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Sports briefs about University of Kentucky athletics
Search for coach continues; CM. Newton still looking for Mr. Right
With Mike Shanahan finding the University of Kentucky's offer one that he could refuse, the familiar names of Mike Gottfried, Roy Kidd, Howard Schnellenberger, not necessarily in that order, again popped up as UK renewed its quest for a new football coach.
Wildcat athletics director C. M. Newton had put aside all interviews and official contacts with other prime candidates while awaiting an answer from the Denver Broncos quarterback coach.
Shanahan gave that answer, a negative, in a telephone call to Newton at 11:25 p.m. Saturday, after the Broncos had returned from a victory in Phoenix.
Meanwhile, Gottfried, Pitt coach who reportedly lost interest in the UK job because he wasn't first choice, suddenly became "very much interested" after he was fired on Tuesday for disputes over academics, fiscal management and his handling of the public and press, not because of his coaching, according to athletics director Ed Bozik.
Gottfried, 26-17-2 in four seasons, was given the option of resigning after a closed-door meeting with Bosik on Thursday, Dec.
Two UK connections come up for SEC post
As the process for selecting a successor to Harvey Schiller as Southeastern Conference Commissioner goes into high gear (see "Scoop," page 26), the names of UK athletics director C. M. Newton and former school president Otis Singletary are being mentioned prominently among the nominees.
Newton, who spent a year in Birmingham as an assistant commissioner in between coaching tenures at Alabama and Vanderbilt, is considered the prime candidate, but he said in October and repeated recently that he has no interest in the job.
Pat Pittard, managing partner of the consulting firm helping in the search for a new commissioner, said, "C. M. was highly nominated and highly respected going in. My gut feeling is if he chose to pursue it, he'd be the leading candidate. But he told up point-blank he's not a candidate."
Newton, a baseball and baskeball letterman at UK in the early 1950s, came to UK in April after a 32-year coaching career that included 12 seasons at Alabama and eight at Vanderbilt.
He was interviewed for the SEC job in 1986, before Schiller was hired. He said he definitely would have been interested in the job at that time.
Schiller resigned Oct. 11 to become executive director of the United States Olympic committee, effective Jan. 1. Associate commissioner and long-time staff member Mark Womack has been serving as acting commissioner.
Pittard said Newton and Singletary fit into a category known as "fallback" candidates who can be offered the position with no preliminary work or interview necessary.
Others considered in that category are former Georgia football coach and current athletic director Vince Dooley, Vanderbilt athletic director Roy Kramer, Mississippi
14, but he refused to quit, forcing forcing Pitt to terminate his contract. Formal announcement of the firing was delayed for four days because of efforts to work out a settlement of Gottfried's five-year rollover contract.
On Sunday after Shanahan's call, Gottfried called Newton and talked to the UK AD and president David Roselle about his status at Pitt and the UK vacancy.
"They (Roselle and Newton) were waiting to see what happens here," Gottfried said the day he was fired. "But at 4 p.m. today, it should be clear-cut that I'm out. I'm looking for a new career and I'm fighting for my life."
He said the next move was up to Newton, who has continued his announced policy of refusing to discuss Gottfried or any other candidate, saying only that he's doing his homework on several possibilities.
In addition to the differences of views between Gottfried and the Pitt administration, and his poor relations with the press, the coach has plagued by rumors of infidelity.
Godfrey's wife, Mickey, told the Lexington Herald-Leader that rumors about her husband's personal life are "absolutely not true" and "very sad...l know Mike better than
Former University of Kentucky president Dr. Otis Singletary is considered a long-shot to succeed Dr. Harvey Schiller as Southeastern Conference Commissoner.
athletics Warner Alford and Womack.
Brad Davis, an assistant SEC commissioner, said five or six candidates would be interviewed during the Jan. 6-10 NCAA Convention in Dallas.
That group marked for early interviews includes former Alabama and Green Bay Packers quarterback Bart Starr, North Carolina athletic director John Swofford, College Football Association executive director Chuck Neinas, NCAA associate executive director Thomas Jernstedt and former Metro Conference commissioner Steve Hatchell.
Davis said a new commissioner should be named by the end of January.
anyone, and he's a good family man. Always has been."
Gottfried received similar support from UK basketball coach Rick Pitino, who is such a good friend of the ousted coach that he went to Pittsburgh to address the team before the Panthers played Miami. Pitino mentioned the rumors on his Sunday show while putting in a plug for Gottfried.
