New Year Doesn’t Figure to Be Happy at the Forum

Chick Hearn went to the Lakers’ Christmas party Tuesday night at the Forum Club, stayed 10 minutes and left. He said it was too depressing to be there in December without a basketball game to announce.

There will be even less holiday cheer at the Great Western Forum if the NBA season is canceled. The Lakers have contemplated laying off as many as three dozen front-office employees.

“Those people working for the teams who earn $40,000 and have one or two kids at home, those are the ones who are really going to be hurt if we don’t have a season,” an NBA source said.

He added that several teams and the league office are considering layoffs if the lockout doesn’t end by the first of next year.

The Clippers aren’t one of them, perhaps because they aren’t burdened with a coach’s salary.

So who’s the grinch stealing Christmas?

David Stern? Billy Hunter? David Falk?

It’s easy to say a pox on all their houses.

So I’ll say it.

A pox on all their houses.

*

Is it because the NBA players are locked out that the first few weeks of the college basketball season have seemed more interesting than ever? . . .

Jeff Fellenzer, director of the Pete Newell Challenge, expects the largest crowds ever for college basketball games in the state at the Arena in Oakland on Dec. 29, when North Carolina meets California and Temple meets Stanford. . . .

The record is 18,543 for the NCAA West Regional games in 1997 at San Jose. . . .

The record for any basketball game in California is 19,811, the crowd for the Lakers’ game against the Warriors last April 11 in Oakland. . . .

Pete Newell Challenge Career Achievement Awards will be presented at halftime of the first game to Dean Smith and Jerry West. . . .

Newell, 83, coached the 1960 U.S. Olympic team, the best of the pre-Dream Team era. . . .

During tryouts, a discouraged West considered going home to West Virginia because he didn’t think he’d be selected. . . .

“If you’re not on the team, I’m not coaching it,” Newell said. . . .

West stayed and starred for a team that included nine other future NBA players, including Oscar Robertson and Jerry Lucas. . . .

Carlos Boozer of Juneau, Alaska, considered one of the nation’s best prep basketball players, made his official visit last weekend to UCLA. . . .

Boozer spent some time during his visit to Duke with former Blue Devil Grant Hill. Then Hill showed up at Pauley Pavilion when Boozer was there for Saturday’s UCLA game against Nevada Las Vegas. Coincidence? . . .

One edge the Bruins have is that Boozer played on the same summer league team out of Fresno with UCLA freshmen Ray Young and Matt Barnes. . . .

It’s wise to keep recruiting stories in perspective. Two of the best prep point guards in the country in 1996 were Mater Dei’s Kevin Augustine and Dominguez’s Kenny Brunner. . . .

Both were in the papers Wednesday, Augustine because he’s quitting at USC and Brunner because he’s awaiting a hearing on robbery and assault charges in Fresno. . . .

Don’t be surprised if USC offensive coordinator Hue Jackson returns to California in the same role to replace Doug Cosbie, who quit. . . .

Oxnard’s Fernando Vargas, who won the International Boxing Federation junior-middleweight title from Yory Boy Campas, wants to make his first defense in Los Angeles, possibly at the Grand Olympic Auditorium. . . .

The U.S. men’s soccer team hasn’t been able to attract Hispanics as fans. That’s not stopping the women from trying. They held a clinic for inner-city youth Tuesday at the Coliseum. . . .

Promoter Al Franken has a chance to bring the L.A. Invitational indoor track meet back to respectability three years after losing its longtime title sponsor, Sunkist. . . .

Next year’s meet, scheduled for Feb. 13 at the Sports Arena, is one of four selected by USA Track & Field for a series that will be nationally televised. . . .

David Milch, executive producer of “NYPD Blue,” says his filly, Dahlia Handicap winner Tuzla, reminds him of Det. Andy Sipowicz because of their tenacity. But she’s prettier, Milch says. . . .

Sipowicz, played by Dennis Franz, weighed in on the NBA lockout last week, when he said, “The thought of all them millionaire hoopsters goin’ without makes me too distressful.”

*

While wondering if anyone could have guessed that Doug Flutie and Randall Cunningham would be most-valuable-player candidates, I was thinking: Pro Bowl voters don’t trust any quarterback under 30, baseball divisions should be drawn up according to economic status instead of geography, the IOC should change its initials to IOU.

Randy Harvey can be reached at his e-mail address: randy.harvey@latimes.com.