Finks Resigns to Fight Battle With Cancer

Jim Finks, who helped turn the New Orleans Saints into an NFL playoff team, resigned Wednesday as the team’s general manager and president.

Finks, 65, was told in April that he had lung cancer and was limited to consulting with team officials by telephone on contract negotiations since undergoing chemotherapy.

“I have received good reports from my doctors,” Finks said in a statement issued by Saint owner Tom Benson. “There is an opportunity for me to fight this disease, and that’s what I intend to do.”

Finks said he would continue as a consultant. Vice president Jim Miller has been handling most of Finks’ day-to-day duties during his absence. There was no immediate word on a permanent successor.

Finks has been president and general manager since January of 1986.

*

The New England Patriots reportedly will be put up for sale by owner James Orthwein about Aug. 1. Orthwein wants to get a NFL expansion franchise for St. Louis in October.

If he does, he would have until Feb. 1 to complete the sale of the Patriots.

*

Art Modell, owner of the Cleveland Browns, said he is stepping down as chairman of the NFL broadcasting committee.

During his tenure, Modell worked on negotiations producing more than $8.4 billion in television revenues with five networks.

Olympics

The International Olympic Committee hopes Brasilia will withdraw its bid to stage the 2000 Summer Olympic Games. Juan Antonio Samaranch, IOC president, said the best solution would be for the Brazilian capital to pull out and leave the race to the five contenders: Beijing, Berlin,Istanbul, Turkey; Manchester, England; and Sydney, Australia.

“It is a very weak bid, but we cannot force them to withdraw,” Samaranch said at a breakfast meeting with reporters in London. “We asked them to withdraw once, maybe we will ask again. If they don’t have the support of sport in the country, maybe it is better they withdraw.”

Jurisprudence

Allen Iverson, who at 18 is considered the country’s top high school basketball player, was convicted Monday of three felony counts for his actions in a chair-throwing brawl at a bowling alley. The convictions came two days after Iverson, a point guard, impressed scouts in Indianapolis at a five-day tournament for college prospects.

*

A beauty contest participant has sued Mike Tyson, claiming that the former heavyweight boxing champion committed battery against her during the 1991 Miss Black America pageant.

Noemi T. McKenzie, who was Miss Massachusetts in the pageant at Indianapolis that summer, filed a civil suit in Marion (Ind.) Superior Court on Tuesday, five days before the expiration of the two-year deadline for making a damage claim.

*

The parents of Terrie Cate, the UC Irvine soccer player who died last August after collapsing during a preseason training run, filed a wrongful death suit against the university.

The suit, filed in Orange County Superior Court, claims that the primary defendants--the Regents of the University of California, UC Irvine and UCI women’s soccer Coach Ray Smith--were “negligent and careless,” which directly contributed to Cate’s death by heatstroke.

The run, which was meant to certify players’ fitness before further drills, had been delayed two hours to 6 p.m. because of heat that reached into the 90s.

Miscellany

Tuesday night’s baseball All-Star game got a 15.6 rating, up 5% from last year, but the second-lowest since 1967. The American League’s 9-3 victory in Baltimore got a 28 share, according to figures released by A.C. Nielson Co.

*

The Anaheim Arena has been awarded the 1999 NCAA Division I hockey final four, according to Dennis Bickmeier, director of marketing and publicity for the Orange County Sports Assn. It will be the first time the hockey championship has been held west of Colorado.

Names in the News

Rich Hill, who led Cal Lutheran to two appearances in the Division III World Series, was named baseball coach at the University of San Francisco.