A New Wave Hits Tulane : Scandal: Four years after the basketball program was canceled, the university has a new coach and a new attitude.

Traveling from the French Quarter, a short trip down St. Charles Avenue, past streets with such exotic names as Melponeme and Euterpe, on the edge of the gracefully aged Garden District, stands proud Tulane University.

Founded in 1834 as a private school of higher learning, the sport of basketball was introduced in 1905. Eighty years later, the sport of basketball was eliminated at Tulane in the wake of an embarrassing point-shaving scandal by players that brought ridicule and shame to the university.

But four years after Tulane President Eamon Kelly said he was disbanding the basketball program “forever,” the sounds of a bouncing ball were once again being heard inside the newly named Fogelman Arena on Freret Street. Built in 1933 during Franklin Roosevelt’s first year in office, the former Tulane Arena has a lot more than just a new name.

There are 3,600 new metal seats, a new locker room, new concession stands, a new scoreboard, new lighting, a new ceiling, a new sound system and a brand-new team to play inside. Hoops are back at Tulane, where Perry Clark, the new coach, offers a crash course on college basketball to a bunch of novices--nine freshmen and three junior college transfers.

This may be a very green Green Wave. Clark called a team meeting at their hotel after Tulane had defeated Tennessee Tech, 93-91, in two overtimes for the Green Waves’ first victory of the year in a December tournament.

“It was about 10:30, I guess,” Clark said. “I told them to be in their rooms by 11:15 . . . lights out at 11:30. One of the guys asked, ‘Does this mean we’ve got to stay awake until then or can we go to bed now?’ ”

And so it goes at Tulane, which went four years, nine months and six days between victories. It is where the players have to learn not only about victories and defeats, but also about when it’s OK to go to bed. They have started from scratch since Kelly turned the lights out on the program, then reversed his decision and said Tulane could field a basketball team again.

Clark, the man designated to supervise the rebirth of Tulane basketball is a 38-year-old former assistant coach for Bobby Cremins at Georgia Tech and Dick Harter at Penn State. He is the first Tulane basketball coach in four years, since Ned Fowler was forced to resign in the wake of the point-shaving scandal and revelations of cash payoffs to players.

John (Hot Rod) Williams, one of three players alleged to have been part of the point-shaving scheme, had told prosecutors that he received $10,000 in a shoe box to attend Tulane and had accepted weekly payments afterward, sometimes as much as $100. Although Fowler and two of his assistants were forced to resign, they were not at Tulane when Williams was recruited and were not involved in the point-shaving.

Clark is eager to put the past behind him. Out-of-town reporters requesting stories on Tulane’s return are limited to one player interview because Clark said he wants his team concentrating on basketball. As for his own responsibility, Clark points out that he was not at the school during the scandal.

“The biggest thing is, what happened in the past is not reflective of Perry Clark,” Clark said. “My history is that of Georgia Tech, that of Penn State, that’s my past. What you have to do when you have a problem, you hire people with integrity. You have to recruit kids who are good kids and want to make something of themselves.

“That’s what happened here at Tulane. That’s why they hired Perry Clark. Obviously, this school is a very proud school and obviously some of the things that happened in the past hurt them, embarrassed them. Now they have to believe in people who are now in place that those things that happened in the past do not happen again in the future.”

In gambling terminology, shaving points has to do with affecting the point spread that odds-makers put on games. For instance, say Team A is favored over Team B by 10 points. A point-shaving scheme could, for example, mean that Team A makes sure the final score is no more than 10 points. They “shave” points. It could also have an alternate application. For example: Team A is a 10-point underdog to Team B, but Team A makes sure the final margin is larger than the spread.

Apparently, that is what happened in two Tulane games in the 1984-85 season, Feb. 2 against Southern Mississippi and Feb. 20 against Memphis State. Tulane players Williams, Clyde Eads, Jon Johnson, David Dominique and Bobby Thompson were accused of taking a total of $23,000.

Tulane, which was favored by 10 1/2 points against Southern Mississippi, instead won by only one, 64-63.

