Ducks Replace Brooks With Bellotti

Only three days after the job became open, the University of Oregon named offensive coordinator Mike Bellotti as its football coach Monday.

Bellotti, 44, signed a four-year contract worth $175,000 a year.

He emerged as the top candidate after Rich Brooks resigned to become coach of the Rams.

The other candidates were Oregon assistants Nick Aliotti and Neal Zoumboukas, California offensive coordinator Denny Schuler, UCLA offensive coordinator Bob Toledo and former Stanford offensive coordinator Terry Shea.

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The American Football Coaches Assn. will study a tie-breaker system for regular-season games and make a recommendation to the NCAA football rules committee. The committee has recommended a system to break ties in bowl games beginning next season.

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Police investigating a fire in the apartment of former Wisconsin running back Brent Moss, who was in Indianapolis at the weekend NFL scouting combine, reported finding two men wanted on outstanding drug and alcohol warrants.

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Former Steeler All-Pro guard Carlton Haselrig, charged with resisting arrest and failing to appear at a hearing last month regarding a drunken-driving charge, was released from the Pittsburgh jail on bond. . . . Steve Atwater will be named the Denver Broncos’ franchise player and possibly the NFL’s highest-paid safety with a salary surpassing $2 million.

Baseball

The owners’ Player Relations Committee will begin tendering contracts with the maximum 20% pay cut to unsigned players on Friday, but will remain the bargaining agent for the 28 clubs, meaning individual teams can not bargain with players or agents. Only 234 of the 1,100 players on 40-man major league rosters are signed for 1995.

It will be up to the union to propose a system by which contracts will be negotiated, management counsel Chuck O’Connor said.

USA Baseball, the national governing body for the sport, has postponed until March 1 a decision on whether to send the St. John’s team to the Pan American Games in Buenos Aires to represent the United States. The organization said it was upset by inadequate progress toward building a baseball stadium in Argentina.

Winter Sports

Sweden’s Thomas Fogdoe, five times a winner in World Cup slalom competitions and the 1993 World Cup slalom champion, probably never will compete again because of “serious paralysis” from a training accident, a doctor said.

Joe Carista, a high school junior in Rockland, Mass., narrowly escaped death after his throat was slashed by an opponent’s skate. He is recovering in a Weymouth, Mass., hospital after 155 stitches were required to close a wound in his throat Saturday.

Miscellany

Former world heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson, in the fourth year of a six-year sentence for raping a 19-year-old woman, could be released from an Indiana prison as early as March 25 because of good behavior.

Alberto Berasategui, seeded third, beat David Wheaton, 7-6, 3-6, 6-4, in the first round of the Muratti Time indoor tennis tournament in Milan.

Figure skater Nancy Kerrigan says she passed up a $5 million offer to skate against Tonya Harding, who pleaded guilty to being involved in an attack on her.

Hasso Plattner’s Reichel/Pugh 50 Morning Glory was 148 miles ahead of Joe Case’s Santa Cruz 70 Mongoose with 521 miles to go in the Marina de Rey to Puerto Vallarta regatta.

Basketball

The NBA approved the sale of the Miami Heat to the Arison family, which bought out Billy Cunningham and Lewis Schaffel to gain 100% of the club. . . . David Vaughn, Memphis’ leading rebounder and shot blocker, might be out for two to three weeks because of a foot injury. . . . Orlando assistant Richie Adubato was in good condition at a Phoenix hospital. . . . Darrick Martin, a former UCLA point guard, was signed by the Minnesota Timberwolves after playing at Souix Falls, S.D., in the Continental Basketball Assn. . . . The game between Massachusetts and Rutgers, suspended because of a student protest last week, will be completed March 2 at a site to be determined.

Soccer

Following an appeal by Nigerian authorities, the emergency committee of world soccer’s governing body, FIFA, will reconsider its decision to cancel the World Youth Championship because of reports of outbreaks of meningitis and cholera in two of the four host cities.

Names in the News

Greg McElroy, who has been the Kings vice president of marketing for four years, has been named president of the new International Hockey League team in Los Angeles. . . . Paul Kariya, the Mighty Ducks’ leading scorer, was found to have a sprained back and probably will return to practice Wednesday.