Loyola of Chicago Picks Farmer

Larry Farmer, a forward for three UCLA national championship teams and a former Bruin coach, will take over the basketball program at Loyola of Chicago.

Farmer was named to succeed Ken Burmeister, who was fired April 14 after compiling a 40-71 record in four seasons.

A player at UCLA from 1970-73, when the Bruins went 89-1, and the coach at UCLA from 1981 until he was fired in 1984, Farmer also coached Weber State in 1985-88 and most recently was an assistant to another former UCLA coach, Jim Harrick, at Rhode Island.

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Tina Thompson, sidelined because of a knee injury, was replaced on the U.S. women’s basketball team bound for the world championships beginning next week in Germany. The former USC player and a member of the WNBA’s Houston Comets was replaced by Taj McWilliams of the ABL’s Philadelphia Rage.

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Arizona Coach Lute Olson added Oregon assistant Jay John to his staff. . . . The Washington Huskies, who reached the NCAA’s Sweet 16 this season, are losing their prize recruit, 6-foot-7 forward Doug Wrenn, who will attend a prep school next fall.

Football

The NFL agreed to sell rights to its site on the World Wide Web to ESPN SportsZone for at least $10 million.

The agreement, which will give ESPN a multiyear contract to continue to produce the https://www.NFL.com site, came after a bidding war against SportsLine USA Inc. and News Corp.’s Fox Sports Online, sources said.

While the $10 million pales next to the $17.6 billion the league got for its eight-year television contracts in January, it marks the first time the NFL will collect a fee for cyberspace rights.

ESPN hired former Buffalo Bill quarterback Jim Kelly as a studio analyst for its pregame show next season.

The body of Joey Embry, a 21-year-old 300-pound University of Mississippi offensive tackle, was found in a pond on a golf course in Starkville, Miss., where he drowned apparently after suffering a diabetes-related seizure while retrieving golf balls late at night.

Tennis

Sergi Bruguera, struggling to find the game that helped him win two French Open titles, lost to France’s Fabrice Santoro, 6-2, 1-6, 6-0, in the World Team Cup at Duesseldorf, Germany, but Spain beat France, 2-1, in the deciding doubles.

Croatia’s Mirjana Lucic, a 16-year-old ranked No. 33, has withdrawn from next week’s French Open because of illness.

Second-seeded Patrick Rafter of Australia was beaten by Zimbabwe’s Byron Black, 6-3, 6-4, in the opening round of the Raiffeisen GP tournament at St. Poelten, Austria, where top-seeded Marcelo Rios of Chile and third-seeded Thomas Muster of Austria advanced.

Boxing

World Boxing Council heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis has been offered a five-fight, $30-million deal with HBO. He has until June 6 to agree to the deal, which would include possible fights against Ray Mercer, Michael Moorer and Buster Douglas, according to two London newspapers. The package also has an escape clause that would allow Lewis to fight World Boxing Assn. and International Boxing Federation champion Evander Holyfield, even if the fight is shown on a rival network, Showtime.

Phillip Brown, who says sparring with Larry Holmes in 1995 cost him his eyesight, is suing Holmes for more than $1.5 million. Brown accuses Holmes of punching him with his thumb improperly extended, poking him in the eye and detaching his retina. Then, the federal suit maintains, Holmes reneged on a promise to pay for surgery.

Miscellany

An appeals court in St. Paul, Minn., has ruled that Katalin Deli, who was fired as the University of Minnesota gymnastics coach in 1992 after her team and other students saw a videotape of her and husband Gabor Deli, an assistant coach, having sex, is not entitled to $675,000 in emotional distress damages.

Juventus of Turin and Real Madrid, two of world soccer’s giants, play tonight in the European Champions Cup final at Amsterdam. . . . A second-half goal by striker Gabriel Batistuta gave Argentina a 1-0 soccer victory over Chile in a World Cup tuneup at Mendoza, Argentina.