Former Coach, Player Jailed for Perjury

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Former South Carolina women’s basketball coach Pam Parsons and her former player Tina Buck, who pleaded guilty to perjury charges, were given a three-year sentence today, suspended upon service of four months and five years probation.

The two women stood quietly as U.S. District Judge Clyde Hamilton, who presided over the trial of Parsons’ $75-million libel lawsuit against Time Inc., ordered that they serve four months in prison and recommended that they be imprisoned at a minimum security facility in Lexington, Ky.

A condition of their program requires that they be given psychiatric evaluation and counseling.

Magazine Challenged

The perjury charges stemmed from testimony last spring during Parsons’ unsuccessful lawsuit against Sports Illustrated magazine that claimed the magazine had unfairly accused her of sexual involvement with a player and running a corrupt program.

Jurors ruled the magazine story was “substantially true,” and Hamilton requested an FBI investigation after hearing sharply conflicting testimony about Parsons’ alleged membership in a gay bar in Salt Lake City.

During the trial of the lawsuit, Babette (Babs) De Lay, a disc jockey at the Puss ‘N Boots Club in Utah, testified that she met Parsons and Buck at the gay club in 1983, saw Parsons sign the club’s membership rolls and watched the two women kiss and dance intimately at the club.

On the witness stand, both women denied that they had ever been in the club or had met De Lay.