NBA Negotiators Get Together

Top negotiators for NBA owners and players held a secret five-hour session Thursday and plan to have another this weekend.

“It’s always a good sign when the sides are meeting, as opposed to not meeting,” Jeffrey Kessler, lead outside counsel for the union, said Friday. “Hopefully, we’ll come to some sort of a productive exchange.”

Neither side revealed details of the session, although sources said it involved more on defining differences than settling them.

Thursday’s session was the first secret meeting since Oct. 26, when the sides first came up with a framework for a collective bargaining agreement. A deal was within reach two nights later when Michael Jordan joined in and the sides met late into the evening, but talks eventually broke off and there has been little progress since.

If this weekend’s meeting proves productive, it is likely that both sides’ full bargaining teams probably will be brought in next week for their first session since Dec. 3.

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NBA players will play a charity game Dec. 20 at North Carolina Central University in Durham to benefit the National Assn. for Educational Opportunities for Higher Learning for Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

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In the American Basketball League:

Natalie Williams became the first ABL player to reach 1,000 rebounds as the Portland Power beat the visiting Seattle Reign, 76-63. Williams, who finished with seven rebounds and 10 points, grabbed her third rebound midway through the second quarter to reach 1,000.

U.S. Olympian Venus Lacey scored 19 points as the Nashville Noise beat the New England Blizzard, 76-68, before 8,077 at Hartford, Conn.

San Jose’s Sheri Sam scored 21 points and Lasers defeated the visiting Philadelphia Rage, 91-89, in overtime.

Horse Racing

Stablemates Premier Property and Prime Timber, at 7-5 and 2-1, are the morning-line favorites in today’s Hollywood Futurity at Hollywood Park. Yagli and Rice, running as an entry, are 8-5 in today’s Hollywood Turf Cup. Yagli and Dushyanto, who’s 3-1, were second and third, respectively, behind Buck’s Boy in the Breeders’ Cup Turf.

Also today, the filly Love That Jazz is 3-1 to win the Vernon O. Underwood Stakes.

Soccer

Aleksey Korol and Nick Garcia scored in 3-minute 12-second span in the first half to lead Indiana (22-2) to a 4-0 victory over Santa Clara (15-5-2) in the semifinals of the NCAA men’s tournament at Richmond, Va. The Hoosiers, seeking their fourth championship, will play Stanford (18-4-2) in Sunday’s final. The Cardinal, which is seeking its first title, defeated Maryland (16-8) 1-0 on a late goal by Lee Morrison.

Winter Sports

Alexandra Meissnitzer of Austria continued her World Cup success with a victory in the giant slalom at Val D’Isere, France. Meissnitzer won the super-G on Thursday. . . . Christoph Langen of Germany won his third consecutive World Cup bobsled race at Altenberg, Germany, taking the two-man event with new brakeman Marco Jakobs.

Swimming

Germans Mark Warnecke and Thomas Rupprath set world records to start the European short-course championships at Sheffield, England. Warnecke broke his own short-course 50-meter breaststroke record with a time of 26.70 seconds after clocking the previous mark of 26.97 three times in the last 22 months. Rupprath won the 50-meter freestyle in 24.13, beating the old mark of 24.25 posted by Canada’s Chris Renaud in 1997.

Motor Sports

Les Richter, executive vice president for Penske Motorsports and California Speedway, will leave day-to-day operations of the Fontana facility to work with all tracks run by Penske. Richter oversaw construction of the California track, which opened in 1997.

Scott Atherton, who has been general manager for Nazareth Speedway in Pennsylvania and before that was general manager at Laguna Seca in Monterey, has been appointed president and general manager of California Speedway.

Miscellany

A memorial service for former light-heavyweight boxing champion Archie Moore will be held Thursday at Cypress View Mausoleum and Mortuary in San Diego. Moore, who died Wednesday at 84, held the light-heavyweight title for 10 years. . . . Mike Tyson has been made a 6-1 favorite to defeat Francois Botha in their Jan. 16 heavyweight bout in Las Vegas.

Michelle Kwan skated a stylish technical program to take the lead over Nicole Bobek in the World Professional Figure Skating Championships at Washington.

Russia’s Alexei Yagudin won the men’s technical program, edging five-time U.S. champion Todd Eldredge, who was allowed to reskate the second half of his routine after a cuff link fell off his costume and landed in his way.

The purse for the 1999 Nissan Open at Riviera Country Club has been increased to $2.8 million, $700,000 more than for the 1998 tournament. First place will be worth $504,000, $126,000 more than for this year’s event. The tournament will be played Feb. 18-21.