Two Plead Guilty in Tulane Point-Shaving Case

Two Tulane students indicted in connection with the Green Wave basketball point-shaving scandal pleaded guilty Tuesday in a surprise court appearance at New Orleans.

David Rothenberg, 22, a student from Wilton, Conn., and Bobby Thompson, 21, a member of the team from New Orleans, will be sentenced July 9, after an investigation by the state’s Department of Corrections.

Thompson pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit sports bribery, Rothenberg to two counts of conspiracy and one count of possession of cocaine. The conspiracy count carries a maximum sentence of 2 1/2 years in prison and a $2,500 fine. The possession count carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

Allen Van Winkle, basketball coach at Southern Illinois University, resigned after disclosure that one of his assistants was aware of under-the-table payments to the Salukis’ star center.

Van Winkle’s resignation followed by four days the resignation of Stafford Stephenson, an assistant coach who admitted he knew about weekly $200 payments being made to 6-11 center Kenny Perry.

Carbondale chiropractor Roy S. White told university officials last Thursday that he agreed to the payments in the summer of 1982, when Perry transferred from the University of Evansville.

Nolan Richardson, the most successful coach in Tulsa basketball history, was named coach at the University of Arkansas. Richardson, 43, will be the first black head coach in any men’s sports in Southwest Conference history.

He will succeed Eddie Sutton, who left Arkansas last week to become coach at Kentucky.

Oscar Williams Jr., a former guard at Serra and Morningside High Schools, was convicted Tuesday of first-degree murder in the 1982 shooting death of his wife.

A District Court jury deliberated about five hours before returning the verdict against Williams, who later set school assist records at Utah State, where he played from 1974 to 1978.

Prosecutors contended that Williams, 29, killed his wife to collect $220,000 in life insurance benefits. Evidence showed he applied for an additional $150,000 life insurance policy on his wife eight days before she was killed.

Williams, a New York Life Insurance Co. salesman at the time, collected $70,000 of the policies following the slaying, authorities said.

Toy Williams, a 24-year-old model, was shot five or six times on Feb. 12, 1982.

Jimmy Connors, who defaulted his match with John McEnroe in the final of the $325,000 Volvo Grand Prix tennis tournament Sunday because of a torn muscle in his lower back, will play in the Challenge Series Monday night at the Forum, according to a Forum spokesman.

Forum officials talked to Connors’ agent Tuesday and were told that Connors should be ready to play. Connors’ trainer, Bill Norris, had originally said that Connors would be sidelined for a week to 10 days.

The Los Angeles Raiders will conduct their summer training camp at Oxnard, starting in mid-July, according to terms of a contract signed by the club and the coastal city. The team, which trained at Santa Rosa for 22 years, will be housed at the Oxnard Hilton Hotel and will practice at a facility to be built adjacent to the hotel.

Former major league pitcher Bill Lee’s attempted comeback with the Pacific Coast League’s Phoenix Giants has ended. Lee had signed a personal-services contract with Phoenix owner Martin Stone.

The outspoken Lee, who starred with the Boston Red Sox in the 1970s, complained earlier that he was not being given a fair chance to make the team. Stone said, however, that he was satisfied that Lee, 38, had been treated fairly and that Lee was partly to blame for not making the team since he twice missed pitching assignments when he went on promotional tours for his new book, “The Wrong Stuff.”

Names in the News

Larry Farmer, newly appointed Weber State basketball coach has named his former assistant at UCLA, Craig Impelman, and veteran Wildcat assistant Dick Hunsaker to his staff.

Mary Lou Retton, Edwin Moses, Carl Lewis and Greg Louganis were elected to the United States Olympic Hall of Fame during the annual meeting of the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Assn. at Salisbury, N.C.

Bobby Chacon, a former two-time World Boxing Council champion, has pleaded not guilty in Oroville, Calif., to a charge that he violated probation by drinking alcoholic beverages. Chacon, 33, was serving three years’ probation for wife-beating when he was arrested for drunken driving March 22.