College Basketball : Farmer (7-0) Is Doing Just Fine at Weber State

Larry Farmer. Where is he now?

He’s in Ogden, Utah, coaching Weber State, and he reports that he’s doing just fine.

Weber State is 7-0 and has already beaten state rivals Utah and Utah State.

Farmer sat out last season after leaving UCLA in the spring of 1984.

The move to Ogden is not necessarily a move away from pressure. “Weber State may not get the same kind of national attention, but the fans here are used to a winning tradition and they are very serious about their basketball,” Farmer said.

For the game against Utah, the Dee Events Center was packed with 10,021 fans who “yelled themselves hoarse” according to the Ogden Standard-Examiner.”

When former UCLA Coach John Wooden was introduced at a Weber State game last week, he received an enthusiastic standing ovation.

“Having Coach Wooden visit us here was a tremendous thing,” Farmer said. “He was swamped by people wanting autographs at the game.

“He talked to my players at practice, and I can’t tell you how impressed they were. One of my players came out of the locker room and saw him and just stood there saying, ‘Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness.’ I had trouble getting him to step up and shake hands with Coach.

“It means a lot to me that Coach Wooden would take the time to come and see one of our games.”

Wooden’s trip to Ogden also included a visit to his granddaughter, Christy, who is married to Weber State assistant coach Craig Impelman.

Indiana guard Steve Alford is back in the Hoosier lineup after a one-game suspension imposed by the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. because Alford was pictured in a calendar sold by a sorority to benefit a charity. Indiana lost to Kentucky, 63-58, in the game that Alford missed.

The NCAA rule that was violated says that athletes cannot be pictured in any publication for someone else’s profit. It’s as if the NCAA has a copyright on its athletes.

Indiana Coach Bob Knight argued, to no avail, that the NCAA might take a look at the situation and see that no harm was meant and no harm was done by the charity project.

It was the same rule that cost UCLA linebacker Ken Norton Jr. the first game of the Bruins’ football season. Norton was pictured in a J. C. Penney ad that featured not him, but his father, the former heavyweight boxing champion, in a Father’s Day promotion.

Keep an eye on Arizona State for some interesting mudslinging in the next few months. After the Pacific 10 Conference announced Tuesday that because of recruiting violations the school would not be allowed to grant new scholarships for a year, former Coach Bob Weinhauer said he would publicly refute reported violations that were said to have occurred during his administration.

Weinhauer, now coaching in the Continental Basketball Assn., said: “As soon as I have a chance to read what they (the Pac-10) put out, I will call a press conference and explain every single violation. I will expose the Pac-10 and how they collaborated with ASU to present this picture to the public.”

He seemed to be suggesting conspiracy.

His attorney, Scott Clark, said that “false information” from a conference investigator was given to the school during a Pac-10 inquiry and that the information “resulted in Bob’s termination.”

It has been reported that the school had to pay Weinhauer an estimated $300,000 when it fired him.

ASU is off to a 5-1 start under its interim coach, former Bruin Steve Patterson.

Basketball Notes If UCLA Coach Walt Hazzard thought North Carolina was pouring it on against the Bruins, how must the Rutgers coach feel after losing to the Tar Heels, 114-71? North Carolina guard Kenny Smith, a starter, said, “I don’t know if I like this. I’m not getting to play that much.” The problem is that the Tar Heels’ reserve players are almost as dominating as the starters. Brad Daugherty, North Carolina’s 6-11 center who is scoring 21.2 points a game and shooting 69%, is backed up by 6-11 Warren Martin. . . . It hasn’t been announced yet, but what is being referred to now as “the new 21,426-seat arena” at North Carolina will be named after Dean Smith. . . . Already there is speculation on who will replace Smith when he eventually retires. Former UCLA Coach Larry Brown, now at Kansas, who played under Smith and who always seems willing to make a move, is mentioned often. But Brown said last week that he thought the most likely candidates should be Smith’s current assistants, Bill Guthridge or Eddie Fogler. . . . UCLA’s Pooh Richardson isn’t the only player coming off the bench to help win games. Joseph Price is playing the same role at Notre Dame. Against Loyola, he came in and made all five of his shots, and against Oregon, he made 10 of 13.