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Controversy Brewing In SEC?
The subject "cheating in college basketball" came up again last week and a mini-feud may be brewing between Knoxville and Baton Rouge.
Tennessee Coach Don DeVoe told the Knoxville News-Sentinel recently, "There are unethical practices all over the nation. But I think the practice (of cheating) is more videspread in our conference. I think we're on the verge of developing a real credibility problem."
Wonder if DeVoe would go Digger Phelps one better and get specific? Is he talking about Georgia and Cedric Henderson? Or LSU and John Williams? Who? How many?
Bob Watkins
Cats' Pause Columnist
In the Dec. 3 edition of The Sporting News LSU's Dale Brown fired back. "We all live in glass houses. You better be pretty careful when you holler wolf. The answer (solution) is not to assassinate one another."
It is Brown's next statements that I have trouble with.
"Just because something is an NCAA rule doesn't make it right."
Reads like the rationalization of a guilty man to me.
Brown added, "I think we're a group of hypocrites and are cheating kids out of money. Mark my words, someday there will be a revolution among the players."
Comment: Revolution? Baloney. If a revolt comes it will be by the fans who have grown weary of the many student/athletes who get the kind of special treatment and adulation during their years at college that other students can only dream about. Majors on UK
Tennessee football coach Johnny Majors had some interesting comments about UK's 17-12 victory over his Vols. "I think the Kentucky game was the most hardhitting contest of the year. It usually is."
Majors applauded Kentucky's defense. "They had (quarterback) Tony Robinson scrambling for his life several times."
UK freshman tackle Jerry Reese sacked Robinson three times in the second half. Before Tennessee's last ditch drive to the UK 13 yard line inside the game's final two minutes Majors said, "I reminded Tony that Doug Flutie of Boston College had pulled a game with Miami out of the fire with a last second touchdown pass."
Majors concluded, "This is Kentucky's best personnel since 1977."
UK football
Changing times.
A year ago University of Kentucky football coach Jerry Claiborne, one of the hardest working men on this planet, had branched out, gotten into the promotions business. Mr. Work Ethic was hawking tickets for the Hall of Fame Bowl, and, even though UK's football team was going to a bowl (against West Virginia) for the first time since Willie Loman was a rookie, Claiborne's prospects for becoming a successful traveling salesman were ill-fated because:
 UK's football team won only two of its last seven games and did not play well down the stretch.
 And, Coach Joe B. Hall's basketball team was ranked No. 1 in preseason. Besides, UK fanswho can be among the best fair weather typeswere more
than ready to move indoors.
Claiborne campaigned hard and grumped long about tepid support, but not even Mr. Work Ethic could turn the tide. And, the timing was bad. As it worked out, so was everything else. On an arctic night in December Birmingham, UK and the Hall of Fame sponsors took a bad beating.
But that's all history. Times, they are a changing. And Claiborne's ship may have come in this winter.
The Hall of Fame bowl committee made a scramble last month and came up with a dandy, if desperate idea. Invite Kentucky back, to play Wisconsin.
Good decision and here are some reasons why times (and prospects) are better.
 The Wildcats closed their season with three wins in four games, and played Florida to the wall. And, the UKs beat Tennessee in Knoxville to close the regular season in a flex instead of a flop.
 This is just as important, the basketball Wildcats young, rebuilding. They can wait.
I did a little checking around the state last week and the most typical reaction to UK's bowl trip came from the heartland, Danville.
"People around here are a lot more excited about the bowl since they beat Tennessee," Larry Vaught of the Advocate-Messenger said. "The difference in this year and last is that UK was so impressive in November. That had a lot to do with it, winning three of their last four. And beating Tennessee was big too. I think a whole lot more people from this area are planning to go to Birmingham this year."
One staunch UK football booster in Elizabethtown came up with an idea that would please salesman Claiborne immensely. The man telephoned Frank Ham, assistant UK director of athletics, and asked for 100 tickets reserved for the bowl game Dec. 29.
