Baylor Coach Resigns; Tape Raises Questions
Baylor University basketball Coach Jim Haller resigned Friday, following a television broadcast of a tape on which he allegedly was heard discussing car payments and the use of steroids with a former player.
Haller will remain as coach through the end of the Southwest Conference season, Baylor President Herbert Reynolds said.
The resignation came a day after Dallas television station WFAA played a tape of an alleged conversation between Haller and center John Wheeler, who withdrew Friday from the university. The conversation concerned Wheeler’s use of steroids and his request for help in making car payments.
On the tape, Haller was heard to say, “I’m out of that (steroid use). Not that I don’t want to help you, but they scare me to death. I wish I didn’t even know you were taking them. Don’t you ever tell anybody that I’ve ever been involved with it.
“You better not ever tell a soul that (Baylor strength coach) Bob Fix had you doing it. Now Fix, he’s pushing these things, and he’s going to have his (expletive deleted) in a crack if anybody ever talks about that. I would just drop it. It bothers me.”
The tape also included a discussion involving a check Haller made to help Wheeler make three months’ worth of automobile payments.
Baylor is 9-14 and tied for last place in the conference. In seven previous years, Haller compiled a 93-113 record. His highest league finish was a tie for second in 1981.
The New York Cosmos, once the cornerstone of American soccer, announced they will discontinue playing in the Major Indoor Soccer League and will not be a member of the North American Soccer League this summer. A Cosmos executive said the team had lost $1.5 million.
The Cosmos once were the flagship club of the NASL and set nearly all the league’s attendance records, including the largest professional soccer crowd ever in North America--77,691 in 1977. The team also boasted some of the biggest names in the game, including Franz Beckenbauer, Giorgio Chinaglia, and the man considered by most the greatest player of all time, Pele.
Boston Celtics forward Cedric Maxwell will be lost to the club for up to four weeks following arthroscopic surgery on his left knee, the club said.
Surgery revealed a small tear in the lateral cartilage of the knee, a spokesman said.
Cincinnati Reds outfielder Cesar Cedeno, after pleading no-contest to a drunken driving charge in Houston, was placed on two years probation and fined $400.
Cedeno was arrested just after midnight Jan. 23 after crashing his Mercedes Benz into a tree in southwest Houston. Cedeno was ordered to pay $7,000 to two homeowners whose property was damaged in the accident.
The St. Louis Blues traded goalie Mike Liut to Hartford for goalie Greg Millen and forward Mark Johnson. The Whalers also will receive future considerations--in the form of an established player, a draft choice or both--at the end of the season.
Liut, 29, has a 12-12-4 record this year with a goals-against average of 3.82.
Millen, 27, is 16-22-6 with a 4.22 goals-against average.
Johnson, 27, leading scorer on the 1980 U.S. Olympic team, has 19 goals and 28 assists in 49 games this season.
New York Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor has been ordered to buy a house for a 4-year-old girl he fathered while a student at North Carolina, and pay monthly child support to her mother.
Under the terms of a court ruling in Hillsborough, N.C., Taylor must buy a house worth at least $70,000 and pay $900 a month in child support for Whitney Taylor Davis.
The girl was born out of wedlock to Kathy Davis, whom Taylor dated while they were college students.
Michael Spinks will fight for the first time in a year today, defending his undisputed light-heavyweight title against David Sears in a scheduled 15-round bout in Atlantic City, N.J.
Sears, ranked No. 2 by the World Boxing Assn., has a 16-0-1 record.
Names in the News
Jacinto Vasquez, suspended last year for offering a bribe to another jockey, had his application to ride again in New York approved, the New York Racing and Wagering Board announced. The suspension expires Monday.
New York Yankees first baseman Don Mattingly, the 1984 American League batting champion, underwent arthroscopic surgery to repair a slight cartilage tear in his right knee. Doctors said Mattingly could begin light exercise immediately.
