Raveling

Because Maurice Ravel loved the theater and was infatuated with the new medium of film, it has always been considered something of a pity that he wrote only two short operas, "L'Heure Espagnole" (1911) and "L'Enfant et les Sortileges" (1925). Neither piece is easy to stage, however, and while they are a frequent double bill at most schools of music, it always takes a certain amount of courage to present them as the Peabody Opera Theater is doing this week in Friedberg Concert Hall.It is hardly a coincidence that the greater of the two pieces, "L'Enfant et les Sortileges," is also the harder to stage.

NEW YORK -- Calling himself "naive" in such matters, CBS basketball analyst Billy Packer yesterday restated his apology for referring to Georgetown guard Allen Iverson as a "tough monkey" Saturday.At the same time, Packer bristled at notions -- published and broadcast -- that he is a racist."What I did on the air -- when it was brought to my attention, because I didn't even think about it -- I apologized for anybody who was sensitive to what I said. I apologized and I'm sorry for it," said Packer, during a break in a seminar for CBS announcers and production staff who will work this month's NCAA tournament.

BOWIE -- It's long after practice, and most of the Washington Bullets have left, or are dressed and ready to leave. But point guard Robert Pack is the last to go. It's a common occurrence.First he practices his jumper. Next it's free throws. Then it's on to an extended weight-room session. By the time Pack is ready to have his knees iced, even trainer Kevin Johnson has his coat on and is ready to leave."I always try to work hard, always try to improve my game," Pack said. "It seems like I've always faced tough situations, so I try not to take anything for granted."

For the first time in 25 years, George Raveling isn't pacing a sideline and taking in the thrill a moment that is coaching college basketball.And his life has never been better."

At the Ruck Funeral Home in Towson one night this week the conversation turned to Naval Academy basketball. Naturally.The visitors there were paying last respects to Don Lange, who, in the 1950s, was one of Navy's all-time great basketball players.A former Marine who moved back to Baltimore with his wife six years ago, Lange died suddenly of a heart attack last Saturday. He was 64."In my youngster [sophomore] year, I was really looking forward to playing with Don, who was a senior," said Dave Smalley, who played at Navy then, coached the team from 1966 to 1976 and is now an assistant athletic director at the academy.

LOS ANGELES -- Southern Cal basketball coach George Raveling has been moved to intensive care because of internal chest bleeding, a USC University Hospital spokeswoman said yesterday.The move was said to be precautionary.Raveling, 57, suffered nine broken ribs, a broken pelvis, a broken collarbone and a slightly collapsed lung when his vehicle was demolished Sept. 25 in a traffic accident in Los Angeles.Raveling was listed in serious but stable condition.

Do men's and women's basketball coaches perform the same duties and are they entitled to the same pay?Those questions are at the core of a debate that is expected to continue after a federal appeals court yesterday refused to immediately reinstate former Southern California women's coach Marianne Stanley to her post. She was fired last summer while seeking to earn as much as USC men's coach George Raveling.The ruling comes at a time when athletic administrators, faced with the possibility of gender equity, are raising the base salaries of women's coaches to a level closer to that of men's teams.

Coppin State's Fang Mitchell and UMBC's Earl Hawkins said yesterday that they will join fellow members of the Black Coaches Association in a proposed boycott of next week's National Association of Basketball Coaches' Issues Forum in Charlotte, N.C."I think it's the first step in getting our message across," said Mitchell, who, along with Hawkins, was to be among an estimated 100 black Division I head coaches attending the first NABC forum, a three-day meeting scheduled to begin Monday.The message sent out this week by BCA executive director Rudy Washington and other members of his organization is clear: Recent and imminent NCAA legislation that cuts scholarship limitations, raises academic standards and sets a maximum salary for restrictive-earnings coaches at $16,000 a year reduces the opportunities black athletes have at getting a college education and prospective coaches have at pursuing their chosen careers.

With this season's final concerts set for this month, the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra has announced plans for its 1993-1994 season.Conductor Gisele Ben-Dor's programming for next season, her third at the ASO helm, is intriguing, adventurous and attractive.While the current campaign has tended toward the mainstream symphonic blockbusters -- the Fourth Symphonies of Mahler and Tchaikovsky, the "Eroica" symphony and Third Piano Concerto of Beethoven and the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto -- next season's concerts will take audiences into slightly more exotic musical climes, though Rachmaninoff's Third Piano Concerto, Beethoven's Eighth Symphony and Elgar's marvelously personal "Enigma" Variations will provide more than a touch of familiarity.

MINNEAPOLIS -- Kansas coach Roy Williams is considered one of the rising stars in his profession, but in 1979 he was a high school coach who took a pay cut to become a part-time assistant under Dean Smith at North Carolina.It is one of the main reasons Williams is upset with legislation passed at the NCAA's winter convention earlier this year in Anaheim, Calif., that will cut out the part-time assistant's job at the Division I level, beginning next season."If it weren't for the third assistant's job, I wouldn't be in college coaching," Williams said yesterday.