Memphis State was favored by seven points over Tulane and the Green Wave lost by 11.

Rumors that something odd was going on soon surfaced. Edward F. (Ned) Kohnke IV, an attorney close to Tulane, said he had heard rumors of point-shaving from his brother, Doug, who said Thompson had told a friend that the fix was in. Kirk Saulny, one of Fowler’s assistants, heard similar rumors three weeks before the scandal broke on March 26, 1985.

Fowler, the Metro Conference coach of the year at Tulane in 1981-82, resigned, along with Mike Richardson and Max Pfeifer, his assistants. Eads and Johnson received immunity from prosecution on sports bribery and conspiracy charges in return for their testimony against Williams.

After 15 months and one mistrial, Williams was retried in June, 1986, and acquitted. The National Basketball Assn., which had refused to let him play the ‘85-86 season after he was drafted by the Cleveland Cavaliers, restored his eligibility.

The news for the basketball program at Tulane was not so good. Although Tulane had fielded basketball teams continuously since 1912, Kelly recommended that the university drop the sport immediately and permanently.

Now, Clark’s job is to keep it permanently clean, as well as win games.

“It’s a chance to start anew, a chance to put things right,” said Clark, who believes he knows how to prevent such things from happening again.

“Obviously, you have to be in communication with your players,” he said. “I think having a relationship with your players helps, so that when there are problems, when things are going on, they feel comfortable enough to bring some of it to your attention.

“Obviously, the kids aren’t going to tell you everything, but I think the relationship should be strong enough that if there’s something of magnitude that affects the whole program, they should bring it to you.

“I think that’s the fear of every coach at a Division I level,” he said. “You’re responsible for your players. They’re like your kids. There’s always a concern that they are OK. Be it academically or mentally, there is too much pressure or girl problems. You are acting as a parent and there is total concern.”

And if you’re going to be thinking about shaving, you had better be thinking about whiskers.

What did Michael Christian’s friends tell him when they learned he was transferring from New Orleans’ Delgado Community College to Tulane? “They said I was crazy,” said Christian.

The 6-foot-2 junior college transfer had played one year at Georgia Tech when Clark was an assistant there. Christian averaged 27.6 points a game in junior college, ranking seventh in the nation in scoring.

“They said I should go to Oklahoma, you know. I had narrowed it down to Oklahoma and here,” Christian said. “I knew they would get the exposure and I knew they would win. I could have went a lot of places, but I just wanted to go to a place where I have a chance to do my thing and Coach Clark will let me do that.”

Actually, Coach Clark will let anybody who can score do something on his team this year. It was Christian who made a three-point shot with 28 seconds left to beat No. 20 Memphis State, 81-80, last week in Tulane’s first big upset of the comeback.

Speaking of big, Tulane isn’t. The biggest of the Green Wave is 6-9 freshman Anthony Reed, the team’s leading scorer and rebounder. Some may think that Reed, who was Louisiana’s “Mr. Basketball” last year, might have made Mr. Mistake in choosing to play at rebuilding Tulane. Reed, however, said that the chance to play from the outset attracted him.

“I wanted to come in and make an immediate impact as a freshman,” Reed said. “I thought Tulane was the best place for me. I like to change people’s attitudes,” he said. “People say Tulane is just starting over, so we’re not going to do any good, we’re going to get blown out the first couple of years. We all want to go out and change that.”

Clark is embarking on a three-year plan to make the Green Wave competitive. He knows it’s not going to be easy and breaks up when it is suggested that he must have wanted a coaching job very badly to accept this one.

He knows the Metro Conference, lately the domain of Louisville and Memphis State, is a tough place for a newcomer.

Clark said that, eventually, Tulane will get it done again. The message is carried on even in huddles when Tulane players stack hands with Clark and say together: “One, two, three, win.”

For the next few years at Tulane, winning basketball games will almost certainly not be as easy as one, two, three, but for the first time in five years, at least they’re getting a chance to try.