Report Further Tarnishes Miami Image

The Miami Hurricanes’ football program was marked by guns, sexual assaults, drugs, drinking and clashes with police, the Miami Herald reported Thursday.

Allegations of lax discipline surfaced earlier in the form of a Pell Grant scandal, a pay-for-play scheme and an inconsistent drug-testing policy. The latest disclosures could further tarnish the 63-9 record compiled by former coach Dennis Erickson before he left to join the Seattle Seahawks.

The Herald’s story stemmed from interviews with more than 50 current and former athletic officials, players and others close to the team, and spanned Erickson’s six-year tenure. Findings included:

--Sexual misconduct: Women were humiliated and sometimes assaulted in the football dormitories, according to police officers, players, wives and girlfriends. One former student told the paper she was assaulted by several players in 1990, and Erickson talked her out of going to the police.

--Violence: Campus police said Erickson was called repeatedly to the athletic dorm to control players during late-night fights.

--Alcohol abuse: Assistant coaches were arrested on drinking-related charges. Erickson, after leaving Miami, was charged with drunk driving in the Seattle area.

--Drugs: A former secretary to the assistant coaches, Beth Samartino, said she often bought marijuana for players and smoked it with them in their rooms.

Erickson also stands accused of withholding positive drug-test results from Athletic Director Paul Dee to keep players eligible.

Erickson and Dee declined comment.

Basketball

The Golden State Warriors are expected to name Rick Adelman, former Portland Trail Blazer coach, as their coach today. . . . Danny Tarkanian, who played for his father, Jerry, at Nevada Las Vegas in the 1980s, will join him as an assistant coach at Fresno State. Long Beach assistant John Welch also was named an assistant. . . . Fired Miami Heat executive Kip Hunter Epstein filed a $350,000 suit against the team in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., saying it illegally eavesdropped on her phone calls and wanted to put a man in her job. . . . Former Harlem Globetrotter Kendal (Tiny) Pinder was charged with sexually assaulting a 15-year-old schoolgirl in Wollongong, Australia.

Tennis

Croatian Goran Ivanisevic, who lost to Andrei Medvedev last weekend in the final of the German Open, got a little revenge in the third round of the Italian Open with a 6-1, 7-6 (7-3) victory over Medvedev in Rome. Other winners were Michael Chang, Jeff Tarango, Wayne Ferreira, Thomas Muster, Sergi Bruguera, Stefan Edberg and Jonas Bjorkman.

Mary Pierce earned two victories in the German Open to keep pace with top-seeded Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, who breezed past Tatiana Ignatieva of Belarus, 6-2, 6-1, in Berlin. Pierce, seeded second, stopped Slovakia’s Karina Habsudova, 6-2, 6-4, in a match postponed Wednesday by rain, then battled more bad weather in ousting Argentina’s Florencia Labat, 7-5, 6-3. Upset victims were Mary Joe Fernandez and Gabriela Sabatini.

UCLA’s Robert Janecek reached the third round of the NCAA men’s singles tournament with a 6-0, 6-0 victory over fifth-seeded Paul Robinson of TCU in Athens, Ga.

Top-ranked Jane Chi of UCLA defeated Pepperdine’s Isabela Petrov of Mexico, 6-2, 6-1, in the second round of the NCAA women’s tournament at Pepperdine. UCLA’s top-seeded doubles team of Keri Phebus and Susie Sterrett beat Marsa Kuurne and Tracee Lee of Pacific, 6-4, 6-1. Phebus, seeded second in singles, defeated San Diego’s Dina Birch, 6-2, 6-0.

Miscellany

A federal judge in Boston refused a request by the NFL to dismiss former New England Patriot owner William H. Sullivan’s $51-million lawsuit against the league, upholding a ruling for a new trial. Sullivan sued the NFL in May 1991, claiming the league’s refusal to allow him to sell public stock forced him to sell the team to Victor Kiam in October 1988 for what Sullivan considered to be a low price of $84 million. . . . Doug Martin shot a 67 in the Buick Classic for a one-stroke lead over Ernie Els and four others in Harrison, N.Y. . . . Former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson will hold a news conference next Wednesday in Las Vegas to announce the opponent and date of his first bout since serving three years in prison on a rape conviction. A spokesman declined to confirm or deny earlier reports that Peter McNeeley will be the opponent on Aug. 19.

Two deadlines passed with no announcement on the Winnipeg Jets’ proposed move to Minneapolis. . . . Six engines used in the pro stock drag racing cars driven on the NHRA circuit by Darrell Alderman and Scott Geoffrion were destroyed during a break-in at the team’s racing shop in Fairfield, Ill., police said. . . . Zhong Guiqing set a world record in the women’s pole vault, going 13 feet 4 1/2 inches, at the China National Championships in Beijing, then Sun Caiyen tied it. . . . The Los Angeles City College baseball program has won a reversal and will be continued despite an earlier decision by the board of trustees to drop the sport after 63 years.