Legendary High School Coach Wootten to Quit

After winning more games than any high school boys’ basketball coach and sending 13 players to the NBA, Morgan Wootten will put down his whistle and end a career that spanned 46 years.

Wootten, 71, announced his retirement Wednesday at a news conference at DeMatha High in Hyattsville, Md., where he compiled a 1,274-192 record since taking the job in 1956.

“I just finally got that gut feeling that now is the time,” Wootten said. “I thought about it all summer long. And then, in early September, there was no question in my mind. I wanted to do it the right way.”

Two years ago, Wootten became only the third high school coach to be inducted into the basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass.

He never had a losing season and his teams won at least 20 games in 44 consecutive seasons. The Stags were voted national champion five times.

Wootten turned down several lucrative offers to leave DeMatha to coach in college, but said he never regretted staying at DeMatha.

Among the players he coached who went to the NBA were Adrian Dantley, Kenny Carr, Danny Ferry and Sidney Lowe. During the 1960s, DeMatha ended the 71-game winning streak of New York’s Power Memorial Academy, which was led by Lew Alcindor (later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar).

College Sports

Arizona, the nation’s No. 1-ranked men’s basketball team in the preseason coaches’ poll, was the unanimous favorite to win the Pacific 10 Conference title in a media survey released Wednesday.

The Wildcats had all 27 first-place votes and were followed by Oregon, UCLA, Arizona State, California, USC, Stanford, Washington, Oregon State and Washington State.

*

The Big West Conference, which may lose its second member in the next few weeks, is targeting UC Davis for membership to push toward its goal of forming an all-California conference.

Commissioner Dennis Farrell said UC Davis has not been formally invited but hopes to make such an announcement in the next month.

Davis is a nationally recognized Division II program but has been actively seeking a move to Division I.

Students at Davis will vote on a Nov. 12 referendum that will fund an additional $4 million for additional scholarships.

Davis Athletic Director Greg Warzecka said the school expects to meet a Dec. 1 deadline to announce its exploratory status as Division I member in 2002-03.

*

College World Series champion Texas was put on two years’ probation by the NCAA for illegal job benefits given to former volunteer assistant Richard Couch, who took a job at a beer distributorship owned by a former university regent but didn’t do any work.

Instead, Couch spent his time working on activities related to the baseball team, especially recruiting, the NCAA determined.

Tennis

*

Top-ranked Lleyton Hewitt will face No. 3 Marat Safin in next week’s season-ending Shanghai Masters Cup.

Wednesday’s draw put No. 2 Andre Agassi in the tournament’s other four-man group. Agassi trails Hewitt by 88 points in the ATP Champions Race; 150 points are available in Shanghai.

*

Top-seeded Tatiana Panova defeated Tatiana Poutchek, 6-4, 6-1, in the Volvo Women’s Open at Pattaya, Thailand.

Miscellany

Chick Hearn, the longtime Laker broadcaster who died at 85 of head injuries from a fall in August, will have a post office named in his honor.

President Bush signed into law a resolution designating the post office on White Oak Avenue in Encino as the Francis Dayle “Chick” Hearn post office.

*

World Boxing Council super-middleweight champion Eric Lucas of Canada has requested a postponement of his Dec. 7 fight against Markus Beyer because of a thyroid gland problem.

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Path to the Pros

NBA players who were coached in high school by Morgan Wootten (with high school graduation year and first NBA team):

*--* Player Year NBA Team John Austin 1962 Baltimore Bullets John Jones 1962 Boston Celtics Joe Kennedy 1964 Seattle SuperSonics Bernard Williams 1965 San Diego Rockets Sid Catlett 1967 Cincinnati Royals Adrian Dantley 1973 Buffalo Braves Kenny Carr 1974 Los Angeles Lakers Charles Whitney 1976 Kansas City Kings Sidney Lowe 1979 Indiana Pacers Adrian Branch 1981 Los Angeles Lakers Danny Ferry 1985 Cleveland Cavaliers Jerrod Mustaf 1988 New York Knicks Joe Forte 1999 Boston Celtics

*--*