Rose Bowl Manager Quits to Avoid Conflict With Wife’s Business : Sports: Greg Asbury said her public relations firm could present a potential problem because he shares in the profits.

Greg Asbury says it did not have anything to do with Valentine’s Day, but love played a big role in his giving up his job Friday as the general manager of the Pasadena-owned Rose Bowl.

Asbury has run the 101,000-seat stadium for the past three years, overseeing plans for a new press box and luxury suites, putting the bowl in contention for World Cup championship soccer matches in 1994 and landing next year’s Super Bowl.

But he married Judy Smith last August, and there’s the rub.

Asbury resigned Friday because of a possible conflict of interest between his managerial responsibilities and potential profits from his wife’s business.

Smith owns the Pasadena-based public relations firm of Smith Williams Marketing Communications, which does business with the Los Angeles Sports Council, a private agency that represents cities in the Los Angeles area in bidding for world-class sporting events such as the Super Bowl. The council is about to sign a contract with Pasadena to sell the tickets it receives as the host city.

A conflict could arise, City Atty. Victor Kaleta believes, because decisions Asbury makes could benefit the Los Angeles Sports Council, and he shares the money his wife receives from her client under the state’s community property laws.

“I had no idea when we got married that I had to divorce myself from the Rose Bowl,” Asbury said Friday.

Asbury met Smith last year, when her firm helped to run a community relations campaign for the press box project. The new $8-million press box will give the stadium 38 luxury suites as well as a 1,100-seat press box.

City officials were distressed by the sudden loss of a key administrator.

“This is a situation where laws designed to protect the public and public officials have collided with modern-day realities,” said City Manager Philip Hawkey, who must now scramble to hire a new Rose Bowl manager as planning for the Super Bowl intensifies, in what promises to be a difficult year.

While the Rose Bowl has had its successes in the past three years, it has also had some failures. The bowl suffered a budget shortfall last year, and city officials expect the same this year. The bowl also needs more than $40 million in capital improvements, with dim prospects for raising that much revenue, critics say.

A spokeswoman for the state Fair Political Practices Commission said that the situation appeared to be a “murky” one, requiring greater examination before a ruling could be made on its potential for conflict.

Asbury said he had sought the commission’s advice, but because of the need for haste in making Super Bowl arrangements, could not wait for a definitive ruling. His only alternative to resigning, he said, would have been to excuse himself from all Super Bowl negotiations, which would have rendered him ineffective as a manager.

A city personnel official would not give Asbury’s salary, but she said his position paid between $64,845 and $81,056.

Ironically, Smith’s contract with the Los Angeles Sports Council ends today, and she sees no immediate prospect of a new one.

But, even though Asbury’s wife is no longer under contract to the Sports Council, state political reform law restrains Asbury for a year from conducting negotiations with a company that had financially benefited the couple, Kaleta said.