Rogers Denies Report He’ll Be Detroit Coach

Arizona State’s Darryl Rogers angrily denied reports Tuesday night that he is line to become the next head coach of the National Football League’s Detroit Lions.

“I am not a candidate,” Rogers told an Arizona Republic reporter who met him at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix on his return from a recruiting trip in San Francisco.

“I have not had any discussions with anybody in Detroit. I was not in Detroit. I don’t think I’ve been in Detroit since I left Michigan State” in 1980 to come to Arizona State.

“I don’t know how all of this got started.”

Several published reports in Detroit and Phoenix suggested that Rogers, 49, is in line for the job. One source told the Republic that Rogers would sign a five-year contract worth $1.8 million with the Lions this week.

The Phoenix Gazette said it was told by “a source close to the Sun Devils’ program” that Rogers had been offered the job and had accepted it.

Chuck Long, who holds almost all major Iowa passing records and a few nationally, announced that he would return for another year as quarterback of the Hawkeye football team.

Long had the option of returning for a fifth year under an NCAA rule that lifted an earlier prohibition against redshirting freshmen, or he could have made himself eligible for the professional football drafts where he was expected to be one of the top signal-callers taken.

A group of thoroughbred horse owners has filed suit against the California Horse Racing Board asking the court to resolve a 9-year-old dispute over interest on trust funds, court documents showed Tuesday.

The Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Assn. filed the Superior Court suit Monday against the racing board, seeking to force a decision from the board or have it resolved in court.

The dispute involves interest on money from parimutuel purses held in trust for the horse owners by race tracks.

Nebraska football coach Tom Osborne was reported “doing very Well “ after a nearly three-hour, double-bypass heart operation. Osborne’s surgeon, Dr. Deepak Gangahar, said the 47-year-old coach should be released from Bryan Memorial Hospital at Lincoln, Neb. within the week.

Greg Luzinski has retired from baseball to become a freshman baseball coach at Holy Cross High School in Delran, N.J.., his agent said.

Luzinski, 34, who became a free agent last November after four seasons with the Chicago White Sox as a designated hitter, had been selected by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the free-agent draft and invited to the Baltimore Orioles spring training camp.