County’s Newest Team--the Wildcats--Has a Name, but Not Much Else

The Continental Basketball Assn.’s newest team has no players, coach or home court, but the Orange County Wildcats got the go-ahead from the league to start operations this week.

Richard Armento, 60, who runs a commercial insurance business and splits his time between Palm Springs and Orange County, has purchased an expansion franchise from the league. Team officials hope it will play its games in UC Irvine’s Bren Center.

This is Armento’s third attempt at starting a team. He, George Lemon, the general manager, and Brian McInerney, the marketing director, attempted to form a professional team called the Orange Crush in the ill-fated International Basketball Assn. for players 6-feet 4-inches and under. The league held a draft in December, but that’s as far as it got. Several of the IBA’s teams left to join the World Basketball League, and the IBA failed to get off the ground before its projected April 15 start.

Then Armento tried, briefly, to get a team into the Summer Pro League at Loyola Marymount.

Three weeks ago, Lemon spoke with the CBA about acquiring an expansion franchise. The league was receptive, particularly because its Wyoming franchise was folding at the end of the season.

Last week, the final details were worked out, and the team agreed to the $500,000 price to join the league.

Mike Storen, CBA commissioner, said this week that the league owners must give final approval at the annual meeting June 23. But Storen and McInerney expect that the 11 other team owners will approve the new franchise and the Wildcats will be the 12th member when the 1988-89 season begins Oct. 15.

The Wildcats will be the first men’s professional basketball franchise in Orange County since the Anaheim Amigos of the American Basketball Assn. played in the Anaheim Convention Center for the 1967-68 season.

The league, Storen said, likes the idea of having a team in a population center such as Orange County.

All of the CBA’s franchises are located in small- to medium-sized cities such as La Crosse, Wis. (population 91,056) and Charleston, W. Va. (population 63,968). Orange County’s population is about 2.2 million.

The closest team to Orange County is the Rapid City (S.D.) Thrillers; the farthest team is the Albany (N.Y.) Patroons. However, United Airlines is one of the league’s sponsors, and the league pays the teams’ travel costs, McInerney said.

The Wyoming Wildcatters folded after Game 7 of the championship series last Saturday. Wyoming lost, 4 games to 3, to Albany.

The CBA had been running the Wyoming franchise since March 1, when it took over the financially troubled team from the previous owner, Jim O’Donnell of Newport Beach.

The fate of Wyoming’s coach, former Laker Cazzie Russell, and the nine players also is to be determined at the June 23 meeting. According to Storen, the CBA has not decided what kind of draft distribution will used for the Orange County team.

“Conceivably, you could have the whole Wyoming team there (in Orange County),” Storen said.

McInerney said Thursday night that the Orange County team hopes to retain Russell as coach. Jim Newman, a former Cal State Los Angeles coach, also is being considered.

Team officials hope to meet with Steve Neal, director of the Bren Center, next week to schedule 27 home dates for the coming season.

Neal said Friday that finding open nights for the Wildcats in the 5,000-seat Bren Center would not pose a problem to the arena’s management.

However, he said there needs to be some discussion between UC Irvine and the Wildcats regarding rental fee, among other things. Irvine charges $2,000 or 10% of an event’s gate receipts, whichever is greater, to outside groups using the center.

Storen said one thing the league would be looking for in granting final approval is the Wildcats’ ability to sell 2,400 season tickets. McInerney said that with the county’s interest in basketball he doesn’t expect the goal to be a problem.

However, one reporter who covered the league laughed when told of the CBA’s expectations.

“There isn’t a team in the league that sells that many season tickets,” said Marcus Prater, who covered the Wildcatters for the Casper (Wyo.) Star-Tribune.