Tucson Sports Editor, Reporter Resign After Erroneous Story on Lute Olson Is Published

The sports editor and a sportswriter for the Arizona Daily Star, Tucson’s morning newspaper, have resigned in the wake of an erroneous story about the University of Arizona’s purchase of sports uniforms.

Sports editor Sam Pollak and reporter Rick Dymond resigned Thursday, rather than accept positions of lesser responsibility, Executive Editor Frank E. Johnson said.

Johnson said that Pollak and Dymond had been the staff members principally responsible for a story published Wednesday.

The article erroneously said that basketball uniforms had been bought from a company that Arizona basketball Coach Lute Olson served as a consultant.

Olson, reached Thursday night in Lexington, Ky., called the article “the worst piece of journalism, the most vicious attack with the most distorted facts in my memory.”

The Star ran a correction Thursday, saying that the Sand-Knit uniforms had been sold to the university in 1983, but that MacGregor Sporting Goods--the company that hired Olson as a consultant on its advisory board--had not purchased the Sand-Knit division of Medalist Industries until 1984.