Names In The News

TROY ELLERMAN, the attorney who “admitted leaking grand jury transcripts about athletes’ steroid use” to the S.F. Chronicle during the BALCO case, was sentenced to 2 ½ years in prison by a federal judge (S.F. CHRONICLE, 7/13).

NATIONALS: The Washington Nationals Foundation, the charitable arm of the Nationals, has settled its lawsuit against real estate developer FRANKLIN HANEY over what the foundation “claimed was a $400,000 broken promise.”  Foundation execs claimed Haney while heading a group that was bidding for the Nationals in September '05 offered to match the proceeds of a charitable gala, but never paid the pledge.  The foundation filed a lawsuit in federal court last fall for the $400,000, plus $4M in punitive damages (WASHINGTON POST, 7/13).

LACROSSE: In a front-page piece in the N.Y. Times, Winnie Hu writes over the past four years, the NORTH AMERICAN MINOR LACROSSE ASSOCIATION has grown into a league of six American Indian teams, each with different age divisions, in upstate New York, with 1,000 players ages 3-20.  Some tribes, “newly prosperous from gambling profits and keen to preserve their past, have hired coaches and referees, bought equipment and refurbished playing fields" (N.Y. TIMES, 7/13).

Fireman Puts Massachusetts Golf Course On Market For $33M

NAMES: Former Reebok Chair PAUL FIREMAN put his Willowbend Country Club in Mashpee, Massachusetts, up for sale for $33M. Fireman bought the club, which includes a 27-hole golf course, for $8.5M in ’91 (N.Y. POST, 7/13)....Yankees P ROGER CLEMENS’ Rocket Sports Grill will open at Memorial City Mall in Houston by year’s end.  Clemens also recently pledged $3M to Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston and has been involved in “various outreach projects” though his Roger Clemens Foundation” (HOUSTON CHRONICLE, 7/13)....NIKE broke ground Thursday on a new distribution center in Memphis.  The $107M facility will create 244 new jobs (Memphis COMMERCIAL APPEAL, 7/13).