Alabama Lands Swimmer Who Defected

East German defector Jens-Peter Berndt has been admitted to the University of Alabama and could compete on the school swimming team by this weekend, Coach Don Gambril said Tuesday.

“I’ve been notified that he has passed admission tests to be enrolled,” Gambril said. “Now, the next step is that he hopefully will be declared eligible by the NCAA, because without any transcripts from his former school or anything, they have to evaluate the tests that he’s taken.”

Gambril, who coached the successful United States Olympic swim team last year, said if the NCAA rules Berndt eligible in time, the East German would compete Saturday in a meet against Auburn.

Berndt, 21, of Potsdam, hastily decided Jan. 7 at the Oklahoma City airport to slip away from the East German swim team as it prepared to board a flight home from a swim meet at the University of Arkansas.

The U.S. Immigration Service granted the swimmer asylum within a few hours, and three days later he came to Alabama on an official recruiting visit. Berndt spent most of Monday taking admission tests, including a high school equivalency exam.

The NCAA has banned the practice of issuing complimentary tickets to athletes.

Under the new rule, which goes into effect Aug. 1, each athlete can designate up to four people--relatives or fellow students--for inclusion on a pass list but can not receive actual tickets.

The current rule permits an athlete four complimentary tickets and prohibits selling the tickets.

In another key development, the NCAA’s postseason football committee was given the power to levy fines against bowl games that violate NCAA rules. However, delegates to the 79th NCAA convention turned down a proposal that would have done away with the late November date for issuing bowl invitations and thrown the selection process wide open. The Dodgers said they have come to contract terms with five young players for the 1985 season, including relief pitcher Ken Howell.

Also agreeing to terms were outfielders Cecil Espy, Lemmie Miller, Ralph Bryant, and Mike Ramsey.

Howell, 24, was 5-5 with six saves last year with the Dodgers after being called up midway through the season. More recently, he was selected Most Valuable Player of the Dominican Republic Winter League, where his 16 saves set a league record. Former racing driver John L. Paul Sr., a fugitive until his arrest last week in Switzerland, has been indicted on federal charges that he led a marijuana smuggling ring that brought more than 200,000 pounds of the drug into the United States from 1977-81, a federal prosecutor said.

Paul had been a fugitive from attempted murder charges for more than a year when he was arrested Jan. 11 at Geneva. A magistrate in Milan, Italy, has dropped charged against Italian boxer Maurizio Lupino, who had been accused of manslaughter after an opponent died from injuries received during a bout.

Salvatore La Serra, an unbeaten Italian bantamweight, collapsed at the end of an eight-round match against Lupino Dec. 10, 1983, and died 23 days later after being in a coma. A former Clemson track coach has decided to cooperate with investigators in a probe of drug use by athletes because “he thinks it’s in his best interest and everyone’s best interest to cooperate at this time,” his attorney said.

Stanley Narewski, who resigned last month, told investigators he gave a prescription drug to a cross-country runner whose death led to a two-state investigation of drug use among athletes, said his attorney, Gedney M. Howe of Charleston, S.C.

Narewski met with State Law Enforcement Division agents Monday and “explained the circumstances and context in which prescription drugs he has knowledge of were distributed to athletes,” Howe said. Names in the News Kansas basketball Coach Jack Hartman, who suffered a heart attack Saturday night, should be able to return to work in six weeks, doctors said.