The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page 9

THE COURiER-JOUnNAL, WEDNESDAY, JUE 21, 1939 3 Sol IT. 'Legend' returns to playground he ruled Continued from Page 1 hkrfe Hi .,.4 B0S' Cir SPOUTS BEAT EDITED BY KEITH F. OVERPECK Soviet says he'll play in NBA; TAC pressure halts 4 sprinters Charunas Marchulionis says he has the approval of Soviet Union sports authorities to play in the National Basketball Association next season and expects to be with the Golden State Warriors. Marchulionis, who is a free agent, would be the first Soviet player in the NBA. "I don't see any difficulties," the 6-foot-5 guard said in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, where the European Basketball Championships began yesterday.

"I got permission, and I'm going to the United States. That's nothing uncertain about that. Everything is settled with the Soviet sports authorities "I'll leave as soon as I get my papers from the Soviet authorities," he added, without spelling out a precise date. TRACK As their feud with The Athletics Congress heats up, Carl Lewis, Joe DeLoach, Danny Everett and Floyd Heard teammates with the Santa Monica Track Club will not be allowed to compete in a major meet this weekend in Birmingham, England. British officials say the four, who wanted to run in the 800-meter relay, were barred by TAC.

But TAC says it can't bar anyone from a meet on British soil and that it merely was insisting the promoter uphold his contract. Pete Cava, TAC's press information director, said the British promoters had to make a choice between the four sprinters or the entire American team. don't think they wanted to go on without the U.S. team," Cava said. "This is a meet for national teams." Three of the four sprinters did not compete in last week's TAC national championships in Houston, where the national team was selected.

Heard won the 200 meters. Lewis denied he boycotted the meet. Everett graduated from UCLA on the day of the finals. AUTO RACING Danny Sullivan will heed his doctor's advice and skip the next two Indy-car races Sunday's $650,000 Joe's 200 in Portland, and the July 2 Cleveland Grand Prix. Sullivan, last year's Portland winner, is nursing a broken right forearm injured in a May II crash during practice for the Indianapolis 500.

Car-owner Roger Penske said Geoff Brabham will replace Sullivan on Sunday and AI Unser Sr. will drive the car in Cleveland. TENNIS Top-seeded Martina Navratilova and No. 2 Chris Evert won in straight sets to move into the third round of a Virginia Slims grass-court tournament in Eastbourne, England. Navratilova beat Ronni Reis 6-0, 6-2, and Evert defeated Sara Corner 6-2, 6-0.

Also advancing was No. 7 Mary Joe Fernandez, "who is better known as a clay-courts player but showed her grass-courts prowess last week by winning the Bank of Scotland Grass Court championship. Yesterday she beat Anne Simpkin 6-1, 6-3. Steffi Graf will begin defense of her women's singles title against wild-card entry Julie Salmon in the first round at Wimbledon, England. The tournament's two-week run will begin Monday.

If Graf reaches the quarterfinals, she could meet Arantxa Sanchez, who beat Graf 7-6, 3-6, 7-5 in the French Open final to end her string of five consecutive Grand Slam titles. Graf is seeded to meet Navratilova in the final for the third consecutive year. Navratilova, trying to set a record of nine singles titles at Wimbledon, will open against Jill Hetherington. In the men's draw, top seed Ivan Lendl was paired against Nicolas Pereira, the world junior champion. If Lendl, who has never won Wimbledon, makes it to the semifinals, he is scheduled to face two-time titlist Boris Becker.

Defending men's champion Stefan Edberg will open Monday on Centre Court against Chris Pridham. THOROUGHBRED RACING Real-estate developer J. Brooks Hauser has agreed to sell control of the Canterbury Downs race track in Shakopee, to Lawrence G. Greenberg, a St. Louis Park, financial consultant, according to a reorganization plan.

Under the plan filed late Monday, Greenberg would acquire "substantially all" of the secured assets of. Scottland Inc. and Hauser Fields Ltd. Scottland a real-estate development company, owns 12 percent of the stock in Minnesota Racetrack owner of Canterbury Downs. The Hauser Fields Ltd.

partnership, which involves Hauser and his uncle, W. Brooks Fields, owns 49 percent of MRI. Hauser and Scottland Inc. sought bankruptcy protection earlier this year after a dozen banks force a Scottland subsidiary into involuntary bankruptcy. Earlie Fires Monday became the first rider in the 98-year history of Chicago's Hawthorne Race Course to have a perfect 6-for-6 day.

Fires, 42, won the second and fourth races and the sixth through the ninth on the nine-race card. The Hawthorne record of seven winners on a single card was set by Johnny Heckmann on Oct. 1, 1956, but he had eight mounts on the program. COLLEGE FOOTBALL Memphis State has interviewed eight candidates including former Western Kentucky head coach Dave Roberts, now at Northeast Louisiana for its head coaching vacancy, The Commercial Appeal reported. Nicholas White, a member of the search committee, said no clear leader has emerged from the pack.

