Arizona St. Hires Penn Athletic Director

Charles Harris, athletic director at the University of Pennsylvania the last six years, was hired Tuesday in the same capacity by Arizona State University.

Harris replaces Dick Tamburo, who resigned under pressure on March 26 after five of the school’s programs were placed on Pacific 10 Conference probation over a 21-month span.

Harris, who had been assistant athletic director at Michigan before his Pennsylvania appointment, said he accepted the ASU job as a challenge and that he expects to spend a lot of time figuring out what went wrong at Arizona State and why.

The family of slain high school basketball star Ben Wilson filed a $10-million lawsuit, claiming that the teen-ager would still be alive had he received proper treatment after being shot last November during an altercation with two alleged gang members.

The negligence and malpractice suit, filed on behalf of the late Simeon High School basketball player, names St. Bernard Hospital in Chicago, two St. Bernard doctors, the City of Chicago, the Chicago Fire Department and two Fire Department emergency medical technicians as defendants.

The Philadelphia Eagles announced that three areas of Veterans Stadium will be set aside as “family sections” where alcohol will be banned during football games.

The three sections, on the top level, will consist 1,367 seats, team owner Norman Braman said.

“Research has shown us that some families and other individuals as well do not feel comfortable sitting in areas where alcohol is consumed,” Braman said.

Braman said more alcohol-free sections would be added if response to the plan is good.

The Washington state Board of Pharmacy will examine allegations by the campus newspaper that University of Washington track athletes, mostly during the 1970s, were receiving illegally dispensed steroids and phenylbutazone, a prescription-only anti-inflammatory drug.

Track Coach Ken Shannon has denied the allegations, and current and former athletes have defended him. There were no allegations regarding current athletes or the current medical and training staff.

Creighton University lost its third sports figure in the last week when Athletic Director Dan Offenburger resigned Tuesday.

Creighton basketball Coach Willis Reed resigned last Wednesday, and junior center Benoit Benjamin said Saturday he will leave to make himself available for the National Basketball Assn. draft.

Offenburger, whose voice broke frequently during a news conference, said it would be a “big relief in so many ways” to end a five-year tenure marred by criticism of several decisions he made.

Offenburger, 49, said much of the criticism directed toward him involved basketball player Kevin Ross, who received national publicity when he enrolled in a Chicago preparatory school to improve his reading skills after he attended Creighton for four years.

Reed has said he resigned because it is difficult to build a successful college basketball program without violating recruiting rules that other schools ignore.

Milan, Italy’s unofficial industrial and banking capital, entered the already crowded competition for host city of the 1992 Summer Olympics.

Milan mayor Carlo Tognoli said the northern Italian city of one million will officially apply to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) before the Aug. 15 deadline.

Other cities announcing interest in holding the Games are Amsterdam, Barcelona, Belgrade, Brisbane, New Delhi, Paris, and London, Birmingham and Manchester in Britain.

Gov. Mario Cuomo plans to lead a delegation that will try to persuade the U.S. Olympic Committee to help return the Winter Games to Lake Placid in 1992.

Cuomo is scheduled to deliver a speech at Stanford University on June 16 and will stop at Indianapolis to plead the case for the tiny Adirondack village.

The village hosted the Winter Games in 1932 and 1980. Other interested American cities are Reno-Lake Tahoe, Salt Lake City and Anchorage.

A Common Pleas Court judge in Canton, Ohio, issued a temporary restraining order to stop the New York Mets baseball team from showing a television commercial that the Hoover Co., said was hurting its reputation.

The North Canton-based Hoover Co., the nation’s largest vacuum sweeper maker, filed suit against the Mets, alleging that the team’s commercials showing a vacuum sweeper exploding were damaging to the company.

Stark County Judge William Morris set another hearing for May 21.

The commercial in question shows a man in his home watching the Mets and spilling popcorn all over the floor. The sweeper fails to pick up the popcorn and then explodes. The fan lands in Shea Stadium, where the announcer says he should have been from the start.

“We have a sense of humor, but our sweeper is identifiable,” a Hoover spokesman said. “That’s where our sense of humor ends.”

Roosevelt Stadium, where Jackie Robinson began knocking down major league baseball’s color barrier, fell victim to time, as a wrecker’s ball started demolishing the the Jersey City, N.J., ballpark to make way for new housing.

It was in 1946 that Robinson first played there as a member of the Montreal Royals, a farm team of the then-Brooklyn Dodgers. It started him on the road to becoming the first black to play in the major leagues in 1947.

The 25,000-seat stadium opened in 1937.

The San Francisco Giants traded veteran shortstop Johnnie LeMaster to the Cleveland Indians in exchange for pitcher Mike Jeffcoat and infielder Luis Quinones.

Jeffcoat and Quinones were assigned to the Giants’ Phoenix farm club in the Pacific Coast League. LeMaster will play shortstop for the Indians, who will move Julio Franco to second base.

Portland Breaker owner Joe Canizaro, saying his United States Football League team “embarrassed the city,” has offered a public apology for his club’s performance. The Breakers’ record dropped to 3-8 Monday after they lost a home game against Houston, 45-7. It was their fourth straight defeat.

Canizaro, who has been trying to convince local investors to buy 25 percent to 50 percent of the team, said he doesn’t want to wait until next season to win.

Names in the News

Duffy Waldorf of UCLA was named Golfer of the Year in the Pacific 10. Waldorf won a school-record seven individual titles in tournaments this season and led the Bruins to the Pacific 10 championship.

Charles Rochelin, a 6-7, 200-pound forward from Canada, has signed a national letter of intent to attend UCLA and play basketball for the Bruins next season.