Osborne Advises Phillips to Go Pro

Nebraska Coach Tom Osborne said Wednesday he has advised tailback Lawrence Phillips to make himself eligible for the NFL draft.

Phillips was suspended from the Cornhuskers for six weeks after he pleaded no contest to a charge of beating a former girlfriend. He was restored to the team late in the season and ran for 165 yards and three touchdowns in Nebraska’s 62-24 victory over Florida in the Fiesta Bowl national championship game Tuesday night.

“I’m pretty sure he’ll go pro and I’ve told him to,” Osborne said. “The thing that bothers me is that there have been a lot of people on campus who have been anti-Lawrence Phillips. . . . I think Lawrence is always going to be a little bit of a marked man.”

Phillips, who has a year of eligibility remaining, has not announced a decision.

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The Fiesta Bowl game between Nebraska and Florida gave CBS its first Tuesday night ratings victory of the season, despite delivering numbers that weren’t quite what the network had hoped.

The game, with an estimated 63 million viewers who watched all or part of it, got a 18.8 rating and 31 share, making it second in TV ratings to the Rose Bowl among major bowls. The Rose got a 19.3 overnight rating and its national number won’t be available until next week. The 62-24 Nebraska rout likely cost it a higher rating.

The NCAA said it is convinced that Texas officials had no idea a 30-year-old football player had changed his identity to extend his college eligibility.

David Berst of the NCAA said there are no plans to investigate how Ron Weaver managed to enroll at Texas as 23-year-old Joel Ron McKelvey and play a limited role as a backup cornerback for the Longhorns this season.

Baseball

Outfielder Jerome Walton, who played with the Cincinnati Reds last season, agreed to a $520,000, one-year contract with the Atlanta Braves. He will back up Marquis Grissom in center field. . . . Free-agent first baseman Paul Sorrento, who played against the Seattle Mariners in the AL championship series last fall when he was with the Cleveland Indians, has been signed to a one-year contract by the Mariners. . . . Players and owners agreed to push back the deadline for filing for salary arbitration by one day to Jan. 16. The change was made because the Martin Luther King holiday occurs on Jan. 15.

Names in the News

Tom Gullikson, captain of the United States team that won the Davis Cup title for a record 31st time in 1995, was renamed to the post for the 1996 campaign. Gullikson has a career record of 6-1 over two years on the job with the highlight a 3-2 victory over Russia in the final last month in Moscow. The United States begins defense of the Davis Cup against Mexico in February in Carlsbad.

Fred Williams, 80, a three-year football letterman at Stanford who played on the Vow Boys team in the 1935 and 1936 Rose Bowl games, died of cancer at his home in South Pasadena on New Year’s Day.

Kenny Walker, a former Kentucky basketball star, has been charged with assault for allegedly choking his wife in Lexington, Ky.

The funeral for boxer Ernie Magdaleno, killed in an automobile accident on Sunday, will be Friday at 10 a.m. at the Central Baptist Church in Huntington Beach. The church is on the corner of Warner and Nichols.

Bruce Arena, who led Virginia to four consecutive NCAA soccer titles, quit to become coach of Washington United in Major League Soccer.