THE SIDELINES : Ex-Memphis Coach to Be Released

Former Memphis State basketball coach Dana Kirk is scheduled to be released Thursday from a minimum-security prison in Alabama, a prison spokeswoman said today.

Kirk, who built a nationally ranked program, was convicted last year of income tax evasion and obstruction of justice. He was sentenced to a year and a day in prison and has served four months of that term.

A parole date of Oct. 2 has been set for Kirk, but he is being freed on an early release program requiring weekly checks with a parole officer, said Judi Parks, a case worker at the federal prison camp at Maxwell Air Force Base.

The program, which will allow Kirk to live at home while awaiting parole, requires participants to have jobs and to abide by curfews, Parks said.

Kirk was convicted of understating his income to the Internal Revenue Service and of pressuring a witness to lie to a grand jury. He was fired from Memphis State in September, 1986, and was indicted two months later.