Cross Wants Reasons for Firing

Outgoing Idaho State Athletic Director Irv Cross says he accomplished what was most important at the Pocatello school and President Richard Bowen must explain the reasons for his ouster.

Cross and football Coach Tom Walsh were fired Thursday, effective at the end of their current contracts.

In a written statement, Bowen said the athletic department “is stalled.”

Kent Tingey, vice president for university advancement, said “stalled” referred “to the team’s success on the field, raising money, relating to the community and other factors.”

Cross told a Bengal Foundation luncheon in Boise on Friday that academics among athletes have improved to be the best in the Big Sky Conference and disciplinary problems have dropped off in the last year.

“I’m getting fired because I think that way, but I always will,” Cross said. “One thing I wasn’t asked to do was be a fund-raiser.”

Cross, a nine-season cornerback for the Philadelphia Eagles and Los Angeles Rams, a Pro Bowl selection and a member of CBS Sports for 23 years, has run the athletic program since March 1996.

Cross said he went to Bowen’s office to discuss athletics and Cross brought up the news that the Cal State Northridge athletic director agreed to resign following the arrest of the women’s basketball coach on cocaine charges.

Bowen then said, “By the way, I have to ask for your resignation too,” Cross related. “It’s his shot, his direction and call and he’s done it.”

Cross will remain athletic director until his contract expires on June 30. Walsh, who is 5-14 in a year and a half in Pocatello, will coach the remaining three games of the 1998 season. The Bengals host Sacramento State today.

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What happened to all the taunting, the name-calling, the genuine hate?

For teams that have built one of the Pac-10’s most heated rivalries, the rhetoric between Oregon and Washington has been unusually tame this week. But that doesn’t mean the Ducks and Huskies will hold anything back when they meet for the 92nd time today at Autzen Stadium in Eugene, Ore.

“I think maybe the war of words is calm, but that’s more that neither team wants to give the other team any bulletin board material,” Oregon guard Stefan deVries said. “We respect each other and maybe the words have calmed, but the game itself and the hitting definitely hasn’t.”

After winning three of the last four games in the series, Oregon has had plenty of reason to crow, and seldom have the Ducks passed up the opportunity.

In 1994, Oregon, which had lost 11 of its previous 13 games to the Huskies, won, 31-20, when Kenny Wheaton returned an interception 97 yards for a touchdown as Washington was driving for the winning score.

The next year in Seattle, Washington lost, 24-22, when the wind blew John Wales’ field goal wide with just over a minute left. After that game, Oregon freshman running back Kevin Parker put a towel around his neck in the form of a noose, showing Huskies’ fans how their team had choked.

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One San Jose State player has been suspended by the Western Athletic Conference for today’s game at Hawaii.

Senior defensive back Ghalee Wadood was suspended for engaging in a fourth-quarter fight during last week’s game with Utah.