LUBBOCK, Texas — Texas Tech administrators declined comment Thursday when asked about their response to football coach Tommy Tuberville‘s remarks concerning President Barack Obama during a show Tuesday on Fox News Channel hosted by conservative commentator Sean Hannity.
During the show, Tuberville called for Obama to produce his birth certificate — which Obama did Wednesday, to quiet claims from critics — and suggested Obama would be defeated in his bid for re-election if the economy does not improve. Tuberville also questioned Obama’s decision to attend an Easter service led by the Rev. Wallace Charles Smith, who has compared statements by commentator Rush Limbaugh to those of a Ku Klux Klan leader in the 1960s.
• The NCAA will re-examine its role in licensing bowls and has put a three-year hold on any new games in the wake of the Fiesta Bowl’s scandal.
• Ohio State players are alleged to have improperly traded dozens of items to the owner of a tattoo parlor, receiving tattoos, $14,000 and, in one case, a sport utility vehicle, according to The Columbus Dispatch.
Only a portion of the transactions were deemed violations by the NCAA, and five players have been suspended for the first five games of the upcoming season. A related NCAA investigation into coach Jim Tressel continues.
• Alabama long snapper Carson Tinker was hospitalized in stable condition in Tuscaloosa, Ala., where more than 32 people have been killed by tornadoes. Tinker’s injuries were not disclosed.
Chan, German pair win world titles in record style
MOSCOW — Canadian Patrick Chan and the German pair of Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy set world records for the free skate and total points as they claimed titles at the world figure skating championships.
Chan’s score of 280.98 points smashed the previous record of 264.41, set in 2008 by last year’s world champion, Daisuke Takahashi of Japan.
Savchenko and Szolkowy scored 217.85 points for their playful “Pink Panther” program, topping the previous mark of 216.57 points set last year at the Vancouver Olympics by Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo.
Caitlin Yankowskas and John Coughlin of Colorado Springs were sixth, the highest finish for an American pair in a non-Olympic year since 1997.
Footnotes.
Bubba Watson and Matt Jones shared the first-round lead of the Zurich Classic after firing 6-under-par 66s in Avondale, La.
• Grace Park and Song-Hee Kim shot 5-under 67s to top the first-round leaderboard in the Avnet LPGA Classic in Mobile, Ala.
• Top-ranked Lee Westwood finished the first round of the Ballantine’s Championship in Seoul, South Korea, with a double bogey, falling six shots behind leader Damien McGrane‘s 66.
• Anaheim’s Corey Perry, Vancouver’s Daniel Sedin and Tampa Bay’s Martin St. Louis are finalists for the Hart Trophy given to the NHL’s MVP. The winner will be announced June 22.
• The NCAA ruled that basketball players must decide before the first day of the spring signing period, typically mid-April, to pull out of the NBA draft and retain their college eligibility. This year, players have until May 8.
• Swimmer Jessica Hardy, who missed the Beijing Olympics because of a doping violation, has been cleared for the London Games.
• The Seattle Sounders FC will be without forward O’Brian White indefinitely after the striker had surgery to remove a blood clot from his left leg.
• Vancouver Whitecaps striker Atiba Harris is out indefinitely after knee surgery.
