South Carolina Coaches Sentenced

Three former University of South Carolina football coaches and a Maryland man, convicted on the testimony of players, drew relatively light sentences Thursday for distributing steroids to their athletes in the mid-1980s.

U.S. District Judge G. Ross Anderson sentenced the four to one-year terms in a halfway house, then suspended six months to nine months of each sentence and placed all four on three years’ probation.

Former coach Tom Kurucz, who pleaded guilty June 1 to one misdemeanor count of dispensing steroids to players and a felony count of lying to a grand jury, received the harshest sentence--six months. It was the minimum term allowed under federal sentencing guidelines. Kurucz had faced a maximum of six years in prison and $350,000 in fines.

“I’m sorry and ashamed,” Kurucz told Anderson before he was sentenced. “I now have a new job and I request you let me continue to make a living for my family.”

Jim Washburn and Keith Kephart, two other former coaches convicted along with John L. Carter of Bethesda, Md., on lesser charges, were each sentenced to three months.