By The Associated Press
NFL
CLEVELAND (AP) — Browns defensive end Myles Garrett has been suspended for at least the rest of the regular season and postseason by the NFL for swinging a helmet and striking Pittsburgh quarterback Mason Rudolph in the head.
Garrett’s violent outburst in the final seconds of Thursday’s nationally televised game against the Steelers landed him the longest suspension for a single on-field infraction in league history. Tennessee’s Albert Haynesworth was suspended five games in 2006.
Garrett ripped off Rudolph’s helmet and clobbered him on top of the head, triggering a brawl between the rivals.
Steelers center Maurkic Pouncey was suspended three games for punching and kicking Garrett, and Browns defensive tackle Larry Ogunjobi was suspended for one game. He shoved Rudolph to the ground from behind during the melee.
The league said Garrett will have to meet with Commissioner Roger Goodell before his reinstatement is considered.
The Steelers and Browns were also fined $250,000 each.
NBA
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) — Bill Russell says he’s finally ready to be a Hall of Famer.
The 11-time NBA champion, five-time MVP, Olympic gold medalist and two-time NCAA champ said on Twitter on Friday that he was presented with his Hall of Fame ring in a private ceremony that comes three decades after he was first selected for the shrine at Springfield, Massachusetts.
Russell didn’t attend his induction ceremony in 1975. He says he didn’t deserve to be the first black player inducted. He tweeted that “I felt others before me should have that honor.”
His tweet mentions Chuck Cooper, who in 1950 was the first African-American player drafted by the NBA and who was inducted this year.
Russell says the ceremony was attended by his wife, along with close friends and Hall of Famers Bill Walton, Ann Meyers and Alonzo Mourning.
COLLEGE ATHLETICS
SOUTH ORANGE, N.J. (AP) — The NCAA has placed the men’s basketball program at No. 12 Seton Hall on probation for three years, taken away a scholarship for the 2020-21 academic year and limited recruiting in each of the next two seasons as part of a negotiated resolution of a transfer tampering case started in 2016.
Under terms of the agreement announced Friday, Seton Hall coach Kevin Willard was given a two-game suspension he has already served, and his former assistant and current St. Peter’s University head coach Shaheen Halloway received a four-game suspension that has two games remaining.
Seton Hall, which dropped a 76-73 decision to No. 3 Michigan State on Thursday night, remains eligible for the NCAA Tournament.
The NCAA also announced Friday Seton Hall has been fined $5,000 plus 1% of the men’s basketball budget and had its scholarships reduced to a maximum of 12 in 2020-21. Willard will have to attend an NCAA rules seminar in 2020 and the program will have a two-week ban on recruiting communication this academic year and next.
ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia Tech has formally appealed sanctions levied by the NCAA against its men’s basketball program.
The Atlantic Coast Conference school announced its notice of appeal last month and filed its written arguments with the governing body on Friday.
Georgia Tech is appealing a ban on postseason play this season, as well as scholarship reductions and limits on official visits.
The NCAA ruled in September that major recruiting violations were committed by one of head coach Josh Pastner’s former assistants, as well as an ex-friend.
Pastner was not directly named in the NCAA’s findings and was largely cleared in the school’s own investigation.
In its appeal, Georgia Tech contends the penalties are based in significant part on an improper aggravating factor. It also claims that the four-year length of the scholarship reduction penalty is arbitrary, and says the Committee on Infractions did not properly consider NCAA regulations when imposing limits on recruiting visits during home games over the next two seasons.
HORSE RACING
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit by the owners of Maximum Security seeking to challenge the decision to disqualify their horse as the winner of the Kentucky Derby.
Owners Gary and Mary West wanted the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Kentucky to reverse the stewards’ decision and find that their decision violated the couple’s constitutional rights to due process. They also wanted to have the $3 million Derby purse be redistributed to them, jockey Luis Saez and trainer Jason Servis.
However, Judge Karen Caldwell issued an opinion Friday in which she said “Kentucky’s regulations make clear that the disqualification is not subject to judicial review. Further, the disqualification procedure does not implicate an interest protected under the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution.”
Caldwell said Kentucky regulations state that the stewards’ decision in determining fouls and disqualifications of horses “is final and not subject to appeal.”
SOCCER
MONTREUX, Switzerland (AP) — Manchester City lost its attempt Friday to block an investigation into allegations it deceived UEFA while violating rules that monitor soccer club finances.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that City’s appeal against UEFA’s handling of the investigation was inadmissible. The two-time defending Premier League champions tried to stop UEFA’s club finance panel from handling a referral by investigators to impose a punishment.
“At CAS we can only hear appeals against final decisions,” said Matthieu Reeb, the court’s secretary general.
UEFA investigators had called for a severe penalty — that City be excluded from the Champions League for one season.
The file will now proceed to UEFA’s club finance judges. Any sanction they impose can also be challenged at CAS.
COURTS
STOCKTON, Calif. (AP) — A jury in California has ruled that USA Swimming was not negligent in the case of a former coach who sexually abused a 13-year-old swimmer, although she will receive $1.125 million from two USA Swimming affiliates in a civil lawsuit.
In the criminal case, former Stockton Swim club coach Shunichi Fujishima pleaded guilty to sexually abusing the girl he’d coached and was sentenced to 12 years in prison in October.
At that time, an out-of-court settlement with Stockton Swim Club and Pacific Swimming, which oversees the sport in the Stockton area, was reached in the civil case. The victim’s attorney, Robert Allard, announced the settlement amount Friday, when both he and USA Swimming confirmed that the jury found the sport’s national governing body not responsible in the case.
OBITUARY
CLEVELAND (AP) — Harrison Dillard, the only Olympic runner to win gold medals in both the sprints and high hurdles, has died. He was 96.
Longtime friend Ted Theodore said Dillard died Friday at the Cleveland Clinic after a fight with stomach cancer. The 1955 Sullivan Award winner as the nation’s outstanding amateur athlete, Dillard was the oldest living U.S. Olympic champion.
In the 1948 London Games, Dillard won the 100 meters in 10.3 seconds and earned another gold medal on the United States’ 400 relay team. At the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, Dillard won his specialty, the 110 high hurdles, in 13.91, and again ran on the winning relay team. Overall, Dillard won more than 400 races — 82 in a row at one point.
Dillard won 11 indoor and outdoor national championships, including the indoor 60-yard hurdles a record eight consecutive years. Dillard won that event at the Millrose Games nine years in a row. He held world hurdles records at 60 yards indoors, and 110 yards and 220 yards outdoors.
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