This day in history: Pacific-8 teams show strong start in preseason games

From 1974: The Pacific-8 conference – later to evolve into the Pac-12 – was showing its dominance in college basketball during preconference matchups.

The Pacific-8 teams had a 40-8 record in nonconference play, having recovered dramatically from a first rocky week.

The Los Angeles schools were particularly impressive, with UCLA at 6-0 and USC at 7-0. Those two schools were ranked No. 3 and No. 7 in the country.

What was the situation with the Gonzaga Bulldogs?

They were in the Big Sky Conference and had just lost a disappointing exhibition game against a team called Athletes in Action, despite leading by 9 points with about four minutes left. Then the Zags “went blank” and ended up losing by 1 point.

From 1924: The Spokane Chronicle breathlessly announced that “another Spokane ‘kid’ is headed for stardom in the movies.”

Sidney Allen Bernstein Jr., 6, “has been cast for an important role in Henry King’s forthcoming screen opus, ‘Sackcloth and Scarlet.’”

He was the son of a former Spokane stockbroker. The family moved to Los Angeles a few months earlier.

“Like all film stars, Master Sidney has a ‘publicity shooter,’ who is none other than Sam W.B. Cohn,” who was the former manager of the Liberty Theater in Spokane, the Chronicle wrote.

The boy’s Hollywood career proved to be brief. The Internet Movie Database credits him with “Sackcloth and Scarlet” and a short film also released in 1925.