Another Hoosier Coach in Trouble

On the weekend Indiana basketball Coach Bob Knight lost his job, Indiana football Coach Cam Cameron lost his temper and it cost him $10,000.

Cameron said earlier this week he was fined by the Big Ten Conference for postgame remarks after his team lost its opener to North Carolina State.

Cameron, who once played for Knight at Indiana, was irate after the 41-38 loss and blamed Atlantic Coast Conference officials who worked the game.

“We played well enough to win the football game on the scoreboard, period,” Cameron said Saturday. “You can slice it any way you want. That football game was flat taken from Indiana University. . . . You saw it with your own two eyes. I have never seen anything like that in my life.”

During the weekly Big Ten teleconference, Cameron apologized and disclosed the fine.

“How I handled that was really inappropriate. I was wrong for criticizing them. Even though I didn’t use the specific term as it relates to officials, obviously everyone knew who I was talking about, and that’s not the way we handle it in the Big Ten,” Cameron said. “In the future we’ll handle everything with the commissioner. . . . I just want to apologize to everyone.”

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Oklahoma gave Coach Bob Stoops a contract extension through 2005 that will pay him from $900,000 to $1 million a year, the school said.

Stoops, 39, has turned Oklahoma’s fortunes around in his two seasons. The Sooners are 2-0 and ranked 18th nationally after going 7-5 in 1999, their first winning campaign in six years, and earning a berth in the Independence Bowl.

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Don Strock spent 15 years with the Miami Dolphins as a backup quarterback for stars such as Bob Griese and Dan Marino.

Now, Strock is in charge of developing Florida International’s football program. He was introduced Wednesday as the team’s first coach, responsible for puting together a squad that is scheduled to begin play in 2002.

“I was lucky enough to stay [in Miami] for 14 years and play for the greatest coach the NFL has ever seen--Don Shula,” Strock said. “I’m hoping some of his abilities have rubbed off on me as a coach.”

Florida International, a commuter school of 32,000 in southwest Miami-Dade County, will start play in Division I-AA in a small campus stadium. Plans for a 7,000-seat facility are in the works.