Scorecard

THE NCAA'S GLASS HOUSE

The Washington Post revealed last week that several NCAA staff members have, since 1978, received no-interest mortgage loans from the NCAA itself. Among the recipients: executive director Walter Byers, who has been in his post for 34 years. Byers received a no-interest $118,000 mortgage in 1982, according to documents the Post says it has examined. The NCAA's policies allow low-interest loans drawn by employees against their salaries, but assistant executive director of communications Dave Cawood had no comment to make when the Post asked him about the no-interest loans.

More disturbing than the mortgages was the Post's report that Byers' ranch holds a $500,000 loan from United Missouri Bank of Kansas City, the only authorized repository of unlimited NCAA deposits, and that the loan was extended at 8% interest in 1981, when the bank's prime rate was 16�%. The NCAA said Byers doesn't select the NCAA's banks and that he received favorable terms from United Missouri not because he heads a $40-million-a-year operation with substantial funds but because he and his family have other financial interests.

However, the Post quoted a United Missouri official as saying that the fact that a private borrower like Byers heads an organization with large sums of money "is going to color our opinion" in setting terms. Officials at other banks say such preferential treatment is common but that such loans raise ethical questions. In the case of Byers, whose organization enforces the rules governing the conduct of college athletes and who is forever preaching about high ethical standards, the questions are particularly pointed.

ADVANTAGE, TENNIS

At a time when other pro athletes are, rightly or wrongly, resisting mandatory drug testing, the world's leading men's tennis players have taken such testing to their collective bosom. The 10-member board of the players' union and the governing Men's International Professional Tennis Council voted recently to test players, starting next year, for cocaine, amphetamines and heroin.

The men will be tested at two tournaments picked from among the four Grand Slam events and the International Players Championship. No players will know in advance which events have been chosen, and any player refusing the test will be subject to a one-year suspension from Grand Prix play. A player who tests positively must undergo treatment.

The tennis players' willingness to undergo testing should, if nothing else, enhance their image, which has been damaged by boorishness, avarice and rumors of drug use by some players. Says players' union board member John McEnroe, "Taking drugs won't help your game. All of us voted in favor of the test."

FISH STORY
Fisherman's luck is a strange thing. Take the story told by Norm Harding, a Richland, Wash. veterinarian who hadn't boated a catch in his last six months of trying. Two weeks ago, while fishing with his wife, Juneal, at McNary Dam on the Columbia River, Harding felt "a funny kind of strike" on his line. He reeled and reeled until he pulled out an 8�-foot...abandoned fishing rod. Ever curious, Harding set down his own pole and began to reel in the line from the one he had found. Caught on the lure was a six-pound steelhead trout. Harding laughed about it, and when he returned the next day with two other fishing partners, Mike Lucas and Brian Neilson, he joked, "By golly, I think I'm going to repeat yesterday's performance." Whereupon Harding cast his line, felt a funny tug, reeled in yet another abandoned rod, grabbed it, wound the reel and pulled into his boat another six-pound steelhead.

A MESSAGE FROM HOG HEAVEN?