Bowl-Less Season Costs Luginbill His Job

Al Luginbill was fired Tuesday after failing to lead San Diego State to a bowl game for the second consecutive season despite the presence of star running back Marshall Faulk.

Athletic Director Fred Miller said Luginbill would be reassigned within the athletic department. But the school fired all eight assistant coaches, including Curtis Johnson, who recruited Faulk out of New Orleans. Recruiting coordinator Dave Schramm will be retained.

The assistants will be given the opportunity to interview with the new coach, Miller said.

The move could affect whether Faulk skips his senior season or turns pro. Faulk said last week that if the whole coaching staff were fired, “it probably would lean me toward leaving . . . but I won’t make that the deciding factor.”

Ted Tollner, the Rams’ quarterback coach, confirmed Tuesday night that he was contacted by San Diego State officials and an interview “would be scheduled shortly.” He said he was granted permission to talk with the Aztecs by Coach Chuck Knox.

“I hate to be vague about this, but there’s nothing else I can say right now,” said Tollner, an assistant coach at San Diego State from 1973-80.

Luginbill had a career record of 31-25-3. San Diego State was 6-6 this season, failing to qualify for a bowl game because it wasn’t better than .500 and was one victory short of the six required against Division I-A competition.

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Antonio Langham of Alabama, one of college football’s top defensive backs, is awaiting word from the NCAA on whether his college career is over because he signed a contract with a sports agent after the 1993 Sugar Bowl.

Langham, a senior, would sit out the Southeastern Conference championship game against Florida on Saturday and Alabama’s bowl game if the NCAA does not lift the ban. University officials asked the NCAA to restore Langham’s eligibility, contending he unwittingly signed the contract and took $400 from the agent.

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Florida State’s Charlie Ward was selected as winner of the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award, given annually to the nation’s top senior quarterback. . . . Hal Mitchell, 63, a former head coach at Brigham Young and a starting lineman at UCLA under Red Sanders, died Saturday of cancer.

Baseball

The Atlanta Braves won’t try to re-sign free-agent center fielder Otis Nixon and are looking to trade catcher Damon Berryhill, opening up starting jobs for Deion Sanders and rookie Javier Lopez, General Manager John Schuerholz said.

Free-agent outfielder Ellis Burks signed a three-year contract with the Colorado Rockies worth a reported $10 million.

Burks batted .275 with 17 homers and 74 runs batted in last season for the Chicago White Sox, who also offered him a multiyear contract.

New York Yankee outfielder Danny Tartabull had arthroscopic surgery on his right shoulder Tuesday in Los Angeles.

The Yankees, who have sought to trade Tartabull, wanted him to have the shoulder repaired immediately after the season, but he waited and spent most of November in Europe on vacation.

Names in the News

Alexei Kovalev of the New York Rangers, who tripped Washington’s Dale Hunter and sidelined him for more than a month, was suspended for Tuesday night’s game against New Jersey and is to face a league hearing today. . . . Bob Woolf, who pioneered the role of the sports agent in the late 1960s and represented stars from Larry Bird to Carl Yastrzemski, died of a heart attack on his boat off Fisher Island, Fla. He was 65. . . . Harry Watts, a prominent Australian businessman was stricken with a fatal heart attack while playing in a pro-am group with Greg Norman at Sydney.

Stevie Johnson, a 6-foot-9 forward, said he was forced off California’s basketball team by Coach Todd Bozeman, and did not quit as the university had reported. . . . Virginia point guard Cory Alexander is expected to be sidelined for at least six weeks after suffering a broken ankle in Monday night’s 77-36 loss to Connecticut.

Olympic decathlon gold medalist Rafer Johnson has been named winner of the Theodore Roosevelt Award, the most prestigious honor bestowed upon an individual by the NCAA. . . . Niall Quinn, a key soccer player for Ireland during qualifying for the 1994 World Cup, may have to sit out the tournament because of torn ligaments in his right knee.