The Associated Press

SEATTLE - Keith Gilbertson took over as Washington's head football coach Tuesday, the day after Rick Neuheisel's firing became official.

The Huskies' former offensive coordinator will earn $870,000 a year under a four-year contract, athletic director Barbara Hedges said.

"We're very fortunate to have a person on our staff with the background and experience to assume the head coaching position," Hedges said at a campus news conference attended by former coach Don James.

Gilbertson, who has supervised the football program's day-to-day operations since last month, was the team's offensive coordinator under James when the Huskies won a national title in 1991.

"What's taken place has been hard on everybody," Gilbertson said of Neuheisel's firing. "It's been hard on our alums, it's been hard on our fans, it's been hard on our team, it's been hard on Barbara and it's been hard on Rick Neuheisel and his family."

Hedges fired Neuheisel for breaking NCAA gambling rules by participating in neighborhood pools during the past two NCAA basketball tournaments. She said he wasn't forthcoming when first questioned by NCAA investigators.

Neuheisel has maintained he didn't know he was breaking the rules, saying an athletic department memo from the school's compliance officer gave him permission to gamble with neighbors.

Gilbertson was the head coach at Idaho from 1986 to 1988 and at California from 1992 to 1995. He had a combined record of 48-35 at those two schools over seven seasons.

Gilbertson first came to UW as a graduate assistant coach in 1976 under James. He rejoined the Huskies in 1989 and was with them until after the 1991 season. He went to work for Neuheisel when Hedges hired Neuheisel away from the University of Colorado in 1999.

"I really enjoyed working with Rick and being on his staff," he said. "We shared a lot in common in terms of offensive thinking, and I appreciate him giving me a chance to come back to the University of Washington because he knew it meant an awful lot to me. So I want to thank Rick Neuheisel."

Neuheisel was 33-15 in four seasons at Washington, including a 7-6 record last season, when the Huskies lost to Purdue in the Sun Bowl. He will receive no more money from the balance of his contract and will have to repay a $1.5 million loan from last August.

The Huskies open the season Aug. 30 at defending national champion Ohio State.

NORTHWESTERN: Lawyers for the mother of a Northwestern University football player who died during a 2001 training session said Tuesday they will file an amended lawsuit alleging the school tried to cover up the circumstances of his death.

The new complaint, which attorneys said they plan to file today, also will add makers and sellers of dietary supplements containing ephedra as defendants - a decision Northwestern says supports its claim that the supplements, not poor medical care, caused Rashidi Wheeler's death.

The planned filing comes just weeks after Dr. Mark Gardner, a former Northwestern physician, admitted in a deposition that he burned records of a physical he performed three weeks before Wheeler died.

"The destruction of this critical medical record followed Dr. Gardner's extensive consultation about Rashidi's death with Northwestern lawyers and officials," attorneys James D. Montgomery and Johnnie Cochran said in a statement.

The lawyers said they will name Gardner as a defendant in the new complaint.

Walter Jones, an attorney for Northwestern, called allegations of a cover-up "absolutely scandalous," noting that Gardner testified he acted alone without consulting anyone from Northwestern. Jones said the planned filing proves what Northwestern has said all along - that ephedra caused Wheeler's death.