Basketball Is Abolished at Tulane

Tulane University’s Board of Administrators voted unanimously Thursday to abolish the school’s 72-year-old basketball program.

The move came in the wake of a point-shaving and drug scandal that surfaced last month, and later admissions of NCAA violations by coaches. Many students opposed the termination and accused Tulane President Eamon Kelly of overreacting to the scandal.

Kelly said that abolishing basketball is necessary to salvage the school’s reputation and to prove that academics is the primary focus of the private university.

Meanwhile, Sports Illustrated reported this week that John (Hot Rod) Williams and other Tulane basketball players received payments from alumni totaling about $700 during a three-month period last season.

Williams is one of eight people who have been indicted in the gambling scheme.

The magazine also reported that Williams’ college record contained many failures and listed some of his courses--volleyball, weight training, soccer, beginning gymnastics, racquetball, archery, first-aid and driver education. Last fall, the magazine said, he failed beginning golf.

U.S. Football League Commissioner Harry Usher branded as false rumors that the troubled Los Angeles Express franchise was folding.

“It is just the latest in a series of malicious rumors that have been spread about the Express since I became commissioner,” Usher said.

The report that the Express was about to go under came from New York Sports Phone, a telephone sports news service. Sports Phone said two unnamed NFL executives have been contacted by Express officials in regard to selling player contracts to recoup financial losses.

Denny McLain, baseball’s last 30-game winner, faces sentencing today in Tampa, Fla., from a U.S. district judge who can put him in prison for the rest of his life.

McLain, who won 31 games for Detroit in 1968 and twice received the Cy Young Award, was found guilty last month of loan-sharking, extortion, bookmaking and cocaine possession. He has spent the last month in the Seminole County Jail.

Alabama Atty. Gen. Charles Graddick cleared the way for the city of Birmingham to invest $1 million into the financially strapped Birmingham Stallions of the U.S. Football League. The Stallions have been looking for a majority investor since owner Marvin Warner withdrew support last month.

Team President Jerry Sklar said the team’s 16 minority owners were able to raise an additional $700,000 to keep the team operating, but the money would have run out in “seven to 10 days.”

Graddick said state law prohibited the city from making a direct investment but that it could loan money to the State Fair Authority, which could then invest in the team.

Nashville Sounds Manager Lee Walls was taken to the hospital for treatment of a bleeding ulcer minutes before the opening pitch of a baseball game against the Louisville Redbirds, officials said.

George Dyce, the Sounds’ vice president and general manager, said Walls, 52, had complained of weakness and heat exhaustion earlier in the day.

Walls, a former major league outfielder, made his managing debut with the Sounds this season. He had played for 14 years with various teams, including the Dodgers in 1962-64.

Names in the News

USC basketball star Cheryl Miller was named winner of the Wade Trophy, the fifth college Player of the Year award she has received this season.

Paul Weakley, a 6-6 forward from Crenshaw High School, signed a letter of intent to play basketball at Oregon State next season.

Don Hewitt, the Rams’ equipment manager for 18 years, will be honored April 26 during the Orange County Special Olympics’ celebrity sports banquet at the Doubletree Hotel in Orange. Merlin Olsen will be master of ceremonies.

Joaquim Cruz, Brazil’s 1984 Olympic 800-meter champion, will run in the May 18 Pepsi Invitational mile at UCLA against Americans Steve Scott and Sydney Maree.