Notre Dame May Be Probed Over Woman’s Gifts to Team

The NCAA may add investigation to embarrassment at Notre Dame, if it decides that a woman’s relationship with several football players--which includes a child fathered by one and gifts to others--is a rules violation.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported Wednesday that some of the gifts from Kim Dunbar, 28, to as many as 12 Irish players are probably violations of NCAA rules. Dunbar is charged with embezzling nearly $1 million from her South Bend employer to fund the gifts, which included jewelry, clothing and at least one trip to a Chicago Bulls’ game.

She is named in a $1.4-million lawsuit filed by her former employer, who also has named former players Jarvis Edison--who fathered Dunbar’s child--Derrick Mayes, Lee Becton, Ray Zellars and Kinnon Tatum.

South Bend prosecutor Michael Barnes said Dunbar is expected to enter a plea agreement on criminal charges on Aug. 13, and she faces up to 20 years in jail and a $20,000 fine. He would not say if any players could be considered culpable.

Notre Dame, which reported the Dunbar situation to the NCAA, already is reeling from losing an age-discrimination lawsuit filed by former football assistant Joe Moore, who was dismissed by Coach Bob Davie.

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USC recruit Windrell Hayes could have a court date as soon as Friday to plead guilty to a reduced charge in a bad-check scam in which Hayes faces felony charges, San Joaquin County deputy district attorney Patrick Slamon said.

Under the terms of the offer, Hayes, a receiver who transferred from San Joaquin Delta College, would have to make restitution of about $8,500 and cooperate with authorities in order to be allowed to plead to a misdemeanor. A judge would then decide on Hayes’ sentence and when it would be served.

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Officials with the Aloha Bowl have asked the Western Athletic Conference to send their league champion to the game, but WAC Commissioner Karl Benson is noncommittal about the offer. The league has lost its connection with the Holiday and Cotton bowls, pending the impending breakup of the WAC.

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Florida State defensive end David Warren, discovered unconscious in his dormitory room by a teammate, was hospitalized briefly in Tallahassee, Fla., but released after doctors were unable to find anything wrong with him. More tests are planned. . . . Anthony Kelly, a top-rated high school linebacker from Pasadena, and Antonio Cooks, a wide receiver from San Francisco, won’t be able to enroll at Washington this fall because they have failed to meet NCAA qualifying standards.

Boxing

Promoter Don King has been cleared by the New Jersey Casino Control Commission to do business in the state’s casinos. King had been barred in 1994 after he was indicted on charges that he bilked insurer Lloyd’s of London for training expenses involving a 1991 Julio Cesar Chavez fight that eventually was canceled.

Last month, a jury acquitted King of all nine charges stemming from that indictment.

New Jersey’s Athletic Control Board will meet today to consider whether former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson can return to boxing.

Tennis

Pete Sampras, playing for the first time since his Wimbledon triumph, defeated Gianluca Pozzi of Italy, 6-1, 6-2, to advance to the third round of the du Maurier Open at Toronto.

Vince Spadea defeated second-seeded Petr Korda of the Czech Republic, 5-7, 6-1, 6-4, and Andre Agassi, who has won the event three times, defeated Guillaume Raoux of France, 6-4, 7-5.

Top-seeded Karol Kucera of Slovakia beat Denmark’s Thomas Larsen, 7-5, 6-3, to reach the quarterfinals of the Grolsch Open at Amsterdam.

Miscellany

Daniel Green, 23, one of the men convicted of killing Michael Jordan’s father, says he was wrongly accused of pulling the trigger. Green, who goes by the Muslim name Lord D’Uallah, told WRAL-TV that Larry Demery, the other man convicted in the murder of James Jordan, fired the shots that killed him on July 23, 1993.

World champion Maurice Greene burst from the blocks and clocked 9.90 seconds to edge Ato Boldon in the 100 meters at a track and field meet at Stockholm. . . . Albatross, a pacer who won 59 of 71 starts and whose 2,546 sons and daughters have earned $130,700,280, died in Hanover, Pa., at 30. . . . Karl-Heinz Elschner, a German suspect in a brutal attack on a policeman during soccer’s World Cup, was returned to jail by a French appeals court in Douai, ending his freedom pending a possible trial. . . . The U.S. Under-20 Women’s soccer team tied host Holland, 1-1, in the Nordic Cup.