Arizona State’s Tamburo Quits as Athletic Director Amid a Drug Controversy

Arizona State Athletic Director Dick Tamburo has resigned effective today, university President J. Russell Nelson said Tuesday night.

No immediate reason was given for Tamburo’s resignation, but it came in the wake of newspaper reports that several of the school’s baseball players had been taking a mood-altering drug prescribed by a campus psychiatrist.

Nelson, in a statement released through a university spokeswoman, said Tamburo’s resignation “requires immediate reorganization” of the athletic department. Nelson said he had named deputy athletic director Frank Sackton as interim athletic director.

Tamburo, 54, was hired by Arizona State in 1980. He had served as an assistant football coach at the school from 1958-66.

The Sun Devil football and basketball programs both had losing records this season, and the baseball team is in danger of its first losing season in 25 years.

Auburn basketball Coach Sonny Smith, who last month announced that he would quit at the end of the season to coach at East Tennessee State, has changed his mind and will stay at Auburn.

Auburn Athletic Director Pat Dye said: “Coach Smith has asked to withdraw his resignation, and we believe it is in the best interest of our basketball program to have him remain at Auburn.”

Smith said he put “a lot of thought and consideration” into the decision. He informed East Tennessee State, which had offered him a package deal, he would be unable to return to the school where he once coached. Auburn was 22-12 this season.

Bruce Curry, former World Boxing Council super lightweight champion, was ordered freed from a state mental facility in Sparks, Nev., by a district court judge in Las Vegas after a three-psychiatrist panel ruled that Curry was no longer mentally ill.

Curry, who spent six months at Lake’s Crossing state mental institution, had been ordered there after being found innocent of an attempted murder charge by reason of insanity last September.

Curry, 27, had been charged with attempted murder for shooting at his former trainer, Jesse Ried, in February of 1984. Curry, who lost his championship to Billy Costello in Beaumont, Tex., blamed Ried for the loss.

Dr. Carlos Brandenburg recommended that Curry, who plans to return to Fort Worth, Tex., to live with his mother, continue to receive psychiatric treatment.

In what could be a good sign for the 1988 Olympics, top Soviet figure skaters will perform in South Korea Friday, the first time Soviet athletes have visited that nation since 1945.

The trip, part of an international exhibition tour, also will be the Soviet Union’s first cultural visit to South Korea since the shooting down of a Korean Air Lines jet in 1983.

Names in the News

Chris Mullin, 6-6 senior swingman for St. John’s who earlier was named winner of the Los Angeles Athletic Club’s John Wooden Award as the nation’s top college basketball player, has also been named Player of the Year by United Press International. Mullin received 85 votes from UPI’s board of sportswriters and sportscasters, while Georgetown center Patrick Ewing was second with 39 votes.

Cleveland Indians President Peter Bavasi was expected to return to work in two or three weeks after having a ruptured disk removed.

Boxing promoter Lloyd Blackmoore, who managed his brother Lennox Blackmoore, a one-time welterweight contender, was shot and killed at a nightclub in Georgetown, Guyana, police said. Three people, including two women, were detained for questioning.