BRIEFLY : WOOLRIDGE RETAINED AS COACH OF SPARKS.

Byline: Daily News Wire Services

Former NBA forward Orlando Woolridge was hired as coach of the Los Angeles Sparks on Tuesday after serving as the team's interim coach for the final 10 games of the 1998 season.

Woolridge, who posted a 5-5 record, became the first former NBA player to guide a WNBA team when he became interim coach July 31. He replaced Julie Rousseau, who was fired after the Sparks lost 13 of their first 20 games.

``His experience as an NBA player for 13 years will give our players important insight to succeed at this level,'' general manager Rhonda Windham said.

Woolridge, 38, began his coaching career as a girls' assistant at Harvard-Westlake High during the 1996-97 season. He joined the Sparks as an assistant when Rousseau became interim coach in July 1997.

Terms of Woolridge's contract were not released.

COLLEGES: Kentucky athletes convicted of drunken driving will be kicked off teams and lose their scholarships, and the school will sever all sponsorship ties with beer, wine and liquor companies, athletic director C.M. Newton said.

The revised alcohol policy for Kentucky athletics comes in the wake of an apparently alcohol-related truck crash last week that killed one Kentucky football player and severely injured another. Another young man also died.

Newton said the decision not to renew contracts with Anheuser-Busch, Miller Brewing and Maker's Mark, a Kentucky bourbon manufacturer, will cost the school about $400,000 a year.

The ban covers advertising on Kentucky's television and radio networks, coaches' shows, posters, schedule cards, game programs and at venues where Kentucky home games are played. Newton said the last of the school's current contracts with alcohol manufacturers expires after the 1999-2000 school year.

Two former Northwestern University basketball players accused of fixing games in 1995 were sentenced to a month each in federal prison.

Kenneth Dion Lee and Dewey Williams had earlier pleaded guilty to taking bribes to shave points during three Big Ten games.

``It is important that the public knows when an athlete is playing college sports that they are doing so to the best of their ability,'' U.S. District Judge Charles Norgle said. ``The swing of the bat, the kick of the ball and the slam dunk should have nothing to do with the bookie in the hall.''

Lee, 25, admitted cooking up the point-shaving scheme with former Notre Dame place kicker Kevin Pendergast, who pleaded guilty to orchestrating the plan and was sentenced to two months.