Harry Usher

Harry Usher, incoming commissioner of the United States Football League, said Thursday that the financially troubled Los Angeles Express franchise will be kept afloat by the rest of the USFL--all season, if necessary--until new ownership can be found. "We're starting the season with 14 teams and we'll finish it with 14. We won't be folding any franchises," said Usher, former executive vice president of the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee.

Elizabeth M. Primrose assumes her role today as president and executive director of the 1991 U.S. Olympic Festival in Los Angeles, becoming the first woman to act as chief operating officer of an Olympic Festival. Primrose, 41, succeeds Earl Duryea, who held the position for less than four months. In a letter to the board of directors last week, Festival chairman Harry Usher said that it had "become necessary to terminate" the relationship with Duryea.

Reggie Jackson would have loved Harry Usher. As its general manager for the 1984 Games, Usher was the straw that stirred the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee's drink. While President Peter Ueberroth stood atop the mountain, imparting his Olympic vision, Usher was at base camp, crunching the numbers, rallying the troops, and making vision reality. Ueberroth and Usher, longtime friends, were an imposing team and a great match.

Drop-kick me, Jesus, through the goal posts of life. End over end, neither left nor right. Kick me, Lord, kick me through those righteous uprights. Drop-kick me, Jesus, through the goal posts of life. --From a hymn by Paul Craft * With Thanksgiving but a day away, it's only proper to talk a little football. This, of course, is a sore subject in Los Angeles, home of the Empty Stadium.

Southern California may be pricing itself out of the competition for top corporate talent, according to a survey on executive relocation released Wednesday. More than 70% of personnel officers in large Southland companies surveyed by Russell Reynolds Associates, a headhunting firm, said it has become difficult to recruit executives to jobs in Southern California. The biggest reason: skyrocketing housing costs, cited by 90% of the 129 personnel officers questioned.

Harry L. Usher, the no-nonsense general manager of the 1984 Olympics and right-hand man to Peter Ueberroth in those highly successful Los Angeles Games, died Thursday, apparently of a heart attack, while exercising at a hotel gym in Secaucus, N.J. He was 61. Usher was often given credit, along with Ueberroth, for producing an Olympics with a surplus of $232 million, the most in the movement's history.

Harry L. Usher, who had responsibility for planning and staging the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, has been named managing director of the Los Angeles office of international search firm Russell Reynolds Associates. Usher, a lawyer, joined the firm from Weintraub Entertainment Group, where he has been a senior vice president since July, 1987. He also has been president of its subsidiary, Weintraub International Enterprises.

The United States Football League is in the early stages of the longest off-season in the history of professional football. After three seasons of spring-summer football, the league plans to go head to head with the National Football League, beginning with the 1986 season. In recent months, the only USFL news has been reports of lawsuits and the league's better known players, such as the L.A. Express' Steve Young and Oakland's Bobby Hebert and Anthony Carter drifting to the NFL.

Coronary artery bypass surgery has yet to be scheduled for USFL Commissioner Harry Usher, who remained in good condition five days after he was admitted to St. John's Hospital with chest pains.