More Heat Is Put on Haskins

Minnesota basketball Coach Clem Haskins repeated his denial of wrongdoing Friday, despite new evidence that he paid for a Hawaiian trip of the woman at the center of the scandal.

Early in the day, the chairman of the Board of Regents, Patricia Spence, told the Associated Press that Haskins should resign.

Spence later told Minnesota Public Radio, “I don’t know any of the specific findings from the investigation. I just hope that he does what’s best for himself and what’s best for the University of Minnesota.”

Investigators will ask Haskins to explain why he apparently paid for a Hawaiian vacation for Jan Gangelhoff, the woman who says she did course work for players.

Gangelhoff, a former office manager in the academic counseling unit, has maintained that the nine-day trip in 1995 was a reward from Haskins for writing athletes’ papers and doing other course work beginning in 1993.

Officials with the charter company that arranged the trip said Haskins’ personal check for $1,050 paid for travel by Gangelhoff and another university employee.

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First, John Thompson quit as Georgetown’s basketball coach. Now Mary Fenlon is leaving too.

Fenlon, the team’s tough-love academic advisor for 27 years, is retiring July 31.

Fenlon, a former nun, was the first person Thompson hired when he took over the struggling Hoya program in 1972. She was also the person Thompson chose to accompany him when he visited possible recruits, and she kept a tight rein on the schedules and academic progress of the players.

Under Fenlon, 97% of the players who stayed four years received their degrees.

Tennis

Pete Sampras, already assured of regaining his No. 1 spot in the ATP rankings, defeated Goran Ivanisevic of Croatia in the quarterfinals of the Queen’s Club tournament at London, 7-5, 6-4. The victory was a rematch of last year’s Wimbledon final.

Second-seeded Carlos Moya of Spain, showing he can be a threat on grass, reached the semifinals of the Gerry Weber Open when he beat Sjeng Schalken, 6-3, 7-6 (7-5), at Halle, Germany. . . . Top-seeded Dominik Hrbaty of Slovakia reached the semifinals of the Merano Open by defeating Galo Blanco, 6-4, 2-6, 6-3, at Merano, Italy. . . . Top-seeded Nathalie Tauziat of France reached the semifinals of the DFS Classic with a 6-4, 7-6 (7-0) victory over Nicole Arendt at Birmingham, England.

Miscellany

Two-time world champion Alexei Yagudin is under a doctor’s care in Russia for a drinking problem after being fired from a figure skating tour. Yagudin, 19, was dismissed from the John Hancock Champions on Ice tour after a performance in Denver on May 27.

Dontae’ Jones, who played briefly in the NBA and for Mississippi State, was being sought by police in Nashville in connection with a shooting that wounded seven people.

The shooting occurred April 25 outside a nightclub.

A second suspect, Karshma Dardy, was arrested Thursday and charged with reckless endangerment and felony vandalism.

Jones faces the same charges, police said.

Michigan State tailback Little John Flowers will be arraigned in Kalamazoo, Mich., on charges of gambling and interfering with police, court officials said. Coach Nick Saban has suspended Flowers indefinitely.

Struggling to raise money for the 2002 Winter Olympics, the Salt Lake Organizing Committee nonetheless has money for 3% pay raises to 237 employees and officers. . . . A lawyer for International Olympic Committee member Kim Un-yong says an IOC investigator tried to strong-arm a businessman into signing a false statement linking $20,000 from Salt Lake Olympic bid officials to Kim’s son.

Time Inc. must pay former heavyweight boxer Randall “Tex” Cobb $2.2 million in punitive damages, to go with $8.5 million awarded Wednesday in compensatory damages, for a 1993 Sports Illustrated article saying he fixed a fight and shared cocaine with the loser, a federal jury in Nashville decided.

The Ben Johnson saga took another bizarre twist. His agent, Morris Chrobotek, wanted the sprinter, banned from competition since a second positive drug test in 1993, to compete today at a meet in Kitchener, Canada. But mindful that anyone who runs in a race with Johnson is subject to suspension, Chrobotek said Johnson would run against the clock. The Ontario Track and Field Assn. said if Johnson wants to run, he has to do it before or after the meet--not as part of it.

Alex Atanasoff, a center who played for Coach Howard Jones at USC in 1939 and 1940, died of heart failure at Alhambra Hospital. He was 84. Atanasoff, who played in two Rose Bowl games--against Duke in 1939 and Tennessee in 1940--leaves his wife, Ruth, and a sister, Olga. Funeral services will be Monday at Forest Lawn in Glendale.

Center Michael Bradley, who set a school record for field goal percentage at Kentucky last season (65.7%), has transferred to Villanova.