Harrick, CBS Talk About Possible Deal

It may not be exactly the same route Terry Donahue took, but Jim Harrick appears headed to CBS.

Harrick, the deposed UCLA basketball coach, and Rick Gentile, the head of production for CBS Sports, had breakfast Thursday morning in Westlake. Gentile is in Southern California for the Shark Shootout at Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, a golf event CBS is televising.

“It went very well,” Gentile said of the meeting. “I think we’ll be able to work something out.”

CBS opens its college basketball schedule Dec. 7 with Kansas at UCLA, but Gentile said he did not foresee Harrick being used as a commentator on that game.

“It will be Sean McDonough and Billy Packer working that game, and I’m not a fan of three-man announcing teams,” Gentile said. “We also have Army-Navy that day, and I think what we’d like to do is have Harrick in the studio [in New York] to make comments at halftime during the football game and then again before, during and after the basketball game.”

Gentile said he asked Harrick if he’d be comfortable in that role, and Harrick told him he wouldn’t have a problem with it.

Gentile said Harrick, after Dec. 7, probably would be used as both a game commentator and studio analyst, and that he might also do some regional games for Fox Sports Net, the new cable network that includes Los Angeles-based Fox Sports West, formerly Prime Sports West.

Harrick, reached at his home Thursday, also said the breakfast went well. But he was cautiously optimistic.

“There was some posturing. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see if it works out,” he said. “There’s nothing definite.”

Gentile said they were talking only about a one-year deal. “I got the impression Jim would still like to go back into coaching,” he said.

Harrick is being represented by the William Morris Agency, which is better known for handling entertainment clients but started a sports division earlier this year. Laker rookie Kobe Bryant was the new division’s first client, and Harrick signed on a few months ago in hopes of getting some television appearances and endorsements.

But then he was fired Nov. 6, and William Morris found itself in a different role--trying to find Harrick full-time employment in broadcasting. A representative of William Morris, Rick Bradley, was also at the Thursday breakfast meeting.

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It hasn’t received the news coverage the Harrick firing got, particularly in the West, but CBS Sports also went through a shake-up with the firing of President David Kenin on Nov. 4.

This week, CBS officially named Sean McManus as Kenin’s replacement.

Kenin was very popular among his CBS colleagues, but those who know McManus also think highly of him.

McManus, 41, is the son of ABC’s Jim McKay, who changed his name when he first got into broadcasting.

“To say my dad was thrilled is an understatement,” McManus said on the phone from New York. “He’d known about this for a while, and would call every day and say, ‘When can I start telling people?’ ”

McManus, a Duke graduate, began his career with ABC as a production assistant in 1977--”actually I first worked for ABC as a gofer for my dad when I was 10”--and in 1979 moved to NBC, where he became a vice president. In 1987, McManus joined Trans World International (TWI), where his reputation as a rights negotiator grew.

The perception is McManus was brought in to help CBS reacquire NFL rights.

“That’s a top priority, of course,” McManus said. “But I’m not going to hang my reputation on whether we can get a new NFL package. It’s going to be very difficult and will take some creativity on our part.”

McManus said the three major networks that have current deals with the NFL--ABC, NBC and Fox--all have the right of first refusal. What CBS might do is come up with a new package, such as Thursday night games. There has also been speculation CBS might wrest the Sunday night package away from TNT and ESPN.

“I think we all learned from the last negotiations [in 1993] that anything can happen,” McManus said.

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The good folk in Arizona, already not too happy that ABC chose to show UCLA-Washington State last Saturday instead of California-Arizona State, got more bad news when they learned ABC has decided to carry the USC-UCLA game on Nov. 23 instead of Arizona-Arizona State.

ABC wanted to do both games, but the Pacific 10 nixed that idea so that Arizona-Arizona State would be available to Fox Sports Net.

ABC reportedly was pressured by Channel 7 to show USC-UCLA, which meant ABC had to come up with an extra $225,000 because USC, when it plays Notre Dame Nov 30, will go over the five-appearance limit.

The ABC appearances also mean more money for USC and UCLA.

“It pays to be located in the middle of the nation’s No. 2 TV market,” wrote Tim Tyers of the Arizona Republic.

TV-Radio Notes

Both Channel 9, which televises some Clipper road games, and Fox Sports West will televise tonight’s Clipper-Laker game at the Forum. So the choice is yours, either Chick Hearn and Stu Lantz on Fox Sports West or Ralph Lawler and Bill Walton on Channel 9. . . . For once, Showtime has a pay-per-view boxing replay worth watching. Evander Holyfield’s knockout victory over Mike Tyson will be shown Sunday night at 8. “This is such a big event, we thought we’d try Sunday night rather than Saturday,” said Jay Larkin, senior vice president of Showtime Sports. Both Tyson and Holyfield will be in studio for the replay. Only the main event will be shown Sunday night, with the undercard included on subsequent replays Wednesday at 8 p.m. and the following Saturday at 5 p.m. The fight, according to Larkin, drew between 1.6 million and 1.7 million buys, breaking the old record of 1.5-million-plus for Tyson-Peter McNeeley. . . . Channel 9 will have a live boxing show from the Forum on Saturday night at 8.

The Shark Shootout is the first golf event for CBS since Lance Barrow was named coordinating producer of golf. Frank Chirkinian, who formerly held that position, worked the Grand Slam of Golf for TBS this week as a freelancer. . . . CBS has added former English golfer Peter Oosterhuis to its golf announcing team, which is headed up by Jim Nantz and Ken Venturi. . . . Greg Norman, the host of the Shootout, will also be on Channel 7 Sunday at 1:30 p.m. when he takes on Fred Couples in a taped segment of Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf. . . . CBS’ Pat O’Brien will be the master of ceremonies at a Los Angeles Sports Council dinner honoring members of the 1996 U.S. Olympic team Sunday night at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

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What Los Angeles Is Watching

A sampling of L.A. Nielsen ratings for sports programs Nov. 9-11.

SATURDAY

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Event Ch. Rating Share College football: Washington State-UCLA 7 5.4 14 Figure skating: World Pro Championships 4 5.3 16 College football: California-Arizona State 9 4.1 9 Golf: Skills Challenge 4 3.1 9 College football: Notre Dame-Boston College 2 2.5 7 Golf: Kapalua International 7 2.0 5

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SUNDAY

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Event Ch. Rating Share NFL: Dallas-San Francisco 11 19.7 44 NFL: Green Bay-Kansas City 11 11.2 27 NFL: Buffalo-Philadelphia 4 6.6 16 Golf: Skills Challenge 4 2.1 5 Golf: Kapalua International 7 2.0 4

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MONDAY

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Event Ch. Rating Share NFL: Detroit-San Diego 7 18.9 28

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Note: Each rating point represents 49,424 L.A. households.