Thompson’s Son Gets Princeton Job

John Thompson will be running a college basketball program this season. That’s John Thompson III.

The son of the Hall of Famer who built Georgetown into a basketball power was hired as the coach at Princeton on Wednesday.

The appointment came on the same day Bill Carmody left the Ivy League school to become coach at Northwestern of the Big Ten.

This will be the first head coaching job for the 34-year-old Thompson, an assistant the past five seasons at Princeton--the first under Pete Carril and the last four under Carmody.

In another Ivy League move, Cornell named Steve Donahue as its new coach, handing him a program that finished last last year. Donahue has been an assistant at Pennsylvania the past 10 years.

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Nebraska senior guard Danny Walker has been dismissed from the squad for violating team rules, Coach Barry Collier said, declining further comment. In an unrelated development, Collier said the NCAA has cleared sophomore guards Cary Cochran and Rodney Fields to play this season. The two were ruled temporarily ineligible by Nebraska for unintentionally violating an NCAA rule by working at former coach Danny Nee’s basketball camps before they were enrolled in school. . . . Arizona senior forward Justin Wessel has been put on probation by the school after being arrested for drunk driving. The 6-foot-8 Wessel started eight games last season.

Pro Basketball

Mateen Cleaves, the first-round draft pick who led Michigan State to the NCAA title last spring, signed a three-year, $4.1-million contract with the Detroit Pistons. Detroit selected the Flint, Mich., native with the 14th pick in the draft. . . . Soumaila Samake, the 7-foot-1 native of Mali who spent last season in the International Basketball League, signed with the New Jersey Nets.

Jurisprudence

A settlement hearing in Santa Barbara Superior Court failed to resolve an assault case against Fernando Vargas, the International Boxing Federation junior-middleweight champion.

With both sides willing to continue negotiations, a second settlement hearing has been set for Dec. 13. If that also fails, Vargas would go on trial Jan. 3 on two counts of assault with a deadly weapon and one count of conspiracy in the beating of a 23-year-old man in July 1999.

Vargas is expected to face Felix Trinidad on Dec. 2 in Las Vegas in a blockbuster title unification bout.

Rae Carruth won his bid to be tried separately from two fellow defendants. Prosecutors in Charlotte, N.C., are seeking the death penalty for Carruth and co-defendants Michael Eugene Kennedy and Stanley Drew Abraham.

All three are charged with murdering Cherica Adams, who was pregnant with Carruth’s baby when she was fatally wounded while driving along a Charlotte street in November. Doctors saved the baby, but Adams, 24, died a month later.

A fourth defendant, Van Brett Watkins, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, admitting he shot Adams, and agreed to testify against Carruth.

Superior Court Judge Charles Lamm scheduled the former Carolina Panther’s murder trial for Oct. 23. The trial for the other two has not been set.

Hockey

Goalie Grant Fuhr retired from the Calgary Flames after 19 seasons and was named a goalie coach by the team. Fuhr, 37, signed a one-year contract extension with Calgary last season, but with Mike Vernon returning to the Flames in an off-season trade and Fred Brathwaite as the backup, he retired.

Wayne Gretzky guaranteed that Phoenix Coyote Coach Bob Francis will stay on when Gretzky and a new ownership group take over the team. Despite changes slowly being made in the front office, no coaching changes are planned, Gretzky told the Arizona Republic. . . . Less than two hours after arriving in Stockholm, for a 10-day training camp, the Vancouver Canucks announced they had agreed to terms with 24-year-old Swedish forward Johan Davidsson. . . . The Montreal Canadiens re-signed left wing Martin Rucinsky to a one-year contract, bringing back the team’s leading scorer from last season. . . . The Atlanta Thrashers agreed to terms with restricted free agent defenseman Petr Buzek, the franchise’s only all-star in its first NHL season.

Names in the News

Manuel Lapuente, the coach of Mexico’s national soccer team, submitted his resignation, four days after his team clinched a spot in next year’s regional finals of World Cup qualifying. . . . Parker Bohn III, bowling’s reigning player of the year, was elected to the Pro Bowling Assn. Hall of Fame. . . . Davis Love III turned down an offer from Nike Golf to play a ball similar to the one used by Tiger Woods and agreed to a multiyear contract extension with Acushnet Co. to stick with Titleist. . . . Track and field official Norman Stang, struck by a hammer Aug. 26 during the women’s under-20 national championships at Bedford, England, died Tuesday.