Navy’s Robinson Wins the Wooden Award : Indiana’s Knight, Alford Snub Los Angeles Athletic Club Ceremony

David Robinson, 7-foot 1-inch center for the Naval Academy, Wednesday was named the 11th winner of the Los Angeles Athletic Club’s John Wooden Award.

Robinson, wearing his dress blues, said during a press conference at the Athletic Club that he wanted to share college basketball’s player-of-the-year award with Pete Hermann, Navy’s first-year coach who accompanied Robinson to Los Angeles, and with his Navy teammates.

Robinson, who was honored at a dinner at the Athletic Club Wednesday night, earned 1,166 points in the balloting by more than 1,000 sportswriters and sportscasters nationwide.

Second in the voting was guard Steve Alford of national champion Indiana with 645 points. Next were Reggie Williams of Georgetown with 431, Kenny Smith of North Carolina with 229, Dennis Hopson of Ohio State with 140 and Armon Gilliam of Nevada Las Vegas with 130.

Hopson and Gilliam, accompanied by their coaches, Gary Williams of Ohio State and Jerry Tarkanian of UNLV, were also at Wednesday’s press conference.

Smith would have been too, but he missed a connecting flight in Atlanta. Rick Brewer, North Carolina sports information director who had arrived in Los Angeles on a different flight, said that Smith was due in later in the day.

Invited but not present were Alford and Indiana Coach Bobby Knight, and Williams and Georgetown Coach John Thompson.

According to Duke Llewellyn, senior vice president of the Los Angeles Athletic Club and award chairman, Knight said that he would attend only if he were guaranteed that Alford would win the award. When Knight turned down the invitation, Alford did too.

Llewellyn said that Thompson refused because he did not think Williams had a chance to win.

In recent years, the Wooden Award winner was announced at halftime of the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament championship game because NBC was willing to give the announcement national television exposure.

But under a new format this year, the 10 finalists were announced during the ACC tournament final and voters were allowed to wait until Tuesday, the day after the NCAA championship game, to cast their ballots. Final votes were tallied Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.

Also new this year was the requirement of a 2.0 grade-point average by all candidates. Wooden requested this stipulation.

Robinson, a mathematics major, carries a 2.7.

Two candidates, Horace Grant of Clemson and Danny Manning of Kansas, were declared ineligible for the award because they did not meet the grade-point requirement.

Robinson earlier was named winner of the Naismith Award, also signifying his status as player of the year. During his career at Navy, Robinson scored 2,669 points, 10th-highest in NCAA history, took down 1,314 rebounds and made 61.3% of his shots, making him the only player in NCAA history to top 2,500 points and 1,300 rebounds while shooting better than 60%.

He is expected to be the No. 1 pick in the NBA’s draft of college players, but whether he ends up playing pro basketball immediately is still a question. “My future is a cloudy crystal ball right now,” he said.

Outgoing Navy Secretary John Lehman approved a ruling that allowed football player Napoleon McCallum to play for the Raiders last season while fulfilling his Navy obligation.

Lehman also ruled that Robinson would have limited duty because of his height. But James Webb, recently nominated to replace Lehman, believes that playing professional sports while on active duty is inappropriate.

“All I know is what I read in the papers, like the rest of you,” Robinson said.

In January, the Navy classified Robinson unfit for unrestricted duty because he is over the height limit. Instead of five years of active duty at sea after graduation May 20, he would serve two years of restrictive active duty, then four years as a reservist.

If Robinson doesn’t turn pro for two years, he said he would like to play in the 1988 Olympic Games.

Robinson says he wants to play pro basketball “somewhere in the future” and doesn’t really care with which team.

“It would just be an honor to play against such greats as Kareem (Abdul-Jabbar) and Akeem (Olajuwon),” he said.

“When I was a kid, I liked certain teams. I liked Philly and hated Boston. My brother likes L.A. and my dad likes L.A.”

Robinson attended Tuesday night’s Laker-Houston game at the Forum and went into the Lakers’ locker room after game.

But his court-side seats were provided by Alan Rothenberg, president of the Clippers, one of the teams participating in next month’s lottery to determine who will select first in the NBA draft.

Times staff writer Chris Baker contributed to this story.