BROWN DECISION
The Indiana Pacers should know by the end of the week whether former Kansas coach Larry Brown will return as coach.
In California since the end of the regular season, Brown plans to fly to Indianapolis tomorrow to meet with the Pacers' president, Donnie Walsh.
Boston and Philadelphia apparently are the front-runners if Brown decides to leave Indiana.
The Pacers, who won a franchise-record 52 games each of the previous two seasons, stumbled this season, going 39-43.
KENTUCKY DERBY FAVORITE CHOSEN
Pulpit, winner of the Blue Grass Stakes,
was made the morning-line 5-2 favorite yesterday for the Kentucky Derby.
Brown, 56, has two years left on his contract.
was given the edge over Wood Memorial winner Captain Bodigit, the second choice at 3-1 for Saturday's Triple Crown race at Churchill Downs.
Pulpit, winner of four of five career starts,
TUESDAY, APRIL 29, 1997
NBAFINES
Sam Mitchell of the Minnesota Timberwolves was finished $10,000 and Kevin Willis of the Houston Rockets 7,500 by the NBA yesterday for fighting during a playoff game.
The incident occurred during Saturday's 96-84 Houston victory, which gave the Rockets a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five series.
After the confrontation with Willis, Mitchell was called for a flagrant foul and rejected with 9:25 left in the game. Mitchell hit Willis from behind with a forearm as the Houston forward drove for a layup.
Wills was found for flagrantly elbowing Mitchell in the head with 1:15 remaining in the first quarter.
Mitchell's ejection also carries a $1,000 fine.
SECTION B
Kansas hoops left Baron; All-American picks UCLA
Baron Davis, a six-foot-one point guard from Santa Monica, Calif., will attend UCLA instead of Kansas Davis announced his decision last night on the Fox Sports West network at the Los Angeles Clippers-Utah jazz game in Los Angeles.
Davis, who averaged 26.5 points per game and 8.1 rebounds, committed to UCLA in November. However, when Bruins coach Jim Harrick was fired, Davis reopened his recruiting, seriously considering Kansas and Georgia Tech.
Last week, Kansas men's basketball coach Roy Williams said the Jayhawks would give out only two scholarships. It is believed that these scholarships were offered to Khalid E-Alam, Minneapolis, Minn., and Davis, both of whom declined.
Davis' list of accomplishments includes Parade All-American, USA Today All-American and McDonald's All-American. He also is listed by recruiting expert Bob Gibbons as the No. 1 high school point guard in America.
—Kansan staff report
Graf plans return to tennis after knee injury recovery
BERLIN — After a three-month layoff because of a knee injury, Steff Graft plans to return to the WTA Tour on May 12 at the German Oen.
Graf withdrew from the Toray Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo on Feb. 2 because of an injured tendon in her left knee. She was to have played Martina Hingis, the 16-year-old Swiss sensation, in the final
Steffl Grat
Tyler Wirken / KANSAN
Hingis, who overtook Graf as the No. 1 female player on March 30, won't play in Berlin. She is recuperating from knee surgery after having been thrown from a horse. She hopes to be ready for the French Open, which starts May 26.
Graf's injury prevented her from playing in the Fed Cup in which Germany lost to the Czech Republic. She also has missed tournaments at Indian Wells, Calif., and Key Biscayne, Fl., and will miss one that starts today in Hamburg, Germany.
IOC president acknowleges Olympic drug difficulties
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Nine years after Ben Johnson and three decades after the fight started, the boss of the Olympics is starting to point fingers when asked why he's losing the battle against drugs in sports.
In an unusually candid assessment, IOC president Juan Antonio Samarancan said that some international sports federations ignored the drug problem.
Samaran visited the USOC's headquarters to help dedicate a $23.8 million expansion of its main training center. He also attended two days of meetings of the USOC's executive committee, which heard that seven U.S. cities now are lining up to bid for the 2008 Olympics, with a Thursday deadline looming for applications.
