Ovett Comes Back With a Victory

Britain’s Steve Ovett, whose track career was considered in jeopardy after he collapsed during the 1,500 meters at the 1984 Olympics, made a comeback Monday at Vigevano, Italy.

Ovett won the 7-kilometer (4.34 miles) “Golden Shoe” race, edging Italy’s Franceso Panetta and Brazil’s Joao da Silva.

The British runner covered the distance in 20 minutes 7.3 seconds over a course that includes stretches of cobblestone streets.

“I feel much better and stronger than I did in Los Angeles last year,” said Ovett, who had a respiratory ailment at that time. “I am still fit. . . . I can still compete at top levels.”

Chapman College women’s basketball Coach Brian Berger has been reprimanded for his unsportsmanlike behavior during a recent Division II championship game, the NCAA announced.

The action resulted from Berger’s conduct during player introductions at the West Regional tournament game between Chapman and Cal Poly Pomona, and for comments Berger made about the Cal Poly coach during a postgame interview session.

Four players in the Atlanta Braves’ farm system have tested positive for drug and alcohol use, but Atlanta Vice President Henry Aaron said the number is not necessarily alarming.

The four positive tests turned up during testing of 175 minor league players last week.

“You could probably test that many people on the street and probably find more than four,” said Aaron, the team’s director of player development.

An assistant coach at Neville High School in Monroe, La., said one of his former players defaulted on repayment of $4,494.35 he loaned the student to attend a prep school, improve his grades and qualify for a major college football scholarship.

State District Judge John Harrison has set a May 1 trial date in Coach Joe Coats’ lawsuit against the former player, Johnny Ray Ambrose, now a second-year wide receiver at the University of Mississippi.

Ambrose said in a pretrial statement that the transaction was not a loan and that Coats never mentioned anything about repayment. Reimbursement was supposed to have come either from LSU or Tulane, according to a deposition by Ambrose’s mother, Anna Jane Ambrose.

“Well, he said that LSU was going to pay Johnny Ray’s way . . . they were going to put it in his personal account and he would write a check so it wouldn’t get LSU in no trouble,” Mrs. Ambrose testified.

The NCAA’s Infractions Committee announced that it has restored the full rights and privileges of NCAA membership to Wichita State University, which was placed on NCAA probation for two years in December, 1981 for violations in its men’s basketball program. In December, 1982, additional NCAA penalties were imposed for violations in the football program.

Names in the News

Dick Laguens, assistant recruiting coordinator at Stanford for the past two years, has been hired to fill the newly created post of recruiting coordinator at USC.

Former Detroit Red Wings owner Bruce Norris has filed for bankruptcy, endangering more than $1 million in deferred salaries owed to six former members of the NHL club, according to a report in the Detroit News.