Sather to Coach Again After Oilers Fire Green

Ted Green was fired Thursday after coaching the Edmonton Oilers to a 3-18-3 record, the worst start in the team’s history.

“It’s one of the most difficult decisions I’ve had to make,” said Glen Sather, the team’s president and general manager, who will replace Green.

Sather, the architect of the team that won five Stanley Cups in seven years, has a 442-241-99 record as a coach, the third-best winning percentage in NHL history.

Soccer

Coach Gerard Houllier resigned, eight days after France was eliminated from the 1994 World Cup. Although Houllier had a contract through 1994, his resignation was considered imminent after France lost to Bulgaria in the final minute Nov. 17 and failed to qualify for next summer’s tournament.

Tennis

Mark Kratzmann and Wally Masur of Australia beat Luke Jensen and Murphy Jensen of the United States, 7-6 (7-5), 5-7, 6-2, in the second round of the ATP Tour World Doubles Championships.

Also, the team of Australian David Adams and Russian Andrei Olhovskiy defeated Grant Connell of Canada and Patrick Galbraith of Tacoma, Wash., 6-3, 3-6, 6-3.

College Football

Larry Templeton, Mississippi State’s athletic director, said officials will not announce before Saturday whether they have lifted the suspensions of four football players.

Mississippi State plays Mississippi on Saturday at Scott Field in Starkville.

Coach Jackie Sherrill suspended quarterbacks Derrick Taite and Greg Plump and receivers Gerald Daniels and Michael Brown on Nov. 9. The four face criminal charges from an incident at an off-campus party on Nov. 6.

Miscellany

Pablo Lara broke the 167-pound weightlifting world record, becoming the second Cuban lifter to set a world mark in three days at the Central American and Caribbean Games. His first clean and jerk of 447 pounds put him past the 446-pound mark set on Nov. 10 by Altymurad Orazdurdiev of the former Soviet republic of Turkmenistan.

Pat O’Donoghue of Canada won the gold medal in the America’s Cup two-man bobsled competition with the much-improved Jamaican team of Dudley Stokes and Winston Watt placing a stunning fifth out of 27 sleds.

Names in the News

Tom Scott, 85, former Davidson College athletics director and past chairman of the NCAA Basketball Committee, died Wednesday in Charlotte, N.C., after a lengthy illness. . . . Brad Faxon of the United States shot a seven-under-par 65 to take a two-stroke lead after the first round of the Australian Open. . . . Former Kentucky star and current Lakers player Sam Bowie has been voted into the Lexington Country Club, becoming the first black member in the club’s 91-year history.