Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 12, 1994                   TAG: 9401120216
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LIZ CLARKE KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
DATELINE: SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS                                LENGTH: Medium

PLAYERS WIN RIGHT TO RETURN AFTER NBA DRAFT

The new rule takes effect with this year's NBA draft.

Students who don't like how they fare have 30 days after the draft to return to college.

The change was supported by 76 percent of Division I coaches who responded to an NCAA survey.

This could complicate things for the NBA, since drafted underclassmen could now play a pro team off against returning to school in negotiations, as have some baseball prospects.

Charlotte Hornets president Spencer Stolpen suggested Tuesday night that the NBA rewrite its draft rules so that a team drafting an underclassman retains his rights until that player exhausts his college eligibility.

In related voting, coaches won the right to serve as go-betweens with agents and pro teams on behalf of students mulling a move to the pros, provided they don't accept money for the service.

The hope is coaches will protect students' interests in dealings with potentially unscrupulous agents.

Also Tuesday:

B A committee to explore a I-A football playoff met to set issues they'll consider in deciding whether to pursue a playoff. Its members are NCAA executive director Cedric Dempsey, NCAA chief operating officer Tom Jernstedt, UCLA Chancellor Charles E. Young and Oklahoma athletic director Donnie Duncan.

They'll start work in earnest in February, and decide by spring whether to propose a playoff for consideration at the 1995 NCAA convention.

An overture from Nike and Los Angeles-based Creative Artists Agency has been dropped, but Disney officials are interested enough to have attended this year's NCAA convention. With CBS shut out of both the NFL and Major League Baseball, the network's an obvious suitor for a playoff opportunity.

The NCAA snuffed out the use of chewing tobacco by players, coaches and officials in all college practices and games.

The NCAA banned tobacco products in its championships in 1990; minor-league baseball adopted a similar ban last year.

Tuesday's vote, which extends the prohibition, takes effect in August. Students who violate it will be immediately disqualified from whatever practice or game they're participating in at the time.

The use of smokeless tobacco jumped 40 percent among college athletes from 1985 to 1989, an NCAA study showed.