— It’s not easy to leave Cowboys owner Jerry Jones speechless, but Saints coach Sean Payton may have done it last Saturday night. As a story first reported by Sports Illustrated’s Peter King goes, Jones reserved a private room at St. Elmo’s Steakhouse in Indianapolis to wine and dine members of the Cowboys organization attending the NFL combine. Jethro even phoned ahead to make one special request — a magnum of his favorite wine, Caymus Special Selection cabernet sauvignon. On Friday night, Payton and the Saints staff showed up at St. Elmo’s, and the coach requested a magnum of Caymus Special Selection cabernet sauvignon. He was told, sorry, we only have one bottle left and it’s reserved for Jerry Jones.  After some arm twisting, sweet talking and pointing out the Saints were the Super Bowl champions, Payton got the magnum of wine. He also tipped the staff well enough to have them place the empty bottle on Jones’ table the following evening with a note that read: “WHO DAT! World Champions XLIV. Sean Payton.” . . . The economy may be tough, and NFL owners may be threatening players with a lockout in 2011 if they don’t agree to take a lesser percentage of the bottom line, but it hasn’t slowed the spending habits of Redskins owner Dan Snyder. Sndyer, who has made a mess of the Redskins, and seriously alienated the team’s fan base, recently dropped $600,000 on two alligator leather desks with matching alligator-skin chairs for his offices at FedEx Field. That ought to make finishing last in the NFC East more palatable for the most annoying macho midget this side of Jerry Glanville.

Despite Lamar State College-Port Arthur’s Saturday loss in the Region XIV Junior College tournament, the job 26-year-old Matt Cross did in his first season as head coach is about as good as you will see anywhere. Considering the late date of his hiring, the fact he was practically starting from scratch with players and the fact the Seahawks play in one of the nation’s toughest JC conferences, to go 20-10 and grab the No. 4 seed in the post-season tourney was truly amazing. Among those impressed was Lamar University AD Billy Tubbs, who invited Cross and his players to the Cardinals’ final home game Wednesday night and spoke to the team at halftime . . . It’s firing season for basketball coaches whose teams have not done well over a period of time and former LU coach Mike Deane was among the first to get the boot. Wagner College pulled the plug on Deane, after a 5-26 season that included a 3-15 reading in conference play. His Seahawks were No. 342 out of 347 teams in the latest USA Today Sagarin ratings of Division 1 teams. It’s probably the end of the line for Deane, who owns the distinction of being the last team to take Lamar to the NCAA tournament . . . The University of Houston’s Tom Penders is another coach under fire, with the Cougars well back in the pack in Conference USA in Penders’ sixth season. Some UH fans, with former Texas A&M and Kentucky coach Billy Gillispie trolling for a job, are pining for him to replace Penders. The reason it may not happen is that the school can’t afford the $450,000 it would cost to buy up the remaining two years of Penders’ contract. UH entered its final regular season game Saturday night at Tulane tied for sixth place in Conference USA at 7-8. The Cougars were 15-14 overall and 116-75 in six seasons under Penders. Average attendance is an abysmal 3,178 . . .

If the Houston Chronicle’s long time NFL writer John McClain is on target, and he usually is, West Orange-Stark safety Earl Thomas could very well be the Texans’ top choice in next month’s NFL draft. McClain has projected the Texans will either take Fresno State running back Ryan Matthews or Thomas with the 20th pick. Thomas’ stock, which has been high all along, went up after he ran a 4.53 and 4.44 in the 40 at the NFL combine, and bench pressed 225 pounds an eye-opening 21 times . . . It would be surprising if many teams come knocking on the door of LaDainian Tomlinson, even though the recently released San Diego Chargers running back is No. 8 on the NFL’s all-time rushing list with 12,490 yards. Tomlinson, 30, is a high-maintenance player on the downside of his career but one who still perceives himself as being worthy of a big salary. He reminds me a lot of Emmitt Smith, who couldn’t accept reality and finished his career as a mere shadow of himself playing for the Arizona Cardinals . . . Word out of the NFL combine was that the league may finally be ready to partially address its sudden death overtime rule that has needed to be changed for years. Expected to be presented by the seven member competition committee is a proposal that would allow both teams to have at least one possession, provided the team that gets the ball first doesn’t score a touchdown. The change, however, would be for playoff games only.

Nobody has had more fun at Tiger Woods’ expense than radio shock jock Howard Stern. Stern’s latest is a March 10 beauty pageant seeking to identify Woods’ best mistress. Four of Tiger’s alleged lounge lizards have taken the bait — a $100,000 prize — to come on Stern’s show and be judged in three categories: swimsuit, personality and talent. If you are familiar with Stern, who is as crude as it gets, some of the questions are going to be beyond X-rated . . . Rumblings out of China indicate the Rockets injured star Yao Ming could trigger an international incident, if his wife delivers their first child this summer in Houston instead of back in Beijing. If the child is born in the United States, it would automatically become an American citizen. Yao, who spends a lot of time in Houston rehabbing his foot, is yet to say where the big event will take place. One thing that seems reasonably sure is that the baby girl, with a father who is 7-6, a mother who is 6-2 and grandparents who are over 6-feet, is going to be TALL . . . With the University of Texas having become only the fifth team in the history of the Associated Press poll to go from No. 1 to unranked, a quote by Longhorns coach Rick Barnes in ESPN The Magazine isn’t going to sit well with the big cigars who are heavy donors to the program. “We would love to win a national championship, but we’re not obsessed with it because we’re obsessed with these guys trying to live their NBA dream,” said Barnes. I can’t imagine Mack Brown saying he’s more concerned with players’ NFL dreams than winning national championships.

This weekend marks the 30th anniversary of Lamar University’s greatest basketball achievement — reaching the NCAA Sweet 16. On March 6, 1980, Billy Tubbs’ Southland Conference champs took out No. 17 ranked Weber State, 87-86, on its home floor in Ogden, Utah in the opening round. Mike Olliver sank 17-of-26 shots, many of them bombs from near downtown Ogden, to pace the Cardinals with 35 points. Less than 48 hours later, Olliver and B.B. Davis scored 18 points each to help LU stun No. 5 ranked Oregon State, 81-77. After leading Clemson at halftime a week later,  and for much of the second half, Lamar faded late and fell, 74-66, one game shy of playing UCLA to go to the Final Four . . . Think John Calipari is not popular in Kentucky, after restoring some of the school’s basketball luster in his first season as head coach? With the Wildcats having been ranked No. 1 part of the season,  and in line for a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tourney, the owners of Maker’s Mark, a Loretto, Ky., based whiskey company, announced it’s planning a limited edition bottle of its product bearing Calipari’s likeness on the label. The 24,000 bottles, which will sell for a whopping $49, are to become available April 2. Calipari is scheduled for — get this — a bottle signing on Friday, April 9 at Keenland race track in Lexington. Imagine what scalpers — yes, I said scalpers — will get if Kentucky wins the NCAA championship on April 5 . . . The Stephen Jackson Academy in downtown Port Arthur has entered into an interesting partnership with Mid-County Taekwondo that will provide reduced rates for anyone interesting in learning Taekwondo. A ribbon cutting is planned for  4 p.m. Tuesday at the Jackson Academy at 235 Procter. Lessons are Tuesday and Thursdays at 5 p.m. for juniors and 6 p.m. for adults. Call 724-6668 for more information.

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