Ban on Sports Wagering Won’t Pass, Senator Says

Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has stopped worrying about a ban on college sports betting being passed by Congress this year.

“The bill won’t pass out of Congress,” Reid said. “We’ll kill it. I am confident. I wasn’t confident last year but I am now.”

The NCAA supports the bill that would outlaw wagering on college, high school and Olympic sports.

Nevada allows wagering on professional and college sports. No other state allows wagering on college sports.

Reid, the second-ranking member of the Senate, said he expects supporters of the idea to try to attach it as an amendment to an appropriations bill. But Reid said he and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, (D-S.D.), will use their powers to avert a floor vote.

Olympics

In an indirect slap at his would-be South Korean successor, IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch stressed that bans on visits to Olympic bid candidates should remain in place.

The IOC scrapped member visits to cities vying to host the Games in the wake of the 1999 Salt Lake City bribery scandal.

And while that reform is backed by many IOC members, South Korea’s Kim Un-yong has argued that the visits should be restored because the current technical evaluation report is insufficient.

The IOC has given Australian vice president Kevan Gosper a “serious” rebuke after he broke election rules by publicly announcing his support for Canada’s Dick Pound for the organization’s presidency.

Basketball

The Houston Rockets said Maurice Taylor and Shandon Anderson won’t exercise their options to extend their contracts with the team, making them free agents. The team also won’t exercise its option to keep Carlos Rogers next season.

Chicago’s two top draft picks will be on the team’s roster for two summer leagues, the L.A. Summer Pro League and the Rocky Mountain Revue.

Eddy Curry and Tyson Chandler, both making the leap from high school to the NBA, took physicals and will began two-a-day practices today.

University of Kentucky forward Jason Parker underwent nearly two hours of reconstructive surgery to replace the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee and repair two small tears in the cartilage below the kneecap.

Jurisprudence

The defendants in the upcoming Olympic bribery trial have rejected another plea bargain from the government.

The Justice Department’s offer, made Thursday, was no better than the deal bid chief Tom Welch and deputy Dave Johnson rejected almost a year ago, before they were indicted, Johnson’s lawyer, Max Wheeler, said.

The deal involved Welch and Johnson each pleading guilty to a single felony. It’s the same deal offered a year ago, Wheeler said.

The two men face 15 felony charges of conspiracy, fraud and racketeering at a trial scheduled to begin July 30.

High school basketball star Dajuan Wagner was found guilty of simple assault and was sentenced to one year’s probation for punching a classmate at school.

A Superior Court judge handed down the verdict and the sentence after a three-day nonjury trial in Camden, N.J.

A judge in Tampa, Fla., recommended that the fired coach of the University of South Florida’s women’s basketball team be reinstated, saying the school did not prove she mistreated the team’s black players.

Jerry Ann Winters, fired Dec. 14, should receive back pay for the months she has been out of a job and be returned to the head coaching position, said Florida Division of Administrative Hearings Judge William F. Quattlebaum.

Passings

David Wells, former athletic director and men’s basketball coach at Claremont-Mudd-Scripps College, died of cancer. He was 49. (Story, B11).

Bob Cifers, who played in the NFL in the 1940s, died at age 80 at St. Thomas Hospital in Nashville on Sunday.

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T.J. Simers is on vacation.