Tyson Faces Another Hurdle if He Makes Phoenix Home

If Mike Tyson settles his legal problems in Maryland and follows through on plans to make the Phoenix area his new home, he’ll have to register with the sheriff’s office as a sex offender.

Tyson has been living temporarily in Scottsdale, Ariz., while he trains for his first fight since he bit Evander Holyfield’s ears during a bout in June 1997.

If Tyson makes his residence permanent, he will have to register as a sex offender because of his 1992 rape conviction in Indiana, Scottsdale police Sgt. Doug Dirren said Wednesday.

Tyson pleaded no contest in Maryland on Tuesday to misdemeanor assault for his role in a scuffle after a traffic accident.

Indiana authorities must decide whether the no-contest plea violates his probation, which could send the former heavyweight champion back to prison.

Pro Basketball

When formal collective bargaining talks between NBA owners and players resume this morning in New York, the sides may decide to start from scratch.

“We may have to go a totally different path,” NBA Deputy Commissioner Russ Granik said. “Maybe there will be something . . . that will surprise me.”

Union director Billy Hunter, already finding himself in disagreement with Granik, said, “It may be too late for that.”

In what will be only the second full bargaining session since the season was supposed to begin Nov. 3, the entire negotiating teams of owners and players will meet.

The last time they met, Nov. 20, both sides called it their most productive session to date. Yet things quickly fell apart in the next couple of days as the union said the owners’ proposed changes to free-agency timing rules were a “deal-killer” and the owners then said the union had reneged on its acceptance of a complicated tax formula in the final years of a six- or seven-year deal.

Chris Webber of the Sacramento Kings was cleared of the most serious charges against him at a trial in Upper Marlboro, Md., but will have to pay $560 in fines for a traffic stop that could have led to a jail sentence.

A Prince George’s County circuit court jury acquitted Webber of possession of marijuana, driving under the influence of the drug, resisting arrest and second-degree assault.

However, the nine-woman, three-man panel found the NBA star guilty of two traffic violations and a misdemeanor charge.

“I’m very relieved,” Webber said outside the courthouse. “When you face charges of any type it’s definitely tense. I’m so elated right now it really hasn’t hit me. I can’t even show my emotions.”

Names in the News

Mickey Mantle Jr., 45, has cancer--the same disease that killed his father, youngest brother, grandfather and great-grandfather. This time, though, it’s a different form--melanoma, a type of skin cancer.

Mickey Mantle was 63 when he died of liver cancer in August 1995. His youngest son, Billy, had Hodgkin’s disease, a lymphatic cancer, before dying of a heart attack in 1994 at 36.

With Bruce Arena hired away by the U.S. national team, D.C. United named Thomas Rongen to coach Major League Soccer’s most successful team.

D.C. United will be Rongen’s third MLS team. He was the league’s coach of the year in 1996 after leading the Tampa Bay Mutiny to a 20-12 regular-season record, then moved to the New England Revolution the next year and posted records of 15-17 and 8-18 before he was fired Aug. 22.

The Galaxy lost midfielder Martin Machon for the 1999 season when MLS announced it had loaned him to Santos Laguna of Mexico’s First Division for its summer and winter seasons.

Under MLS’ single-entity format, all player contracts are owned by the league, which can transfer players to foreign teams. Machon, a starter in 29 of 32 games for the Galaxy last season, remains MLS property and could return to the league in 2000, a Galaxy spokesman said.

Junior defenders Skylar Little of UCLA and Kim Clark of USC were first-team All-Far West soccer selections.

Miscellany

More criminal charges are expected today in a federal probe of sports gambling at Northwestern--this time involving its football team, according to newspaper and broadcast reports Wednesday night.

The government has been investigating whether Northwestern players intentionally shaved points during two Big Ten games in 1994. Charges were expected against up to six people, WLS-TV in Chicago reported, quoting unidentified criminal defense sources.

Thomas K. Welch, former head of the Salt Lake City Olympic bid committee, said it was common for the privately funded program to pay for favors for members of the International Olympic Committee.

Welch, who directed the special projects fund for the Salt Lake Olympic Committee, denied allegations that the favors were veiled bribes intended to buy the support of IOC members.

“We didn’t do anything any different than any other bid committee,” he said.

The SLOC has come under scrutiny since it was revealed last week that it had helped pay the college tuition for the daughter of an IOC member. Welch acknowledged the fund and its use to “help members of the Olympic family.”

The schedule for World Cup ski races at Mammoth Mountain was altered as officials faced the prospect of trying to beat a storm forecast for Friday.

The super-G, which had been scheduled for today, was pushed back to Friday, with the slalom being moved up a day to today.

The race jury decided on the change because it was considered likely weather would deteriorate Friday afternoon and jeopardize the second run of the slalom. The super-G, a one-run event, would stand a better chance of completion before snow and wind strike.

More jobs should be available to American basketball players in Europe starting next year after the sport’s world governing body agreed in principle to allow pros to play for any team without limits.

The federation previously restricted European club teams to two non-European players.

Lubbock Christian defeated Biola, 12-15, 15-10, 15-10, 15-5, on the opening day of the NAIA women’s volleyball tournament at Kankakee, Ill.