Alabama Gets Two-Year Bowl Ban for Violations

The NCAA put Alabama on five years’ probation Friday, jolting the football program with a two-year bowl ban and heavy scholarship reductions.

The governing body said it considered giving the Crimson Tide the most severe punishment--the death penalty--under the repeat violator rules for a recruiting scandal in which boosters were accused of paying money for high school players.

“These violations are some of the worst, most serious that have ever occurred,” said Thomas Yeager, chairman of the infractions committee.

The NCAA reduced the number of football scholarships the school can award by 21 over three years.

The university, accused of 11 major violations and five minor charges under former coaches Mike DuBose and Gene Stallings, said it would appeal.

President Andrew Sorensen said university officials “are firm in our belief that the penalties are inappropriate.”

*

West Virginia Coach Rich Rodriguez received a one-year contract extension despite leading the Mountaineers to a 3-8 record in his first season....Galleryfurniture.com withdrew as the title sponsor of the bowl game played the last two years at the Houston Astrodome.

*

Pro Football

Brett Favre of the Packers will skip the Pro Bowl because of a sore back, the Green Bay Press-Gazette reported.

Pittsburgh Steeler running back Jerome Bettis won the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year award.

*

Tennis

Top-seeded Martina Hingis cruised into the semifinals of the Toray Pan Pacific tournament with a 6-3, 6-2 victory against Tamarine Tanasugarn at Tokyo.

Hingis will face Silvia Farina Elia, a 6-4, 6-3 winner over fourth-seeded Sandrine Testud.

Monica Seles also advanced to the semifinals with a 7-6 (9), 7-6 (9) victory against Alexandra Stevenson. She will face Anna Kournikova, a 6-4, 6-2 winner over Anne Kremer.

Roger Federer advanced to the semifinals of the Milan Indoors in Italy, defeating Sargis Sargsian, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2.

Federer will play Greg Rusedski, a 4-6, 7-6 (5), 6-2 winner over Sjeng Schalken.

Davide Sanguinetti also moved into the semifinals, defeating fifth-seeded Younes El Aynaoui, 7-6 (4), 7-6 (2). Sanguinetti will face Nicolas Escude, a 7-6 (6), 6-3 winner over qualifier Max Mirnyi.

*

Fourth-seeded Petr Pala and Pavel Vizner upset top-seeded Donald Johnson and Jared Palmer, 6-4, 6-1, to advance to the final of the ATP World Doubles Challenge Cup at Bangalore, India.

In the other semifinal, Rick Leach and Ellis Ferreira defeated Mark Knowles and Brian MacPhie, 6-2, 6-4.

*

Golf

Rain caused cancellation of the first round of the Senior PGA Tour’s Royal Caribbean Classic at Key Biscayne, Fla. The tournament was reduced to 36 holes.

Ernie Els shot a three-under-par 69 at Royal Melbourne in Australia to take a three-stroke lead in the second round of the Heineken Classic. Greg Norman, winless in Australia in nearly four years, was at eight under after shooting a 67. ... Hale Irwin, the oldest player to win the U.S. Open at 45, received a special exemption from the U.S. Golf Assn. to play in his 32nd U.S. Open this summer in Farmingdale, N.Y.

*

Miscellany

Ricky Carmichael, who rode to 13 consecutive victories last season in the AMA/EA Sports Supercross Series, goes for his second consecutive win this season when the sold-out series returns to Edison Field in Anaheim tonight.

Carmichael, now a Honda factory rider after switching from Kawasaki, got off to a slow start this season but finally won his first race of 2002 last week in Phoenix. He won 14 of 16 races last season.

A Latvian bobsledder whose suspension for drug use was due to expire before the Olympic competition begins was barred from the Winter Games by the International Olympic Committee.

The IOC said the timing of a three-month ban imposed retroactively on Sandis Prusis by the International Bobsled Federation had been “carved out” to allow him to compete in Salt Lake City, against the spirit of anti-doping rules.

*

Jeff Hartwig set a Millrose Games record in the pole vault, clearing 19 feet 3 inches for his fourth victory in five years there. Stacy Dragila won the women’s pole vault with a 14-11 effort and Regina Jacobs won the women’s mile (4:34.60) for the fourth consecutive year....Former Chicago Bear defensive lineman Dan Hampton, a finalist for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, was charged with drunk driving Monday night near Little Rock, Ark....Former Olympic gymnast Olga Korbut was arrested on charges she shoplifted $19 worth of groceries from a supermarket in Norcross, Ga.... Vassiliy Jirov of Kazakstan outpointed Jorge Castro of Argentina in Phoenix to retain his International Boxing Federation cruiserweight title.

*

Passings

Former Harlem Globetrotter Bernard Price, one of a small number of players honored by the team with Legends status, had died at 86. Price died in Chicago on Jan. 24 of kidney failure.