6B
Thursday, January 16, 1996
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Sale options open for Dodgers
City Council recommends team go public
The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — In an effort to keep the Los Angeles Dodgers under local ownership, the City Council decided yesterday to recommend that owner Peter O'Malley consider taking the team public.
The unanimous vote came nine days after O'Malley's surprising announcement that he had put the team his family has controlled since 1950 up for sale. Suitors of all types have been lining up for the team, which is expected to fetch more than $300 million.
The resolution by council woman Laura Chick urged O'Malley to explore public ownership of the club, which includes the stadium and property in Florida and the Dominican Republic. Public ownership is unprecedented in major-league baseball.
"I think when we talk about wanting to keep the Dodgers in Los Angeles, it's not only about wanting to keep the team that has done well by us and that we care about but to keep it in the same way," she said.
Chick held up the NFL's Green Bay Packers as a model of such an arrangement.
More than 4,600 shares of Packers stock are owned by 1,898 people, with no more than 200 shares owned individually. When shares are sold, which seldom happens, no profits are allowed. The team
turned a $5.4 million profit last year.
"There are a lot of people out there that I know feel the way I do — as we're watching professional sports turn into big business, mega corporations and the almighty dollar over and over," Chick said.
O'Malley, who has not commented since making his announcement Jan. 6, did not immediately return a phone call yesterday, and neither did the commissioner's office.
The Dodgers have been one of baseball's most successful teams — finishing first or second 19 times in the last 27 seasons — since O'Malley succeeded his father, Walter, as president.
The O'Malley family is second in seniority among baseball ownership groups, trailing only the Tom Yawkey Trust that owns the
Boston Red Sox.
Prospective bidders reportedly have included everyone from media mogul Rupert Murdoch to former O.J. Simpson attorney Robert Shapiro.
Other council members spoke at the meeting in support of Chick's proposal, including Nate Holden, who is against a separate and controversial proposal to build a sports arena for basketball and hockey downtown.
I think it's about time the taxpayers own something around here," Holden said. "Here we are going to spend $90 million over here on some doggone arena and the billionaire's still going to owe it."
The downtown proposal would cost taxpayers $70 million to $100 million more than renovations of the current facility in Inglewood, Calif.
Women's basketball is just down right wacky
By Chuck Schoffner The Associated Press
Will someone please explain what's going on in women's basketball? It seems the more they play, the crazier it gets.
While it's true the Top Ten is filled with the usual suspects — Connecticut, Stanford, Georgia, Louisiana Tech and Tennessee — there still have been some startling developments this season.
And they started early
Eighth-ranked Virginia lost to American in its second game. No. 4 Georgia, which has played in the last two Final Fours, was beaten by Clemson in its opener. Clemson also has beaten Virginia and North Carolina State, a Top 25 team all season, but lost to Wake Forest and Maryland, neither of which has been ranked.
Michigan State, which hasn't finished higher than fifth in the Big Ten in five years, leads the league. Meanwhile, defending Big Ten champion Iowa already has lost six games despite
Second-ranked Old Dominion lost at home to North Carolina State but later beat then-No. 1 Stanford. Louisiana Tech beat Tennessee and Georgia, then lost to New Orleans.
returning the top six scorers from a 27-3 team.
"It's just wacky," Clemson coach Jim Davis said.
Wacky and unpredictable. No. 14 Texas Tech, which had the nation's second-longest home-court winning streak, lost on its own floor to unranked Oklahoma State — by 22 points.
Colorado, a Top 25 team for much of the 1990s, dropped out of the poll after losing to San Francisco and UC Santa Barbara in December, then rebounded to beat no-Neo. 25 Nebraska, and Texas Tech.
"It's so difficult to pick Top 25 schools," Colorado coach Ceal Barry said. "There aren't a Top 25. Maybe a top three. Connecticut, Stanford, Old Dominion and probably Georgia might be a cut above the rest. After that, you probably have 50 teams, 60 teams, that on any given night ... they'll beat you."
"Look at St. Joseph's having Tennessee down by 16 points. That's not Tennessee playing poorly. That's St. Joe having a good team."