Pitino said he had talked with Newton about his admiration for Gottfried.
"I'd love to see it for only one reason," Pitino said. "He'd be absolutely fantastic for Kentucky. Mike is a great football coach and an outstanding person."
"He's like a pied piper with high school coaches in recruiting," Pitino added. "He has great offensive and defensive schemes. His peers in the game things he's great"
Pitino predicts that Gottfried will "surface in the NFL someday."
Meanwhile, Roy Kidd, highly successful coach at Eastern, said he had talked to Newton on Monday after Shanahan's decision and was going to be interviewed for the job.
Kidd, 58, who just completed his 26th year as head coach of the Colonels (208-77-8), was
interviewed for the UK job in 1982, when Claiborne was hired.
Asked about the age factor. Kidd said. "I think that's some people's opinion and not mine. Your age is how you feel, and I feel great. I love doing what I'm doing."
Schnellenerger, whose Louisville team is coming off a 6-5 season, also was interviewed and had the inside track on the UK job eight years ago. Both parties lost interest when UK received and rejected some of Schnellenberger's demands.
Although he has signed a lucrative new contract with U of L and has indicated that he is not interested in the UK job, the former Wildcat All-American still is considered by many to be a prime prospect.
Another person receiving organized support is former Wildcat Dan Neal, an assistant coach with the Philadelphia Eagles, who has in his corner some old UK teammates and a group of former Kentuckians living in Florida.
Whatever the final outcome, Newton said he must sidestep the usual orderly process and proceed with expediency in order that the ensuing recruiting season not be entirely lost.
UK HOOP NOTES  UK HOOP NOTES 
 PITINO IN DISBELIEF
Wildcat basketball coach Rick Pitino said he was "disappointed and miffed" and might not have been interviewed for the UK basketball coaching job had he known that school president David Roselle would be leaving within six months.
Dr. Roselle, in announcing last week that he had accepted a similar position at the University of Delaware, mentioned the recent problems in the basketball program as one of the main reasons he was leaving UK.
"The thing I'm most disappointed in is he's leaving because of basketball and things that happened here," Pitino said, "because I thought that was one of the reasons I came here. I don't think that's the real reason he left."
Roselle fought a losing battle in trying to secure more funds from the General Assembly, antagonizing governor Wallace Wilkinson in the process.
Pitino said that from what he could read into it, Roselle is leaving UK because of funding, more than anything else.
"Not basketball," the coach said. "I feel we've got that under control. All the positive things about the enthusiasm about Kentucky basketball are being shown and the negatives are getting away. I thought with C. M. (Newton) and some of the things we're instituting now, the bad was going away and we were only exposing the good."
Pitino said Roselle persuaded him to come to UK after the then-Knicks coach had twice spurned offers by Newton.
"Dr Roselle called me and basically convinced me in a 45-minute conversation to come here because he, along with C. M. and myself, were going to build the university both academically as well as athletically into something that's special."
While expressing regret over Roselle's deci
sion to leave UK, Pitino said that he was not leaving Kentucky "because I love it here."
 PRACTICE AT FREEDOM HALL
The University of Kentucky basketball team will stage its traditional open practice session in Freedom Hall at 6 p.m., Tuesday. Dec. 26.
The Wildcats will play North Carolina in the Louisville facility the following day.
 PITINO FALLS TO MEDIA Wildcat coach Rick Pitino was wearing a
plaster cast after receiving a severe (right) ankle sprain in a UK staff vs. media charity basketball game on Sunday, Dec. 17, three days before his Wildcats played Furman in Rupp Arena.
"I stepped on someone's foot," Pitino said.
When told the foot belonged to Frank Cusumano, WLEX-TV's weekend sports anchor, Pitino asked, "Is that Italian?
When answered in the affirmative, he said, "Then it's okay."
Led by UK assistant Tubby Smith, the UK staff squeeked by the media, 141-73.
 UK'S NOT MAD, KANSAS
In retrospect, Rick Pitino decided that Kansas did not intentionally run up the score in the Jayhawks' 150-95 victory over the Wildcats at Lawrence.
The Wildcat coach said foul trouble, UK's lack of depth and his own decision to stick with an up-tempo style were the prime reasons the Wildcats suffered a modern school-record 55-point defeat.
Pitino said he called Kansas coach Roy Williams later to tell him he did not think the Jayhawks ran up the score.
"Roy is not that type of person," Pitino said.
After the game, Williams pointed to (Continued on page 26)