Duke’s Maggette Listens to Jordan--Then Decides to Go Pro Anyway

Duke freshman Corey Maggette has decided against Michael Jordan’s advice and will become the third Blue Devil to leave school early this year.

Maggette told the Chicago Tribune he would follow his heart and declare himself eligible for the June 30 NBA draft after his freshman season.

Maggette follows fellow Blue Devils Elton Brand and William Avery into the draft.

Maggette, who called Jordan for his opinion, said he made up his mind Friday night, going against the three most influential people in his life--his parents and his grandfather.

The 6-foot-6 Maggette averaged 10.7 points and four rebounds in less than 18 minutes a game.

Tennis

Patrick Rafter has figured out the quickest path to the world No. 1 ranking: play slowly.

Against Felix Mantilla at Rome, Rafter used the serve-and-volley game to rare success on clay and advanced to the finals of the Italian Open.

With the 6-3, 7-5 victory, Rafter is one victory away from gaining the No. 1 ranking.

The combination of an attacking player in the Rome final with the chance of becoming No. 1 has added excitement to the tournament, the last major event before the French Open.

The Australian will meet Brazilian Gustavo Kuerten for the championship. Kuerten, the 1997 French Open champion, won his semifinal against Alex Correjta of Spain with ease, 6-4, 6-2. Kuerten, a top clay-court player, won the Monte Carlo title last month.

Top-ranked Martina Hingis of Switzerland cruised to her fourth final this year with a 6-4, 6-0 victory over Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario of Spain in the semifinals of the German Open at Berlin.

She will try to make it four for four in title matches when she plays Julie Halard-Ducugis of France, who defeated Romanian Ruxandra Dragomir, 6-2, 6-2, in her first tournament semifinal.

Hingis ended the 66-minute match by converting her third match point with a spectacular running backhand lob after Sanchez-Vicario sent a volley flying into the corner.

Miscellany

Women athletes and coaches are making significant progress in college athletics, but disparities in participation and financing for their teams persist, according to a survey by The Chronicle of Higher Education.

The survey covered the 1997-98 academic year and was based on reports, prepared under the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act, from 306 of the 310 NCAA Division I member schools.

It found that 40% of athletes were women, a 5% increase from 1996-97, and women received 40% of athletic-scholarship budgets, a 14% rise from the previous year.

But participation by women in sports trailed their enrollment rates at many colleges. Nationally, women constituted 53% of the undergraduates at Division I schools.

The schools with the greatest disparity of women’s athletic participation in 1997-98 were Murray State, Southern, Drake, Southwestern Louisiana, Marshall, Chicago State, Tennessee Martin, Southern Mississippi, Western Kentucky and Akron.

Schools awarding the least-proportional share of scholarships to women athletes were Vanderbilt, Miami of Ohio, Richmond, Eastern Washington and Colorado. Miami, which announced this year it was dropping three men’s sports to comply with Title IX, awarded only 32% of its athletic-scholarship budget to women, who represented 45% of the university’s athletes.

Coaches of women’s teams received only 28% of total salary expenditures on coaches, the survey found. Every Division I school in the survey paid the coaches of men’s teams more than the coaches of women’s teams.

Goalie Milan Hnilicka turned in a dominating performance, helping the Czech Republic to a 3-1 victory over Finland in the first of two final games at the World Hockey Championships at Lillehammer, Norway.

Hnilicka stopped 30 shots and had a shutout going until 5:18 remained.

Finland, last year’s losing finalist against Sweden, had several chances to tie it late on a power play, but Radek Dvorak’s empty-net goal with 31 seconds left secured the victory for the Olympic champions.

Brent Doble and Lee LeGrande advanced to today’s semifinals of the inaugural Oldsmobile Alero Beach Volleyball Series at Huntington Beach by beating Sinjin Smith and Rob Heidger, 15-11.

In the women’s competition, Lisa Arce and Barbra Fontana advanced with a 15-5 win over Annette Buckner-Davis and Jenny Johnson-Jordan.

Ato Boldon, the world’s fastest man last year at 100 and 200 meters, ran a relatively slow 10.15, but it was enough for an easy victory at the chilly Adidas Oregon Track Classic at Eugene.

Boldon, who has a career-best of 9.86--only two-hundredths of a second off Donovan Bailey’s world-record 9.84 set at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics--said he wanted to take it easy once he was assured of victory so he wouldn’t aggravate a sore hamstring.

Inger Miller, a gold medalist on the American 400 relay team in Atlanta and ranked No. 3 in the 100 last year, stumbled out of the blocks and finished second in the 100 to Beverly McDonald of Jamaica, a 200 specialist who was running her first 100. McDonald won in 11.17, four-hundredths of a second ahead of Miller.

At least 20 people were injured, and one was reported in serious condition with stab wounds, after violent clashes between rival fans at the end of the Fiorentina-Lazio soccer game, police in Florence, Italy, reported.