they dominated and should have won by two touchdowns, my first inclination is to say Indianapolis will prevail in the Super Bowl by 10 points or more. It’s a thought strongly enhanced by the Petyon Manning factor. To write off the Saints, however, is to ignore the intangible of desinty that a lot of folks tend to scoff at. Not me. Taking into account the Saints are both good and destined, and there’s probably some voodoo in the mix, my pick is New Orleans 31-27.

Baseball fans need to mark March 2 on their calendar. Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr, aka baseball’s “Iron Man,” will be speaking at Lamar State College’s Parker Center as part of the school’s distinguished lecture series. A 19-time all-star, Ripken broke Lou Gehrig’s record of playing in 2,131 consecutive games and stretched it to 2,632 before the Baltimore Orioles finally took the field without him. Ripken swept into the Hall of Fame with the third highest percentage of the vote ever accorded a player on the first ballot. LSC-PA officials are hoping for a big turnout from the youth baseball community for Ripken’s 7 p.m. talk. Admission is free . . . One of the most fun things about the Super Bowl involve the proposition bets. Some of the props you can get on Bodog.com include: Over/under on how many times CBS shows Reggie Bush’s girlfriend Kim Kardashian. The number is 2.5. Over/under (2) on number of CBS shots of Bourbon Street during the game. Over/under (2.5) on how many times Archie Manning appears on the screen. Over/under (2.5) on Hurricane Katrina mentions. Odds on whom the Super Bowl MVP thanks first during the on-field trophy presentation; God (4-to-5) family (11-to-2), teammates (8-to-5), coach (10-to-1) . . . I’ve never met anybody who didn’t have good things to say about Kendrick Perkins, the Ozen ex who jumped from high school to the NBA. Underscoring the vibe Perkins gives off is this observaton from long-time NBA writer Bob Ryan of the Boston Globe in a recent column. “Kendrick Perkins is what every GM hopes for when he takes an 18-year-old kid in the NBA draft. He’s now a wily 25-year-old vet. Trouble is, unlike Kendrick, most of the young’uns in question posess neither the common sense to know what they don’t know nor the requisite work ethic to learn it.”

After Jamaal Charles’ milestone of going over 1,100 rushing yards on the fewest carries (190) of any player in NFL history, a guy on a Kansas City Chiefs website worked up a chart with the names of backs who topped, 1,000, 1,200, 1,300 yards, etc., in the fewest attempts. Here’s what he came up with: Beattie Feathers (119 carries, 1004 yards): Jim Brown (215 carries, 1,257 yards); Adrian Peterson (238, 1,341); Jim Taylor (272, 1,474); Jim Brown (252, 1,527); Frank Gore (312, 1,695); Larry Johnson (336, 1,750); Jim Brown (291, 1,863); Earl Cambell (373, 1,934) and O.J. Simpson (332, 2003). That’s some pretty impressive names for our guy Jamaal to be linked with. And don’t be surprised if he bumps one or more of them off the list before he’s done . . . McNeese State has some interesting contrasts on its football schedule next season. The Cowboys host Lamar’s start-up program in their season opener on Sept. 4, then play at Missouri the next week. On Oct. 16, McNeese travels to LSU for a first ever game against the Tigers. It is also the first time LSU has scheduled a game against a Louisiana school that’s a member of the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). The FCS used to be known as Division 1-AA . . . Believe it or not, there’s still a guy bouncing around the NFL who played against Lamar when the school was fielding a football team in the 1980s. Matt Stover, who will be kicking for the Colts in the Super Bowl, booted field goals of 19, 25 and 46 yards to help Louisiana Tech to a 39-30 victory in Cardinal Stadium on Nov. 1, 1986. Many thanks to LU sports information director Rush Wood, a former PA News sports writer, for passing along that nugget.

Trying to anticipate what the University Interscholastic League is going to do with a given district in its biennial realignment is always risky, but vibes are pretty strong on what’s going to happen in District 21-5A. With Baytown Lee dropping to 4A, Kingwood and Atascocita are expected to join Memorial, West, Brook, North Shore, Channelview and Baytown Sterling in a 7-team district. Atascocita, of course, is coached by Memorial’s first head coach, Dean Colbert . . . As far as District 20-4A, there are two main rumors floating. One is that Livingston will be moved elsewhere, leaving a seven-team district and eliminating a travel problem for PN-G, Nederland, Central, Ozen, Vidor, LC-M and Lumberton. The other is that Barbers Hill will replace Livingston. Either option makes more sense than having Livingston in the district. For those interested in in keeping up with the district announcements as they happen Monday, Fox Sports Southwest is televising live at 9 a.m. The realignment show, hosted by Craig Way, will also be streamed on FoxSportsSouthwest.com . . . Two of Todd Dodge’s former stars on his Southlake Carroll powerhouses — Greg McElroy and Garrett Hartley — have authored lifetime memories since the calendar flipped over to 2010. Alabama’s McElroy, though he didn’t put up impressive numbers, was the quarterback of record in the Crimson Tide’s BCS championshp victory over Texas. Hartley, meanwhile, will be long hailed in New Orleans for his 40-yard game-winning field goal in sudden death in the NFC Championship game. For those who didn’t hear about it, Hartley called his dad at 2:30 a.m. last Sunday to tell him he’d had a premonition about winning the game with a 42-yard field goal from the right hash mark. It turned out to be 40 yards from the right hash.

Here’s how drastic the money factor has changed in the Super Bowl. In SB I in 1967, tickets were priced at $6, $10 and $12, the cost for a 30-second television commercial was $42,000 and the winning and losing player’s share was $15,000 and $7,500 respectively. For SB XLIV, tickets are $1,000, $900 and $800, ad rates are $2.8 million and player shares are $83,000 and $42,000. Take note that player compensation didn’t jump anywhere near as dramatically as ticket prices and TV ad rates . . . Florida’s Tim Tebow, who has sparked all kind of debate on whether his skill set will convert to what is required of an NFL quarterback, spent the two weeks leading up to the Senior Bowl undergoing intense training from former NFL QB and coach Zeke Bratkowski. That’s worth mentioning here because the receiver catching most of his passes at Nashville’s D1 Training Center was Texas’ Jordan Shipley . . . Besides making the big dogs squirm, and run from scheduling them, Boise State is known for the blue turf on its home field. Starting next year, the Broncos won’t be the only team playing on a field that’s not green. Eastern Washington announced this past week that it plans to install red turf on its home field in Cheney, Wash. What’s next? Black turf? Orange turf?

Sports editor Bob West can be e-mailed at rdwest@usa.net.