Academy Officials

If Baltimore City schools and Basketball Academy officials have their way, the popular event will return to a college campus next year. Because of NCAA regulations banning "nonscholastic" high school basketball events from Division I college campuses, this week's 16 t h Annual Basketball Academy had to be moved from Coppin State to Lake Clifton. Basketball Academy officials, however, believe their event is a scholastic event. "I feel very confident we'll be back on a college campus," said Bob Wade, coordinator of athletics for the Baltimore City Public Schools.

A federal grand jury today indicted the U.S. Naval Academy's former public works officer, Capt. James E. Weston, on conspiracy, bribery and obstruction of justice charges for allegedly accepting numerous home appliances and machinery from an Annapolis contractor in return for awarding him Navy construction contracts worth at least $3.7 million.Assistant U.S. Attorney Jane F. Barrett also charged the Naval Academy's former civilian construction director, Eugene E. Hook, with one conspiracy count in a criminal information document filed today in U.S. District Court in Baltimore.

Marine guards, who have protected the Naval Academy in Annapolis since before the Civil War, will soon be replaced by other security employees under a Pentagon plan aimed at freeing up more soldiers for active duty. The Marine sentries have long been a familiar site on the 388-acre campus and have stood watch at the military college's three entrance gates since 1987. But a spokesman for the Marine Corps said yesterday that sometime in the next eight months, the Marines will be replaced.

It's one of the Naval Academy's most enduring traditions: Hundreds of shirtless plebes mark the end of their first year by swarming a grease-slicked, 21-foot-obelisk, climbing over one another in a race to the top. Now, academy officials are asking: Is this safe? In a terse statement this week, academy officials said they will assemble a student committee to study changes to the Herndon Monument Climb. "Like many customs and traditions, they evolve, they change over time," said Cmdr.

When Col. Norman Schlaich, a 28-year Marine Corps veteran, drank too much on the eve of his 49th birthday and climbed over a closed Naval Academy gate one night last weekend, he altered the path of what a week ago was a highly regarded, gifted career. Schlaich, known as "Dutch," said yesterday he feels sadness and regret for the pain he has caused his family and the school. "I have been treated more than fairly by the academy and the Marine Corps," he said. "I have told the midshipmen all along that they have to be accountable for their actions, and so must I."

Annapolis contractor Carroll R. Dunton has been fined $25,000 and sentenced to six months in a halfway house for bribing an Annapolis housing official and a Naval Academy public works officer in return for lucrative federal construction contracts.Judge John R. Hargrove also imposed three years of probation on Dunton on a suspended prison sentence yesterday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore.Dunton, 65, an owner of Dunton Contracting Co., bribed Arthur G. Strissel Jr., former executive director of the Annapolis Housing Authority, with custom plumbing and other items for his home, and gave numerous illegal gratuities to Navy Capt.

Capt. James E. Weston has insisted to a federal jury that he never steered construction jobs to favored contractors while he was the U.S. Naval Academy's public works officer.Weston also insisted that he paid Annapolis contractor Carroll R. Dunton in cash for numerous appliances Dunton bought for him at reduced prices."I would never break the law," Weston testified yesterday at his contract corruption trial in U.S. District Court here.But the now-retired captain admitted during several hours on the witness stand that he:* Repeatedly solicited favors from Dunton, who did a steady stream of business with the academy during Weston's tenure.

DENVER - A major drug scandal at the U.S. Air Force Academy is highlighting concern that cadets are using illegal substances such as Ecstasy that are difficult to detect in standard drug tests. The scandal has prompted talk of a congressional investigation. The probe entered a new phase over the past week, as one cadet, senior Stephen Pouncey, 22, was court-martialed Jan. 31 and sentenced to 42 months in military prison in Leavenworth, Kan., for using and distributing drugs such as Ecstasy and LSD. Sophomore Cadet Barton Duvall has been charged with taking LSD and could be court-martialed.

A midshipman has reported to Naval Academy officials that he overheard classmates conspire to create alibis in the cheating scandal that continues to rock the academy, according to individuals close to the investigation.The midshipman implicated three varsity football players in a scheme to synchronize their testimony before an honor board and accused two more midshipmen of cheating on a final exam last December, said the sources, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal.Academy officials acknowledged receiving a statement with new information from a midshipman, but they would not divulge its contents.

A teen-ager recruited to play football at the U.S. Naval Academy has been charged with breaking into his high school in central Pennsylvania to steal advance copies of exams, police said. Luke Wascovich, 18, and four other seniors were charged Wednesday with repeatedly entering Lower Dauphin High School at night during the past year and a half, first to steal tests and then to take about $23,000 worth of laptop computers and calculators, authorities said. "The original intent was to have access to tests to give them an advantage in the test-taking process," said Charles M. Dowell, the police chief of Hummelstown, a suburb of Harrisburg.