A Co-ed Volleyball League Set--All Games at Forum

Jeanie Buss, as upwardly mobile as they come, got a league Monday.

Already the president of Team Tennis’ Los Angeles Strings, Buss, 24, was given a new league, called Team Cup Volleyball, founded by her father, Jerry.

She will be executive director, and Mike O’Hara, who was vice president of television for the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee, will be commissioner of the four teams that will compete in six matches each in late July and early August, it was announced at the Forum.

With $100,000 in prize money involved, the league has attracted many of the national team members, among them Karch Kiraly, the former UCLA All-American who led the United States to the gold medal in the 1984 Olympics.

Like the former International Volleyball Assn., which lasted from 1973-78 and comprised eight teams scattered around the West, the league will be co-ed. At least two of the six players on the court must be women. According to O’Hara, several former U.S. national team members have already applied for the draft June 18, among them Dale Keough and Rita Crockett, considered the top woman player in the country.

Unlike the defunct league, however, all 12 matches will be played in the Forum, and over a two-week period from July 22-August 6.

Jerry Buss, who owns the basketball Lakers, the hockey Kings, the indoor-soccer Lazers, and tennis Strings, as well as the Forum, will televise the matches on his Prime Ticket Network.

Because the U.S. men and women won gold and silver medals, respectively, at the 1984 Olympics, O’Hara said that interest in the area should be strong enough to support the league.

“This is the first time outside the Olympics that volleyball will be presented to Southern California in a first-class manner,” O’Hara said. “We hope this will be the start of a long thing.”

The two-week schedule is squeezed between the players’ commitments to the Goodwill Games, scheduled July 8-20 in Moscow, and their preparation for the World Cup, which will be held in August for the women and September for the men.