The NCAA Presidents Commission has unanimously rejected the proposal for a Division I-A football championship. ”There is nothing to be gained other than to satisfy the egos of a few people who can be able to say, `I won THE game,”` said Maryland Chancellor John Slaughter, the commission chairman. ”I think that is a hollow and meaningless designation.” Commission members voted 11-0 Wednesday to oppose any legislation introduced at the NCAA`s January convention in Nashville that would create a playoff. ”The idea of a championship football game is not in the best interest of intercollegiate athletics,” Slaughter said.
The school presidents and chancellors also set up three additional forums similar to the one at the special NCAA convention last June in Dallas. Slaughter said the next forum would be in conjunction with the convention and would concentrate on the economics of college athletics. The third forum, set for June, 1988, would focus on the structure of the NCAA. The fourth would be with the 1989 NCAA convention and deal with college athletes.
Reggie White, a former defensive lineman at Tennessee, has denied that he was encouraged by coach Johnny Majors to lie about NCAA violations. But White acknowledged that he improperly sold tickets to games, lied about it in an affidavit to investigators and later told Majors about the falsehood. ”He reminded me that I had signed the affidavit,” White said. ”He was reminding me that it could hurt me and it could hurt the university also if I maybe changed my story.” White said he didn`t regard that as an encouragement to lie.
Bob Zuffelato, former Golden State Warriors assistant coach, has been hired as director of player personnel for the Milwaukee Bucks. Zuffelato, 49, succeeds Stu Inman, who left the Bucks last week for a similar job with the Miami Heat. After working as a Warriors assistant from 1983-86, Zuffelato joined the staff of Boston-based sports attorney Bob Woolf. Former Bulls coach Ed Badger had been interviewed for the Bucks job.
