Scorecard

Presidents Decommissioned

Alabama President E. Roger Sayers wasn't particularly contrite last week after the NCAA placed the Crimson Tide on three years' probation for improprieties in its football program (page 50). Sayers's defiance—he called the sanctions "excessive and inappropriate" and vowed that the school would appeal them—played well among 'Bama fans around the state, where bumper stickers read AVOID THE RUSH, HATE AUBURN EARLY. His unwillingness to humbly accept the Committee on Infractions's finding of unethical conduct and a lack of institutional control may also have been just the right tactic to cement his political standing on campus.

Sayers's remarks serve as a reminder that reformist university presidents tend not to last long. At Kentucky, David Roselle hired Rick Pitino as coach and kept the NCAA from strapping the Wildcat basketball program into the electric chair, but he left for Delaware in 1989 blaming hoops for obscuring his educational agenda. Robert Maxson, who's now president of Long Beach State, outlasted Jerry Tarkanian at UNLV but was squeezed out last year by forces loyal to the ousted basketball coach. And Michigan State president John DiBiaggio won a battle in 1992—he persuaded his board of trustees to relieve football coach and athletic director George Perles of the second of those duties—but lost the war, lighting out for Tufts soon after the board reversed its decision. Small wonder that Robert Atwell, president of the American Council on Education, says that "athletic scandal has cost more presidents their jobs than any other single issue."

In a saga relevant to current events in Tuscaloosa, Clemson president William Atchley said in 1982 that his school should be "taking its medicine" after the NCAA placed the Tiger football program on probation. That stand led to his branding as a pointy-head who—hellfire!—valued something more than football. The trustees sided with athletic director Bill McClellan during several ensuing disputes with the president, and Atchley soon found himself cheering on his new, decidedly small-time football team at the University of the Pacific.

Knight Slight
Playing in the heart of Hoosier country, the Class A Richmond (Ind.) Roosters tried to set up a promotional night by asking Indiana basketball coach Bob Knight to throw out the first ball (not chair) at a game this summer. The General's polite refusal apparently shook the Roosters' wattles. On July 12, in lieu of the proposed Knight Night, the team gave away University of Kentucky calendars, each adorned with a photo of coach Rick Pitino.

Home Plate Special
People are finally leaning out over the plate for a Nolan Ryan offering. The strikeout king recently opened Nolan Ryan's Waterfront Steakhouse in Three Rivers, Texas, and diners are flocking there in the hope of catching a glimpse of its owner, who's a regular—and doesn't sit behind a glass shield, as the proprietor of Michael Jordan's restaurant in Chicago is wont to do. Another attraction: Children under 12 get a Ryan-autographed baseball card with every meal on the kids' menu. It's a promotion that several adults have tried to exploit. Says co-manager Sandy Hammond, "We tell them, 'Sorry, you're too tall.' "

Bidding Beijing Adieu?
Olympic watchers have assumed that Beijing, disappointed runner-up to Sydney for the right to host the Games in the year 2000, will bid for the 2004 Games. But Chinese Olympic Committee general secretary Wei Jizhong says that two other Chinese cities, Shanghai and Guangzhou, may also mount bid campaigns. What's more, several old China hands tell SI that they wouldn't be surprised to see the country pass on the 2004 Games altogether. One reason is that South Africa was a stout ally of Beijing's unsuccessful bid, and Chinese officials may not want to go up against Cape Town, which is a likely candidate for 2004. The other reason: In Chinese numerology, four is viewed as an inauspicious number; a bid in 2008 would be considered more promising because of the smoothness of the number eight and its intimations of infinity.

Shop Stewardesses
It has been a rough summer for unions all over the world of sports. You may recall that the Buffalo Jills, the cheerleading squad allied with the NFLs Bills, voted to unionize in their blue-collar hometown of Buffalo. Well, a fast-food chain called Mighty Taco declined to renew its sponsorship of the group, and a few weeks ago the Bills announced they had signed a three-year deal with two other companies to sponsor an all-new rooting team. Quick, someone contact basketball agents provocateurs David Falk, Mark Fleisher and Arn Tellem: Any chance the Jills could decertify and sue the Bills on antitrust grounds?

If Rubber Could Talk
Home plate at Recreation Park in Visalia, Calif., had always led a quiet life, enjoying good weather and attentive between-innings groomings. Indeed, the plate was rarely stepped on by its caretakers, the Class A Visalia Oaks, who were last in the California League in runs scored. Then the good life went awry. It seems an Oak fan, distraught after the team lost six straight home games last month, made off with home plate. Later an anonymous woman called the Visalia Times-Delta to report that the slab of rubber was being held hostage. Ransom turned out to be a few W's: After the Oaks completed a 3-4 road trip, the woman called the Times-Delta and said the plate could be found behind the paper's building. Sure enough, there it lay, frightened but unharmed.

A College Problem, Too