Kruger Leaves Kansas State to Coach at Florida : Coaches: Rudy Washington, ex-USC assistant, takes job at Drake.

After coaching his alma mater, Kansas State, to the NCAA tournament in each of his four years there, Lon Kruger accepted the head job at scandal-rocked Florida Sunday. Also, Rudy Washington, a former assistant at USC and administrative aide with the Lakers, accepted the head coaching job at Drake.

In hiring Kruger, Florida Athletic Director Bill Arnsparger ended a months-long search for a permanent replacement for Norm Sloan. Sloan resigned under pressure, and interim Coach Don DeVoe finished off a losing season.

Kruger’s four-year record at Kansas State was 81-46, including a 20-11 record his first year that took K-State to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1982. His second Wildcat team in 1987-88 ranks as one of the school’s all-time best, at 25-9 tying the school record for most victories in a season. It came within one game of reaching the Final Four.

Kruger was the first coach in school history to lead the Wildcats to four consecutive NCAA postseason appearances.

“His name has appeared among the list of the nation’s top coaches for the last several years,” Arnsparger said.

Washington, an Iowa assistant coach, pledged to heal Drake’s “fragile” basketball program at his Sunday announcement.

“I’ve waited 15 years for this opportunity,” said Washington, 38. He was head coach at Verbum Dei High School and Compton Junior College in 1984-85 and assistant at USC from 1977-83. He was an administrative assistant with the Lakers in 1983-84.

Washington takes over a program that was shredded midway through the Missouri Valley Conference season when all of the players boycotted practice, saying former Coach Tom Abatemarco verbally abused them, and that they would not play while he was coach. Abatemarco resigned in February after being “reassigned” to other duties by Drake president Michael Ferrari.

Washington said he was confident he would be supported by the administration: “They (Ferrari and Athletic Director Curtis Blake) said they would support me all the way.”

Washington is president of the Black Coaches Assn., but he said bylaws require him to resign now that he is a head coach.

He said that his race probably held him back in his effort to become a head coach--he applied at Drake but was not even interviewed two years ago when Abatemarco got the job--and he agreed that black coaches are stereotyped as good recruiters but not necessarily good leaders.

“That’s a stigma that minority coaches deal with,” he said. “Initially, when basketball started taking on blacks, they wanted blacks to do recruiting. It was frustrating.”