The job came open May 3 when Charlie Bailey resigned amid an NCAA investigation. GOLF The purse for this year's Bank One Senior Classic in Lexington, will be $300,000, an increase of $50,000. Bob Charles is defending champion in the 54-hole tournament, which will be played Sept. 1-3 at the Marriott Griffin Gate course. BASEBALL Pitcher Tug McGraw lined a two-run single in the fifth and final inning Monday to give the National League an 8-7 victory over the American League in the eighth annual National Old Timers Classic in Buffalo, N.Y.

an organizer of the Tournament who played against Manigault in high school. "He was a phenomenal player. And he's still a legend to the kids today." Manigault established a reputation as a remarkable leaper as a teen-ager, outplaying older, taller competitors. He starred in high school until he was expelled during his senior year for smoking marijuana in the locker room, a charge he denies. He then went to Laurinburg Institute, a North Carolina prep school, where he played for one year and finished second-to-last in his class.

The major-college recruiters went after Manigault with zeal, as stories of his dunks and emphatic shot-blocking at the Harlem playgrounds spread throughout the city. But Manigault feared he couldn't handle the academic work at a prominent college, and he chose to attend Johnson C. Smith University, a predominantly black school in Charlotte, He struggled in the classroom, didn't get along with the coach, and lasted less than a year. With no thought of returning to college, Manigault realized basketball would take him no farther than the playgrounds. "That's when I went right to the bottom," he recalled.

"I started messing with the 'white It wasn't long before Manigault had a heroin habit that cost more than $100 a day. He stole mink coats to support his habit Sometimes drug dealers would give him heroin for free "because I was the Goat," he said, "and they didn't want to see me stealing for it." The one thing Manigault felt was untouchable, his basketball ability, soon deteriorated. He remembered a game in the 1965 Rucker Tournament when he lost his balance and fell twice, a shameful experience that steered him away from the game and toward the street corners, where he nodded pathetically, strung out in full view of the neighborhood. He was arrested for possession of drugs in 1969, the same year Abdul-Jabbar was made a rookie millionaire by the Milwaukee Bucks. He fought urges to commit suicide and kicked his habit.

He then was transferred to Green Haven prison in Stormville, N.Y., where he served 16 months of a five-year sentence. He got his only shot at professional basketball in 1970 at age 25. Bill Daniels, the owner of the Utah Stars of the American Basketball Association, read about Manigault in "The City Game," a book by Pete Axthelm. Daniels gave Manigault a tryout, "but it was too late for him," Daniels said. "His body had been through too much.

He couldn't take the pace." Manigault said he stayed clean for several years. Ironically, he went to the drug kingpins for money to start his Goat Tournament, which was played at 98th and Amsterdam, then known as Goat Park. "I told them they had to give something back to the community," Manigault said. "They couldn't say no to the Goat." But Manigault couldn't say no to drugs. He started dabbling with heroin again.

On a rainy summer day in 1977, the first day of the Goat Tournament was canceled and Manigault got into a car with some friends and headed to the Bronx. "We had a plan to steal $6 million," said Manigault, who refuses to reveal the plot. "But we got busted. They figured I was the ringleader. I got two years." After two years in the Bronx House of Detention and the state prison in Ossining, Manigault took two of his sons, the youngest of his seven children (he never married), and moved to Charleston to get away from the lure of drugs.

"I didn't want my sons to be greater junkies than I was," he said. Manigault says he hasn't touched drugs since. He lives with his two sons in a small house and survives by painting houses, mowing lawns and working for the local recreation department. People in the neighborhood still call the playground at 98th and Amsterdam Goat Park. When Manigault is in town, word spreads and people head for the park to wish him well and to buy him a beer or a pack of cigarettes.

He still shows flashes of his brilliance in pickup games but cannot sustain a consistent pace for more than five minutes. After shooting baskets for 15 minutes, Manigault rests on a bench in his park and rubs his muscular legs. He is proud of his legs, the springs that once carried him over the other playground stars. The most striking aspect of his legs is that there are no tracks or to be found on them. "When the veins in my arms were full, it was tempting to go to my legs," Manigault said.

"But I've always loved my legs. No matter how bad it got, I always went to another spot on my arms." Keith Allen glad to be back at Downs and winning again they're interesting, you've got a chance. You know, 'What can I do on this It's a big change." And his plans have changed as well. When this meet is over, Allen will go up to Arlington International Racecourse in Chicago. Though that riding colony is expected to be tough, Allen fared well his first summer at the track in 1985, the year the grandstand burned.

"Hopefully I can stay in the Midwest because that's where down deep I want to be: Chicago and Kentucky," he said. A team of jockeys will play the Louisville Redbirds' wives in a soft-ball game Monday at Cardinal Stadium for the benefit of Muscular Dystrophy. Post time is 6:30 p.m., with the Redbirds' game to follow. The charity game evolved from the jockeys' exhibition against TV personalities last year at a local softball complex. Continued from Page 1 who have been winning right along.

"But what happened in this situation, when Keith came back I had a lot of business built up that was going to be Brumfield's. I feel that was business I had established here. By doing that, if I brought a rider in here with some quality, someone they knew, that business would certainly transfer on over." Allen said 1988 was "just a year you want to turn that page and go on to '89. "I wouldn't even buy a Racing Form when I was doing so bad," he said. "Because what are you going to read when you ride two 50-1 shots? How are you going to handicap that race? "Now every day when I leave the track, I pick up the Racing Form, get the scratches.

At night I'm at home trying to handicap the race and look at my horses. Because 1989 TIRE AMERICA.