Group Sues NCAA Over Use of SAT Scores

A Washington organization called Trial Lawyers for Public Justice, representing two former Philadelphia high school track and field athletes, has sued the NCAA over its use of SAT scores to determine athletic eligibility.

Tai Kwan Cureton, a freshman at Wheaton College, a Division III school, and Leatrice Shaw, who is sitting out her freshman year at Miami, claim overtures from Division I schools stopped after they received low SAT scores. Cureton graduated 27th in his class of 305 at Philadelphia’s Simon Gratz High, and Shaw was fifth in the same class.

The suit, filed in a U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, seeks an injunction against the NCAA to stop it from using SAT scores as a standard.

NCAA chief operating officer Dan Boggan said the lawsuit “is advocating a return to the bad old days when student-athletes could spend four years . . . in athletics and [leave] not only with no diploma but without any real education at all.”

Black coaches and educators, along with many whites, say that standardized test scores are racially and culturally discriminatory.

Baseball

The Minnesota Twins, in an effort to get a new stadium, have proposed giving the state 49% ownership of the team.

Under the proposal, the Twins would spend $82.5 million toward building the stadium and also guarantee at least another $25 million from licensing fees. The state would have to come up with about $200 million to build the stadium.

Jose Mesa, relief pitcher for the Cleveland Indians, and a friend, David F. Blanco, pleaded not guilty in Lakewood, Ohio, to gross sexual imposition against two women they met in a nightclub.

Major league baseball’s umpire union is upset that a summit meeting originally scheduled for November has not been rescheduled. The meeting, which was an outcome of the uproar surrounding the Roberto Alomar spitting incident, was called off so baseball could address its more pressing labor problem.

The Cincinnati Reds signed left-hander Pete Schourek, who was 4-5 last season with a 6.01 earned-run average before having elbow surgery July 17, to a one-year contract. . . . Doug Henry, who had nine saves for the New York Mets last season, signed a one-year contract with the San Francisco Giants to a one-year contract. . . . The New York Yankees haven’t found a team interested in acquiring Cecil Fielder, who filed a trade demand in November.

Names in the News

Jackie Joyner-Kersee will abandon her basketball career to return to track and field, beginning with New York’s Millrose Games on Feb. 7. Joyner Kersee had been playing with the Richmond Rage of the American Basketball League. . . . Arizona State’s Bruce Snyder was chosen NCAA Division I-A coach of year by the American Football Coaches Assn. . . . Ike Hilliard, who caught three touchdown passes in Florida’s 52-20 victory over Florida State in the Sugar Bowl, plans to skip his senior season and turn pro, the Palm Beach Post reported. . . . Former Pittsburgh Steeler quarterback Joe Gilliam has been put on six months’ probation after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor drug charge in Nashville. . . . Swedish Davis Cup star Thomas Enqvist, who has blisters on his right hand and swelling in his right arm, is in danger of joining the list of withdrawals from the Australian Open, which begins Monday. . . . Italian skiing star Alberto Tomba discontinued his training at Corno alle Scale, Italy, after feeling pain in his right wrist, which he injured in October. . . . Minnesota skier John Bauer, hoping to churn his way back to the Olympics next season, won his sixth consecutive cross-country title by nine-tenths of a second at Bend, Ore. . . . A boxing show featuring undefeated heavyweights Ahmad Abdin (22-0-3), Hastim Rahman (21-0), Ike Ibeabuchi (13-0) and Beverly Hills’ Lamon Brewster (4-0) will be held tonight at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, beginning at 7:30.