Improvement Not Enough: Bucks Fire Ford

Chris Ford, who failed to end the Milwaukee Bucks’ seven-year playoff absence, was fired Wednesday as coach.

Ford, 49, a former Boston Celtic coach, joined the Bucks in June 1996 with a three-year contract. The Bucks hired him after Mike Dunleavy moved up the general manager. But Dunleavy resigned as general manager in 1996 and later returned to coaching in Portland.

The Bucks were 33-49 in Ford’s first season and showed only slight improvement, to 36-46, last season.

“Chris Ford has in many respects done a good job,” owner Herb Kohl said. “But we think in order to maximize the talent that we have, the best thing is to go and find a coach of a nature, of a sort that would ensure that we reach the next level.”

Assistant Dick Versace also was fired. The status of assistants Jim Todd and Mike Woodson will be determined by Ford’s replacement. Team members had not been told of the decision because of the NBA lockout, which prohibits players and general managers from speaking.

Tennis

In a bizarre rain-delayed match nearly called because of swarming gnats, unseeded Julie Halard-Decugis upset No. 3-seeded Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, 7-6 (8-6), 6-2, in the Pilot Pen International at New Haven, Conn.

“There was so many [gnats] going to the eyes and mouth and everywhere, and it was difficult to play,” Halard-Decugis said.

Earlier, Amanda Coetzer broke Anna Kournikova’s service three times in the final set and recorded a 1-6, 6-4, 7-5 victory. Kournikova returned to the tour last week in Montreal after missing eight weeks because of a strained thumb. She said her mental game may have suffered, but she also credited Coetzer for hanging on.

David Prinosil of Germany beat French Open winner Carlos Moya of Spain, 6-2, 6-2, in the Hamlet Cup at Commack, N.Y. Moya is ranked 10th in the world, Prinosil 81st.

Rod Laver is scheduled to be discharged from the UCLA Medical Center today--one month to the day after suffering a moderate stroke. Laver, who turned 60 earlier this month, is expected to make a brief statement at a news conference on the steps outside the main entrance to the hospital before leaving with his wife, Mary, and son, Rick, for their home in Newport Beach.

Hockey

Mike Gartner of the Phoenix Coyotes has announced his retirement. Gartner leaves the game as the fifth-leading goal scorer in NHL after a 19-year career.

With 708 NHL goals, the 38-year-old Gartner ranks behind only Wayne Gretzky (885), Gordie Howe (801), Marcel Dionne (731) and Phil Esposito (717).

The Chicago Blackhawks have signed free agent Eddie Olczyk, a onetime King who plays for the Pittsburgh Penguins last season.

Jurisprudence

The state Supreme Court refused to reinstate a lawsuit against USC by Marvin Cobb, who claimed USC broke a promise to promote him within the athletic department.

Cobb, a football and baseball player for the school in the mid-1970s, was hired in 1986 as an assistant athletic director, becoming the first black administrator in USC’s athletic department.

He said he was promised a promotion within two years but never got one, and claimed the rejection was in retaliation for his complaints about USC’s treatment of black athletes. He was transferred out of the department in 1991.A Superior Court jury awarded Cobb $2.1 million for breach of contract in 1994, and deadlocked on his separate claim of race discrimination. But a judge overturned the verdict and later ordered the suit dismissed, saying the evidence supported the university’s claim that Cobb was not promoted because of shortcomings in his work.The 2nd District Court of Appeal upheld the ruling in May.

Names in the News

Arnaud Tournant of France won men’s kilometer time trial and countryman Philippe Ermenault won the pursuit final at the World Cycling Championships at Bordeaux, France. American Erin Hartwell was third in the time trial.

Keith Richard was hired as basketball coach at Louisiana Tech, replacing Jim Wooldridge, who resigned to become an assistant with the Chicago Bulls.

New Mexico basketball Coach Dave Bliss has signed a seven-year contract with the school.