Samaranch, finishing three days of meetings with the U.S. Olympic Committee, also said organizers of next year's Winter Games in Nagano, Japan, needed to polish their image at home and abroad.
Kansas player drafted into fledgling WNBA
USOC executive director Dick Schultz said checks had been received from Cincinnati, Houston and Seattle, with groups in Baltimore, New York, San Francisco and Washington saying they also would meet the deadline.
—The Associated Press
Tamecka Dixon going pro in LA
By Tommy Gallagher Kansan sportswriter
Dixon, a former Kansas guard, had said that she had wanted to be drafted by the
Tamecka Dixon was drafted by the Los Angeles Sparks as the 14th pick in the Women's National Basketball Association draft yesterday.
Tamecka Dixon guards a Missouri player during a game in Allen Field House. Dixon was drafted in the Women's National Basketball Association's second round yesterday by the Los Angeles Sparks
WNBA's New York Liberty, which is close to her hometown of Linden. N.J.
But after being drafted by Los Angeles, Dixon said that playing on the West Coast could bring tremendous financial advantages.
"I'm very excited to play in the WNBA," she said in a press release. "I think that it will give me the opportunity to become very marketable, and it will allow me to establish a fan base in the United States."
Dixon will join a team that features center Lisa Leslie, who is a former U.S. Olympian and the WNBA's most marketable players.
Dixon said she was eager to play with Leslie when the league tipped off its first season on June 21.
"Playing with Lisa Leslie will enable me to learn from the best," Dixon said. "She is one of the country's best players, and playing with her night after night will only make me better."
Dixon was the sixth selection of the second round and will earn $20,000 as a rookie.
Her teammate, guard Angie Halbleib,
was not among the 32 players selected
yesterday. She still could sign a contract
with the league as an undrafted free
agent and make $7,500 this season.
Colorado forward Raegan Scott was the only player from the Big 12 chosen in the WNBA draft. She was the third-round pick of the Utah Starz and the 21st overall selection of the draft.
In a story on the WNBA's Internet site, Dixon said that the creation of the WNBA and the American Basketball
"I didn't have female role models to look in (up in) sports," Dixon said. "I
League, which is the WNBA's rival, could provide the next generation of women with role models.
think it's a great opportunity for them, and for us as well, just to promote the league and the sport and give them an opportunity to grow up having female role models."
Athletics, equal rights and Title IX
Title IX has proven to be a headache.
You know what Title IX is.
It's that law passed in 1962 requiring athletic departments to balance the number of participants in women's and men's sports.
In other words, every university is required to put both genders on equal footing.
It's the law that has caused schools to slash programs like wrestling, gymnastics, lacrosse, fencing and junior varsity teams so that the number of male participants would go down.
It's the law that 25 years ago caused men to ask, "Why do women need to be equally represented?"
SPORTS
EDITOR
This is the law that 25 years ago caused women to say, "It's about time."
Title IX is one reason athletic
departments face lawsuits from women who claim a certain school didn't do its part to give women's athletics fair representation.
It's the law that has caused athletic departments to hire assistants whose primary job is to bring women's sports up to a competitive level.
Title IX has created thousands of athletic scholarships that were never available for women.
Title IX, many argue, has made it possible for the NBA and Reebok to start competing women's basketball leagues.
These same people argue that Title IX is one reason more women's coaches are finally being paid the equivalent of men's coaches.
"Title IX has caused a lot of headaches," said an athletic director who declined identification. "I can tell you this— it has done some good, but it has created a lot of problems."
Kansas has not been able to avoid those problems. But unlike other universities, Kansas has dealt with the problems.
According to USA Today and The Chronicle of Higher Education, Kansas is one of 12 schools that is meeting Title IX requirements. Not bad, considering that 293 other schools are not making the grade.
But getting ahead of the rest of the country has not been easy.
Title IX has cost the University and students money. But it has been necessary. If it weren't for Title IX, women still would be relegated to second class in sports.
