Chancellor OKd Sale of 4,000 Rose Bowl Tickets : Athletics: UCLA official approved the transaction with a football booster in exchange for a $100,000 contribution. The deal was struck two days before the team’s opponent was determined.

UCLA Chancellor Charles E. Young approved the sale of 4,000 1994 Rose Bowl tickets to a football booster who wanted to put together package tours to the New Year’s Day event and who offered to make a “significant” contribution to the Westwood school, school officials said Friday.

Young gave the go-ahead to sell the tickets to booster Angelo M. Mazzone III--a former athletic department employee and longtime acquaintance of the chancellor--in a meeting with Athletic Director Peter Dalis two days before UCLA’s Rose Bowl opponent was determined, said Joseph D. Mandel, vice chancellor of legal affairs.

“On Dec 2, Peter Dalis met with the chancellor and informed him of Mazzone’s offer,” Mandel said. “That’s when they struck the agreement.” Mandel added: “Yes, he (Young) approved it.”

In an interview Friday, Young said he could not recall if he was asked to approve the sale or if he was told details. But he confirmed he was informed about the impending deal “with the understanding” that Mazzone would make a large contribution.

“In this case, I don’t recall that I was told the amount of the tickets or the amount of the contribution, but I knew it was a substantial amount of tickets and a substantial contribution,” Young said.

Mazzone, who was a student equipment manager for UCLA’s football team and later associate athletic director, paid face value of $184,000 for the tickets and gave the school $100,000 for athletic scholarships. Mazzone is a longtime friend of football coach Terry Donahue and known by Young as someone who “handles investments.”

Disclosures about UCLA’s sale of tickets to Mazzone have fanned controversy surrounding the game. Irate University of Wisconsin fans have claimed that they were stranded without promised tickets or were forced to pay scalper’s prices.

This week, Wisconsin Atty. Gen. James Doyle said UCLA’s sale to Mazzone was a factor in placing large numbers of tickets in the hands of brokers and scalpers. On Friday, a Madison, Wis., law firm added UCLA and the University of California regents as defendants in a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of Wisconsin fans.

“In our opinion, the actions of UCLA were a substantial factor in causing the market to go totally out of control for the sale of Rose Bowl tickets . . . and caused the price to skyrocket,” attorney James A. Olson said.

On Friday, sources told The Times that Mazzone sold the 4,000 tickets to Al Brooks Theatre Ticket Agency, one of Los Angeles’ oldest ticket brokers. Reached at his office in the Downtown Los Angeles Hilton, owner Jaron (Jay) Brooks declined to comment.

Of the 4,000 tickets sold to Mazzone, 148 were for goal-line seats and the remainder were for seats behind the end zones, a UCLA ticket official said. The face value of each ticket was $46, but days before the game the going price was 10 times higher.

According to records included in the lawsuit, Mazzone’s allotment of tickets was the largest for an individual.

In selling the tickets to Mazzone, Young said UCLA officials wanted to avoid a repeat of what happened to the University of Washington with the 1993 Rose Bowl, when $250,000 worth of tickets went begging. Having empty stands during the nationally broadcast event “sends the wrong message,” he said.

Young said he was told that Mazzone, whom he has “known for a long time . . . was in the travel business and would use (the tickets) as a part of packaging that he would do.” The chancellor said he has no idea where the tickets wound up and has not checked to see if they were scalped.

“It’s not illegal to scalp tickets,” Young said. “Why should I ask him?”

Mazzone did not return repeated telephone calls Friday from The Times.

Young blamed the controversy on the inordinate demand for tickets by Wisconsin fans, whose team had not played in the Rose Bowl game since 1963. He said UCLA has examined the transaction and “we don’t believe we did anything in violation of the (Rose Bowl) agreement.”

UC Regent Ward Connerly, who learned of the lawsuit Friday, blamed Young for not giving top university administrators and regents a “heads up” about the controversy.

“I’m also troubled by the possibility that we have locked a number of people out of an event by selling a block of 4,000 tickets to an individual,” Connerly said. Times staff writers Rick Holguin and Steve Springer contributed to this story.