I had the opportunity to sign off on a movie about the 1979 Gulf Shores incident and I asked my managing editor at The Bee, Frank McCulloch, his thoughts. I have never met a more sound and skilled newspaperman than Frank McCulloch. Of all the people I have sought for opinions in my life, Frank is at the top of the newspaper food chain.

I'll tell you a story, Frank said, and then you decide.

In the 60s Frank was the Saigon bureau chief for TIME magazine during the Vietnam War. He wrote a story for LIFE magazine on this renegade ex-U.S. Army officer living far up a delta, neither U.S. or VC. Had his own army.

About a week or so after the piece ran in LIFE, a bearded dude walked into the Saigon office and asked for Frank. His name was Francis Ford Coppola and he wanted to do a movie based on the article. Frank would get full editorial control.

The movie - "Apocalypse Now" - bore scant resemblance to the piece Frank wrote.

I knew I might be made the same promise and suffer the same result. And when I heard John Belushi was going to play me, all I thought was this: This was going to be a Saturday Night Live skit set in southern Alabama. Not to mention Belushi had his own substance-abuse problems. So whatever integrity I thought the movie might have was dispelled. Hollywood, as we all know, somehow could turn a funeral into stand-up comedy.

I hope I don't have to go another 30 years without talking to Kenny Stabler. Fact is, I would like to sit down with him now and talk at length, maybe even sign a document forbidding any public discussion. I am a curious person and I would like to know some off-the-record things. I would like to know that if he had to do it again, would he invite me to Gulf Shores?

Since the column I ran this morning several people have asked me if I think Stabler should be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He shouldn't, not because he wasn't great. Stabler was a great quarterback but he wasn't great long enough. He needed superior longevity and he didn't have it and I would have voted for him if he had.

But I have truly no ill will toward him and I say that without joking. Life is too short. I know both of us have better things to do than carrying grudges against the other.

That's what Dawne Cardinalli of Santa Rosa said when she saw Ron Miller, 61, make a dive from the springboard at the Finley Aquatic Center. Cardinalli has an 11-year old daughter, Hannah, who also is a member of the Santa Rosa Diving Club.

"To me, when I see Ron," Cardinalli said, "I feel that nothing is unreachable. It is incredible what he is doing. And I think it's good for the kids on the team to see what he's doing, that as an adult he can still relate to them by diving."

Miller, who had never dove before, took up the sport a year ago. While he has yet to compete in a meet, Miller makes every practice, does every training drill.

The next oldest member on the team is Jen Meyer, the former Ursuline diving star who will dive next year for UC Davis.

LeBron James or Kobe Bryant, Sil Coccia, basketball coach at Sonoma Valley, had a well-thought out answer.

"For the first 46 minutes," Coccia said, "I would take LeBron. For the last two minutes I would take Kobe. Kobe is the best finisher in basketball. He's a stone-cold killer even in the last 10 minutes. He's an assassin. I am a big Kobe guy."

And Troy Baker of Santa Rosa High enjoys the stares and the ohmigoshs when he throws the shot putt farther than the sterotypical body types of 6-foot-4, 250 pounds.

"We formed a line at the MOC and everyone thought Jacob (Gowan, CN) who was standing at the other end had the best throw," Baker said. "When they called my name and so many people looked my way and said, 'What?' Speed and technique go a long way into throwing the shot. Sure, it would nice to have weight behind you but that's no guarantee."

Even his throwing coach, Paul Troppy, said Baker is not strong.

"But when he releases the shot," Troppy said, "you can't even see his right arm, he is moving it so fast."