Waves Cagers Honored; Games to Be on Radio

A couple of Pepperdine basketball players are in the news, and the school has announced an agreement with Simi Valley radio station KWNK-AM to broadcast Waves basketball games next season.

Sophomore center Levy Middlebrooks, the West Coast Athletic Conference freshman of the year as Coach Jim Harrick’s Waves won the WCAC title last season, has been named to the West team for the National Sports Festival. The festival, which includes 34 sports, will take place from July 24 to Aug. 4 in Baton Rouge, La.

Senior guard Jon Korfas was selected as the winner of the 1985 William G. Chirgotis Collegiate Athlete Award, which is given annually by the Order of Ahepa to the outstanding Greek-American U. S. college athlete. Korfas will receive the award Aug. 12 during the order’s convention at the Copley Plaza Marriott in Boston.

Under the agreement with KWNK, 26 Pepperdine games will be broadcast, beginning with the Waves’ appearance in the NIT’s first preseason Big Apple Invitational. Pepperdine will meet Kansas in a Nov. 22 regional opener of the tournament in Denver.

Derek Graham, a 1980 graduate of Beverly Hills High School and a star there in football, basketball and track, has graduated from Princeton and is trying out with the San Diego Chargers as a free agent, according to a note from his father, Arnold K. Graham of Flintridge.

Graham, a Times All-Westside selection at wide receiver in 1979, set a flock of receiving records at Princeton and was named All-Ivy League three times, All-East Coast in 1983 and 1984 and a second-team All-American last season.

He set Princeton records for most yards gained in a game with 278 against Yale in 1981, career receiving yards with 2,818, receiving yards in a season with 1,362 in 1983, career touchdowns with 19 and longest gain for a touchdown, 95 yards.

His Ivy League records include 15 receptions in a game, season receiving yardage (885 yards on 52 receptions in 1983) and career receiving yards (2,057 yards on 122 receptions).

Graham, whose mother is Gwen Graham of West Los Angeles, majored in history at Princeton. He spent the 1982-83 academic year in a program with a San Francisco venture capital firm and plans to attend graduate school in the fall of 1986.

Ten baseball players have signed letters of intent with Pepperdine, including all-state and All-CIF Southern Section outfielder Rick Hirtensteiner, who hit .400 last season at Buena High School in Ventura.

Two other All-CIF selections who signed are outfielder Adam Karlewicz of Glendale Hoover High and first baseman-outfielder Scott Shockey of El Toro High.

Outfielder Dan Anderson, who started at Pepperdine and then played for USC, is returning to Pepperdine.

Newcomers include outfielder Todd Rice of Lincoln High in Stockton and pitcher Reggie Garcia, an All-Northern California selection from Hanford High. Left-hander Frank Ward of Santa Rosa College, a winter draft choice of Montreal, is expected to sign with the Waves.

More are catcher John Glantz of Birmingham High School, all-state infielder Matthew Howard of Marist High School in Georgia, Brigham Young transfer Mike DiReda, who was All-CIF at Glendale Hoover in 1984, and infielder Phil Griffith, a transfer from James Madison University.

UCLA’s Bob Lasken shot a tournament-record, 11-under-par 275 for 72 holes to win the 68th annual Los Angeles City men’s golf championship at Rancho Park by six strokes.

Lasken, a 19-year-old sophomore from Whittier, trailed Tom Stankowski of Sepulveda by two shots after the opening two rounds at the Wilson course at Griffth Park and the Balboa courses at Sepulveda Dam Golf Complex. But Lasken, a member of the UCLA golf team, rallied in the final rounds to run away from the 91-man field by firing rounds of 69-68-69-70 to break the tournament record of 276 set by Alan Tapie in 1972.

Paul Provost, 28, has been named part-time assistant men’s basketball coach at Pepperdine University. Provost, a former coach at Mater Dei High in New Monmouth, N. J., filled the position held by Tony Fuller, who was elevated to a full-time assistant position when Dan Davis left to pursue a degree in theology.

A former player at Cal State Northridge, Provost coached locally for three years at St. Monica and Venice high schools. He has also coached in Australia, England and Scotland.