Owners Wonder If Kemp Wants to Replace Rozelle

The job is Jack Kemp’s if he wants it, the owners of several National Football League clubs indicated privately here Tuesday.

There seems to be only one hitch: Does he want to be the NFL commissioner or continue as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in President Bush’s cabinet?

As the former congressman from Buffalo, N.Y., grapples with that question, the owners of most NFL clubs are here also discussing it. They also are sizing him up with the other candidates for the position that Pete Rozelle is vacating.

The owners will not say flatly that they want Kemp because of the possibility that he doesn’t want the job.

In Washington, Kemp, formerly a quarterback for the Buffalo Bills in the 1960s, didn’t return phone calls to those he knew were seeking his comments on the subject.

Instead, Kemp issued a statement through a department spokesman: “His plans are to fulfill his commitment to serve in the Bush Administration.”

Meanwhile, the six-owner committee researching Kemp and other candidates met at length Tuesday night in New Orleans.

The co-chairmen, Wellington Mara of the New York Giants and Lamar Hunt of the Kansas City Chiefs, said they wouldn’t discuss the findings before making their report to the convention today.

A site for Super Bowl XXVI in 1992 also will be selected this afternoon. The game will be played in a northern domed stadium, probably at Indianapolis or Seattle. The other candidates are Minnesota and Detroit.

NFL Notes

The new international football league will begin play next April, its commissioner, Tex Schramm, said after meeting with an owners’ committee Tuesday. Schramm’s plans: Teams will be based in New York, London and 10 other cities, including six foreign cities. The West Coast franchise isn’t likely to be in Los Angeles. The league will be owned by stockholders, including some NFL club owners, and the players will also be owned and paid by the league. The teams are to be franchised to local owners.

Jack Nelson of The Times’ Washington bureau contributed to this story.