"I asked if I could get a block together, 10 rows deep," Hade Durbin explained. "I thought it might help create some enthusiasm, more people might want to go if we had a block of tickets. I talked to a few people and the thing just seemed to snow ball."
Later in the week Durbin telephoned to say he had had requests for his 100 and
107 more tickets to the Hall of Fame Bowl game.
Incidentally, the UK flags seen attached to automobiles around Commonwealth Stadium this season represents one of Durbin's ideas.
If you'd like to have one to "fly to Birmingham" the 12 by 15 flags sell for $12.50 including tax and handling. You can write to Pride-Ride Flag Co. P.O. Box 2221, Elizabethtown, Ky. 42740.
The Hall of Fame Bowl is Saturday, Dec. 29 with kickoff time at 8 p.m. and following is official ticket information from UK.
Tickets are on sale at the University of Kentucky ticket office from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. daily, at the Memorial Coliseum office. A buyer is not limited in the number of tickets that can be purchased. However, no personal checks will be accepted. Bowl tickets are also available by mail. The address is University of Kentucky Ticket Office, Memorial Coliseum, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Ky. 40506.
Meanwhile, Jim Mott, sports information director for the Wisconsin Badgers, said last week that Hall of Fame tickets were selling well there too. "We started taking telephone orders today and we've sold more than 900 already," he said. "I think that's indicative of how it's going to go.
I asked Mott how far Badger fans will have to travel to get to the game in Birmingham.
"Oh, it takes about a day and a half," he said.
UK basketball
Tidbits from last week's UK-Toledo season opener at Rupp Arena.
 Toledo coach Bob Nichols..."We're an experienced ball club while Kentucky is very young. But they stuck in there and came back well. I think Kentucky has possibilities."
 Team co-captain Kenny Walker on James Blackmon's second half heroics..."James is the best one on one man we have on our team. We want to get the ball in his hands in those kind of situations."
One on one, or in the vernacular used at UK, the isolation offense appeals to Blackmon too. "That's a great offense. I like it." Everyone laughed. Blackmon grinned.
Coach Joe B. Hall was asked what single "most encouraging element" he saw in his team's season opener? "The final score," he said without elaboration.
UK will get better as the season goes along of course. But in fact, the Wildcats will improve quicker than that if Winston Bennett returns to top form. Said one UK watcher: "Winston not only makes things happen with UK's opponents, but his intensity for the game is like that of a drill sergeant, It inspires the other kids on the team too." Recruiting notes
UK is said to be "still pitching" for 6-8,205-pound Kenny Payne of Laurel, Miss. The University of Louisville is in the hunt too.
UK associate coach Leonard Hamilton is said to be looking ahead to next year. The apple of his eye: 6-8 Terry Mills of Romulus, Mich.
When Mike Scott of Greenup County picked Wake Forest over UK there was said to be some grumbling among the UK coaches that a member of the Lexington media had cost UK Scott's services.
Baloney. Kentucky simply didn't want the kid enough to "recruit" him.
'Mahatma' McGuire.
College basketball's The Handbook for the 1984-85 season arrived last week. Smartly done by Al McGuirethe Swami of the college gamethe 31 page booklet is filled with cleverisms and some provocative issues as well.
Since McGuire left coaching after the 1977 season to become a television sports personality, he has been more an ad-libber and something of a waffler on some prickly issues than an opinion maker in college basketball. But in this booklet, McGuire puts forth at least one well thought out idea, it seems to me.
A view on the coach for the U.S. team in the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea. McGuire says the coach for the American team ought to be chosen this winter. "Because putting a team together is a two year project."
The coach should be selected from the Division I level, he says, "because he must be recognizable and acceptable to his peers inside the coaching profession."
Getting down to criteria, McGuire says, "Like Caesar's wife, he (the coach) must be 'above suspicion.' He must also be able to pick assistants based on their ability to contribute, rather than their place in the old boy's network or fraternity.
(Continued, on Page 7)
De Voe Stating His Point