49er Owner Gives ‘Best Coach in Football’ a Big Raise

Edward DeBartolo Jr., owner of the Super Bowl-winning San Francisco 49ers, said at the National Football League meetings in Phoenix that he has given Bill Walsh a raise.

The increase reportedly will boost the coach’s salary, which was $400,000 a year, to between $800,000 and $1 million a year.

The amount would make Walsh the highest-paid head coach in professional football and one of the highest-paid coaches in all sports.

“Let me put it this way,” DeBartolo said. “Bill Walsh is the best coach in football, and his contract will reflect it.”

On April 15, Jimmy Connors and Ivan Lendl will kick off a year-long Forum Championship Tennis Series that will also include John McEnroe and Yannick Noah in future matches.

The six-match round-robin series will contninue into April, 1986, with the winner receiving $100,000 and the runner-up $40,000.

Arkansas basketball coach Eddie Sutton opened his pregame radio show Thursday by telling fans that he would remain at Arkansas for years to come.

Sutton made the statement a day after Auburn Athletic Director Pat Dye said that Sutton contacted Auburn about a coaching vacancy.

“As long as the University of Arkansas wants me, I plan on coaching the Razorbacks,” Sutton said.

Twenty-five people, including fifteen policemen, were taken to a hospital in Luton, England, after some of the worst violence ever seen at a British soccer match.

The referee stopped the domestic Football Assn. Cup match between Luton and the London club Millwall after hundreds of Millwall fans charged across the field toward the Luton stands, apparently because they thought insufficient space had been allotted to the 8,000 visitors.

After 25 minutes, the match resumed.

Neil Bonnett broke the Atlanta International Raceway qualifying record on the way to winning the pole position for Sunday’s Coca-Cola 500 Grand National stock car race at Hampton, Ga.

Bonnett took the top qualifying spot with a lap average of 170.298 m.p.h. around Atlanta’s 1.522-mile, high-banked oval.

His speed broke the track qualifying mark of 170.198 set last November by Bill Elliott. Names in the News

Rod Dixon of New Zealand, winner of the 1983 New York Marathon, will be among the more than 6,000 runners in the Tom Sullivan 10K Sunday at 8 a.m. at the Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance.

Race car driver John Paul Jr., 25, charged with being a member of a marijuana smuggling ring headed by his father, John Paul Sr., had his trial date postponed to June 3.

St. Louis Blues center Doug Wickenheiser was hit by a car Wednesday night while boarding a team bus. He underwent surgery for ligament damage to his left knee and is out for the season.

Laker and King owner Jerry Buss has accepted the position of chairman of the advisory board of the United States committee for the World Games for the Deaf. The games are scheduled in Los Angeles July 10-20.

The Oakland Invaders, having lost starting tight end Lewis Gilbert to a knee injury two weeks ago, signed former UCLA standout Paul Bergmann to a two-year contact, a team spokesman said.

Four-time national driving champion and Indianapolis racing veteran Mario Andretti was among the latest entrants in this year’s Indianapolis 500, raising the field for the 69th annual race to 38.