SI View The Week in TV Sports

Highlights

SATURDAY 11/3

Sixers at Wizards
NBC 6:30 Reebok vs. Nike. Cornrows vs. clean pate. 40 Bars vs.
Space Jam. Tonight's game starring Philadelphia's Allen Iverson
and Washington's Michael Jordan prompted NBC to begin its
schedule of national telecasts, which normally opens with a
Christmas Day doubleheader, earlier so it could air Air's home
debut--against a potential World Series Game 6 on Fox (7:30 p.m.),
no less. The broadcast will also introduce the Marv Albert-Bill
Walton-Steve Jones announcing team, so expect plenty of "Oh,
that's terr-ible"s from Walton when the Wizards are down by 20
late in the game.

MONDAY 11/5

Broncos at Raiders
ABC 9 PM Hell hath no fury like a coach scorned. Four games into
the 1989 season Oakland boss Al Davis fired Mike Shanahan. Six
years later Shanahan became the coach at Denver and ever since
has tortured his old employer as if he were Road Runner
tormenting Wile E. Coyote. Shanahan's Broncos are 11-1 against
Davis's team, including 5-0 on Monday Night Football, formerly
Raiders turf.

THURSDAY 11/8

Coaches vs. Cancer IKON Classic
ESPN2 THURSDAY 6:30 PM AND 9 PM That shrill you hear isn't a test
of the Emergency Broadcast System. It's Dick Vitale, back for the
opener of the college basketball season, a doubleheader from
Madison Square Garden in which Florida tips off against Temple
and Arizona faces Maryland. (The championship game is Friday at 9
p.m.) These games will feature plenty of PTPers, especially on a
Terrapins squad--led by senior guard Juan Dixon--that's expected to
make another deep run in the NCAA tournament.

ALL TIMES EASTERN. SCHEDULES ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE.

B/W PHOTO: ABC PHOTOGRAPHY ARCHIVES

COLOR PHOTO

Don't Miss

SUNDAY 11/4

Classic Brian Piccolo Night
ESPN CLASSIC 7 PM Thirty years ago James Caan (above, left) and
Billy Dee Williams (right) made tough guys all over America weep.
Playing Brian Piccolo and Gale Sayers in the TV movie Brian's
Song, Caan and Williams captured the unlikely interracial
friendship that developed between the Bears' running backs before
Piccolo died of cancer in 1970 at age 26. Tonight's look at the
film begins with a heart-tugging, hourlong SportsCentury
documentary on Piccolo featuring interviews with Sayers (who has
seen Brian's Song only once, because "I lived it") and Piccolo's
widow, Joy. That's followed by an hourlong NFL 2Night examining,
among other topics, the impact the film had on race relations in
the league. The evening concludes with the showing of the
two-hour movie. Bring Kleenex.

THE ZAPPER

Hey, Fox, this isn't the World Cup, it's the World Series, so
why the tasteless "virtual" ads and promos behind the plate when
there's copious commercial time between innings? It's virtually
impossible to focus on the pitch with Calista Flockhart's wide
eyes distracting us.... Was that Nebraska's radio team
describing Eric Crouch's fourth-quarter score against Oklahoma
(a call played minutes later by ABC-TV) or three berserk
Cornhuskers fans?... At sho.com/scboxing you can weigh in with
your round-by-round scoring of Saturday's Kostya Tszyu-Zab Judah
bout (Showtime, 10 p.m.).