For the rest of the week this space will be used to take a look at how Title IX is costing students money, how it has changed the way the Kansas Athletic Department is doing business and how it has changed the way the athletic department spends money.
Welcome to Title IX 101: The University of Kansas Tomorrow: How student fees subsidize Kansas athletics Comments? E-mail Spencer at sports@kansan.com
Softball team drops games for grades
By Matt Woodruff Kansan sportswriter
A softball doubleheader that originally was scheduled to be played this afternoon in Lincoln, Neb., has been canceled by Kansas coach Tracy Bunge and Nebraska coach Rhonda Revelle.
"I didn't want to put the players in a position where we would have to be in Nebraska and then have to leave the next day for Oklahoma," Bunge said. "I didn't want them to have to miss that many days of their classes."
Bunge said it would have been academically detrimental to the players to play a doubleheader today and then leave for Oklahoma tomorrow, where Kansas begins play in the Big 12 Conference tournament.
"We've played 12 games in the last eight days, and I'm sure Kansas is in a similar situation." Revelle said. "We thought playing until 10 and then having to leave for Oklahoma City the next day would not be a win-win situation. Even if one of the teams swept (the double-header), we would be exhausted."
Revelle said that Nebraska's recent schedule also had affected the decision
Since Kansas and Nebraska already have played a doubleheader this season, the games would not have counted
"Sometimes extra games are scheduled in case of a rainout or things like that," Eiland said. "If it doesn't count toward a conference record, it's up to the coaches whether or not they want to play those games."
in the conference standings.
Lee Eiland, Big 12 assistant director of media relations, said extra games often were scheduled toward the end of the year and could be canceled.
"I have not been happy with the way we have been playing the last couple of weeks — especially offensively," Bunge said. "I'm glad that now we'll have a good week to practice."
Bunge said that Kansas, which has played 12 games since April 15, would benefit from the extra practice time.
The Kansas softball team will enter the Big 12 tournament in Oklahoma City with a 34-19 overall record and an 11-6 record in conference games.
In the tournament, which begins Friday, Kansas will be a No. 3 seed behind Big 12 champion Missouri and No. 2 seed Oklahoma.
Both coaches agreed that this season's tournament would be competitive.
"It's going to be a good tournament," Revelle said. "There are five or six teams that have a good chance to win it."
Rowing team glides to finish in varsity regatta
The Kansas women's rowing team finished second in the Varsity Lightweight Eight race at the Great Midwest Rowing Championships last weekend in Madison, Wis.
Kansan staff report
Rob Catloth, rowing head coach, said the Jayhawks had a fantastic sprint finish, second only to Wisconsin.
The regatta featured some of the nation's best teams, including the top teams of the Big 10 Conference. The Wisconsin team played host to the event on Madison's Lake Wingra.
Kansas also had finishes in the Varsity Eight race, where the team finished sixth in the finals, and in the Second Freshman Eight, where it also finished in sixth place. Other Kansas highlights included a ninth place finish in the First Freshman Eight race and tenth in the Varsity Four.
Catloth said he thought the team did well but could improve in maturity during the next year.
"We didn't race as well in the finals as we did in the heats," Catloth said. "But I think we are now one of the top 30 teams in the country. I think this was a big step for us. We should have more maturity next year, and I think we will be among the top 20."
Rowing Results
Great Midwest Rowing Championships
Second Freshman Eight
Second Freshman Eight
1. Wisconsin
2. Ohio State
2. Ohio State
3. Michigan
3. Michigan
5. Michigan
6. Kansas
First Freshman Eight
First Freshman Eight
1. Wisconsin
2. Ohio State
3. Iowa
9. Kansas
Varsity Four
1. Iowa-A
2. Ohio State
3. Tennessee
10. Kansas
Varsity Lightweight Eight
1. Wisconsin
2. Kansas
3. Grand Valley State
Varsity Eight
1. Wisconsin
2. Michigan
3. Ohio State
6. Kansas
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