Barry faced the same thing in playing San Francisco and UC Santa Barbara. But unlike Tennessee, which rallied to win, Colorado lost.
San Francisco, which reached the final 16 in last year's NCAA tournament, is 13-2 with nine straight victories. UC Santa Barbara is 9-4 and played No. 1ranked Connecticut closer than anyone this season, losing by only 11.
"You take the top nine teams, and talent-wise, they might have more talent than everyone else," coach Gary Blair of No. 13 Arkansas said. "But you take 10 through 30, reverse them and it won't make any difference. San Francisco is just as good as anybody listed up there."
Blair includes Illinois in that group, too. Ten days after Arkansas beat Tennessee, Blair's team lost at home by 19 to the unranked Illini.
The way Blair sees it, the foundation for upsets is laid long before players ever get to college.
"A lot of the parity comes from the exposure that the players are getting through AAU ball at the national level, through high schools playing big-time tournaments like the men," he said. "The exposure that so many of these kids get, they don't care who you are...
"... That's the way kids are.
They have no fear right now."
The Associated Press
Cameraman kicked by Dennis Rodman at Minnesota game
MINNEAPOLIS — Dennis Rodman kicked a courtside cameraman in the groin last night during the third quarter of the Chicago Bulls' game against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Rodman was struggling for a rebound with Minnesota's Kevin Garnett when he stumbled out of bounds on the baseline and fell over a photographer with 3:46 left in the third. A television cameraman, sitting nearby, turned his camera on Rodman.
Still sitting on the floor, Rodman kicked out and the bottom of his foot struck the cameraman in the groin. The cameraman, Eugene Amos, slumped over for about seven minutes before he was carried off on a board. The extent of his injury was not immediately known.
Rodman was not taken out of the game.
NCAA resolutions score major change
We Buy, Sell, Trade & Consign USED & New Sports Equipment
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — For years, the NCAA has taken a beating from critics as well as its own members. Kooky rules, paranoia, cheating. Too much bureaucracy.
The Associated Press
Even NCAA Executive Director Cedric Dempsey scold membership, imploring them to get their act together at the 91st NCAA Convention.
By yesterday, when the convention came to a close, the NCAA's stuffy old image seemed to give way to a wave of optimism, punctuated by several historic decisions — such as allowing athletes to work part-time and granting a fourth-year of eligibility to partial qualifiers.
"Have you ever seen a convention like this," asked outgoing NCAA president Gene Corrigan. "You never want to think you have a pat hand going into anything. Sure, there was a little contention here, a little contention there, but I think we settled everything."
From restructuring the way the NCAA conducts business no longer will there be a one-school, one-vote mentality when it comes to the big schools — to giving athletes a chance to work, the delegates followed Dempsey's plea for sanity and voted in landmark legislation.
"I think what this convention said is we're going to try and trust each other," Dempsey said. "That we want this to work out."
Among the legislation passed yesterday was a modification of the NBA draft rule. The new rule says athletes who entered the draft early, and are selected, give up their remaining eligibility. If they aren't taken, they can retain their eligibility.
For the last three years,
The NBA plans to work with the NCAA and set up a group to advise players of their drafting chances.
drafted players could return to school as long as they had not signed with an agent. But then NBA officials said that if an undergraduate was drafted and returned to school, the team that drafted the player would retain his rights the following year.
Also yesterday, the delegates voted:
to prohibit coaches and administrators from taking part in any gambling activity associated with professional sports contests.
to give financial protection to all men's and women's NCAA championships in Olympic sports. Many, especially men's volleyball and gymnastics, were in danger of losing their funding.
to authorize NCAA testing of athletes who test positive for drug use by non-NCAA athletic organizations.
to turn down a measure to let basketball recruiters make unlimited phone calls to prospects 48 hours before and after the first day of the national signing period.
to allow Midnight Madness first official day of college basketball practice — to occur on the Saturday closest to Oct. 15 rather than on the exact date.
to prohibit unrestricted calls to basketball recruits.
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