Deborah Yow

Betsy Stephenson UCLA associate athletic director, six years Stephenson's workload has increased as the 19-year tenure of Athletic Director Pete Dalis has come to a close. Last fall, she was the liaison to the NCAA in rules infraction cases involving tailback DeShaun Foster and volleyball player Kristee Porter.

USC, which was supposed to break ground on its 12,000-seat, on-campus sports arena last spring, has encountered longer-than-expected delays in negotiating a naming rights deal. Perhaps the Trojans are trying to match or better the University of Maryland's recent deal with Comcast and its new campus arena, which is under construction. Maryland set the standard for such university deals, $25 million.

Ben Braun, who guided Eastern Michigan to postseason play four times, will become California's basketball coach Sunday, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Kansas State's Tom Asbury and Indiana State's Sherman Dillard, who had interviewed for the job, announced Friday they were no longer candidates. Braun, who could not be reached for comment, has a 185-132 career record in 11 years at Eastern Michigan. He previously coached for eight years at Siena Heights, an NAIA school.

A decade has passed since Barbara Hedges left USC to become athletic director at Washington. In that span, as one of a few women to hold such a position, she has guided a multimillion-dollar fund-raising campaign, built new facilities and presided over winning seasons in everything from men's basketball to women's crew. But her most-noted success over the last 10 years boils down to just 10 days.

Coach George Karl agreed to a one-year contract extension with the Seattle SuperSonics that will give him the highest coaching salary in the NBA, Karl's representative said Friday. Price Johnson, a family friend who has helped represent Karl in negotiations this summer, said Karl called him Friday morning and said he would accept the offer, worth about $3 million, for the 1997-98 season.