Elliott Edges Ferry to Win the Wooden

Disclosing its balloting for the first time in a further attempt to make its John R. Wooden Award the basketball equivalent of football’s Heisman Trophy, the Los Angeles Athletic Club was rewarded with its first public horse race, between Arizona’s Sean Elliott and Duke’s Danny Ferry.

And as emcee Tom Hawkins actually said, “The envelope please:”

Elliott, 1,871 votes.

Ferry, 1,721.

“Wow,” said the soft-spoken Elliott, when Wooden made the announcement Wednesday. “That’s a big surprise.

“I think it’s a compliment, There were several players more deserving than I. I’m just ecstatic.”

Elliott and the top four finishers, comprising the club’s first “All- American team,” were honored at a banquet Wednesday night at the Biltmore Hotel, with the public invited for the first time. It was also the first time that club facilities were too small for the 12-year-old award, obliging the ceremony to be moved.

“We have several player-of-the-year awards, and I’m sure football does, too,” said Oklahoma Coach Billy Tubbs, attending with his star, Stacey King. “Is there a Naismith Award? (There is.) This would be great, to have this as the equivalent to the Heisman.

“I think we need it. . . . But I don’t think that all the coaches are sitting around and talking about it. The big thing they’re talking about now is, ‘Who you getting?’ ”

Behind Elliott and Ferry came the other members of the club’s first team, as chosen by popular vote: King, 895 votes; Charles Smith of Georgetown, 486, and Sherman Douglas of Syracuse, 356. Glen Rice, who led Michigan to its National Collegiate Athletic Assn. title and broke the tournament scoring title, got a late write-in surge but finished four votes behind Douglas with 352.

And who was the more worthy?

“It’s really hard,” King said. “You didn’t have that one player who dominated everything. Last year it was Danny Manning, the year before David Robinson.

“I think they both meant a lot to their teams. You take Sean Elliott from Arizona, and they go from a great team to an average team. You take Danny Ferry from Duke and they go from a great team to an average team.

“I guess you have to let them go head to head and they have to guard each other. Whoever scores the most points and his team wins, he’s the one. That’s one way to get out of that one.”

All the first-team members except Smith, who was back on campus, attended. Ferry and his coach, Mike Krzyzewski, retired the competition in the who-went- to-the-most-trouble category, flying home to Durham, N.C., from Seattle Monday for a campus reception, then turning around and flying here.

Award Ceremony Notes

Second team: Glen Rice, Michigan; Jay Edwards, Indiana; Todd Lichti, Stanford; Hank Gathers, Loyola Marymount and Lionel Simmons, LaSalle. . . . Mike Krzyzewski to John Wooden, from the dais: “You hear a lot of (talk) at these things but I hope some of us as coaches put as much back into the game as you have. It’s nice to see someone put back as much as they took out--and you took a lot. I’m going to have a special meeting with Coach Wooden and ask him how to take that final step and win a national title.” Krzyzewski’s teams have been to three of the last four Final Fours, but have been beaten in all of them.

Syracuse Coach Jim Boeheim on Sherman Douglas: “Somebody asked me the other day, ‘Who’s going to take over at Syracuse?’ I said, ‘I think it’s going to be me. The last three years, this guy did.’ ” . . . And a bit of byplay between the free-wheeling Oklahoma duo: Stacey King, reminding his coach, Billy Tubbs, that he’d be watching from now on, told him: “I’m an alum now.” Replied Tubbs, sotto voce: “Send money.”

Sean Elliott: “Somebody asked me one time, ‘How do you feel when Coach (Lute Olson) compares you to Magic (Johnson)?’ It’s like your dad, calling you the best football player in the world. I really don’t listen to that kind of thing. (Laughing) I think if it came from Coach Wooden, I’d listen to it more.” . . . Elliott also talked of wanting to defend the fallen banner of western basketball drawing this response from Douglas: “You talk about West Coast basketball, you’d better talk to Coach Boeheim. Because he has at least four players from L.A.”