Ballesteros Won’t Get His Extra Choices

After turning down Seve Ballesteros’ choice of venue, Europe’s Ryder Cup golf committee dealt the Spaniard another blow Tuesday when it turned down his request for four captain’s picks instead of two.

The Ryder Cup moves to Spain for the first time Sept. 26-28, with the Europeans defending the cup in Valderrama.

With stars such as Nick Faldo, Jesper Parnevik, Jose Maria Olazabal, Bernhard Langer, Sandy Lyle and team captain Ballesteros himself unlikely to make the top 10 in Ryder Cup points, Ballesteros had called for a players’ ballot to try to change the selection process to give him two more picks.

But the tournament committee of the PGA European Tour and the Ryder Cup committee quashed the idea, saying it could not legally change the selection process unless the players unanimously agreed.

Pro Football

The contract of wide receiver Andre Rison, who scored the first touchdown of the Super Bowl on a pass from Brett Favre, had his contract terminated by the Green Bay Packers.

Rison, an eight-year NFL veteran, was claimed on waivers from Jacksonville last Nov. 19 and played in five regular-season games for Green Bay, catching 13 passes for 135 yards and a touchdown. He played in all three playoff games, catching seven passes for 143 yards and two touchdowns, teaming with Favre on a a 54-yard scoring play for a 7-0 lead in the Super Bowl.

Green Bay General Manager Ron Wolf, said the team’s receiving corps could not accommodate Rison as a starter and that Rison was a player of starting caliber.

Board members of the El Segundo Unified School District are hoping the Oakland Raiders will help pay for $1 million in restoration costs of El Segundo Junior High, the Raiders’ practice facility from 1982 until last year.

Although the Raiders’ lease isn’t up until August of 1998, they stopped using the practice facility last season, leaving the school with black and silver carpeting, whirlpools and other accessories not suitable to a junior high.

“It was specified that the school complex was to be put back in the condition it had been at that time,” said Ruth Parks, who was on the school board in 1981.

Raider attorney Amy Trask said, “The district has a different view of what our obligations are regarding the lease. If the district thinks it’s in their best interest . . . we will be happy to sit and negotiate with them in good faith.”

College Football

The Las Vegas Bowl would drop its current conference alignments and increase payouts to $800,000 a team, according to a proposal to revamp the game.

The NCAA will be asked next month to approve the new bowl concept, which would match the third-place Western Athletic Conference team against the best available opponent.

The game, which has drawn only about 12,000 a year since its inception five years ago, had matched the winner of the Big West Conference against the Mid-American Conference champion.

Auto Racing

Reigning world champion Tommi Makinen opened a comfortable lead in the Portuguese Rally at Viseu after his closest rival, Kenneth Eriksson, dropped out with mechanical problems.

The Finn, driving a Mitsubishi Lancer, completed the second leg with a 3-minute 15-second advantage over second-place Belgian Freddy Loix.

Eriksson pulled out of the event when his Subaru Impreza ground to a halt in the final stage.

Names in the News

Jacco Eltingh, Paul Haarhuis, Sjeng Schalken and Jan Siemerink have been selected to play for the Netherlands against the United States in the second-round of the Davis Cup on April 4-6 at the Palisades Tennis Club in Newport Beach. Richard Krajicek, last year’s Wimbledon winner, has reportedly decided against playing on the Dutch team and will play in Hong Kong the following week. . . . Nearly 300 people attended a funeral Mass in Merrillville, Ind., for former middleweight boxing champion Tony Zale, who died last week of Parkinson’s disease and related problems. Manon Rheaume, the only woman to play in an NHL exhibition game, and a fixture this year for the Reno Renegades, was released by the Canadian national women’s team. . . .

Michael McNeely, the NCAA’s director of operations, was named athletic director at Pacific. . . . Bob Destocki has been appointed general manager of the Anaheim Bullfrogs, members of Roller Hockey International. Destocki, 55, was executive vice president and a co-founder of the Western Professional Hockey League.