Tearful Blades Says Death Was Accidental

Seattle Seahawk receiver Brian Blades emerged from seclusion at his parents’ house in Plantation, Fla., Tuesday and said through tears that the fatal shooting of his cousin was unintentional.

“I know Charles’ death was an accident. The police know Charles’ death was an accident. And most important, God knows Charles’ death was an accident,” Blades said in a news conference on his parents’ lawn.

He has rejected police requests for interviews but read a statement to 35 reporters, photographers and neighbors.

Charles Blades, 34, died of a gunshot wound to the underside of his chin in a bedroom at Brian Blades’ Miami-area home July 5. Police said the player was the only other person in the room when his cousin was shot. The death has not been classified as a homicide, but suicide has been ruled out.

Police said Monday that more than one shot was fired from Brian Blades’ .38-caliber handgun. The second bullet lodged in a wall.

“It’s nearly impossible in an accident situation for a gun to go off twice,” said police Sgt. Michael Price. “So it brings on new concerns.”

Brian Blades, 29, canceled two scheduled interviews with detectives. His agent, Drew Rosenhaus, said his client was distraught and “personally incapable” of talking to police.

But Blades faced a crowd as he read his statement. His father, Frederick, cried quietly as he rubbed his son’s neck while his mother, Rosa, stood nearby.

“The gun that shot Charles was a gun that I owned,” he admitted. “Neither Charles nor I ever intended that Charles would be shot. Neither Charles nor I thought Charles would be shot.”

Tapes of two frantic 911 calls, one from Brian and one from a friend, shed little light on what happened.

Sobbing, Brian Blades told the dispatcher, “I went down to stop my brother from, uh, fighting his girl, and the gun went off and shot my cousin.”

In the second call, the friend said Charles Blades had been shot by his cousin.

Basketball

NBA players seeking to dissolve their union took legal steps to challenge the league’s lockout.

Attorneys for the dissident players filed for a preliminary injunction and added nine players to the original seven who first brought the class action.

Joining the original group headed by Michael Jordan and Patrick Ewing were Scottie Pippen, Eric Murdock, Scott Skiles, Jim McIlvaine, Tim Hardaway, Lindsay Hunter, P.J. Brown, Don MacLean and Doug West.

“This is a class representative of all players, not just superstars,” lawyer Jeffrey Kessler said. “We want the action to represent a cross section of every type of player.”

Kessler said the injunction, filed with district judge David Doty in Minneapolis, seeks a hearing Sept. 6.

At the same time, the players withdrew their unfair-labor-practice charge of failing to bargain because the NLRB said that could affect the timing of the decertification vote.

“It will be filed in the future, if warranted,” Kessler said.

Kessler said nearly 200 of the league’s 325 players support decertification and he will press for early NLRB action on a vote. He said the players do not want a strike or a lockout.

“We want to fight in court, just like football,” he said.

Kessler has been successful in Doty’s court before. He represented the NFL players there and followed the same strategy of having the union decertified so the issue could be brought to court.

“Without a collective bargaining agreement, players can pursue their rights in court, just like the NFL players did when they decertified their union,” he said. “We fought for two years and the court ruled in our favor.

“The players’ association stays in existence. We hope it will support the majority of the players.”

Men who served under him say former Baylor basketball coach Darrel Johnson was involved in a recruiting scandal at the school, even though a jury acquitted him of the charges.

Former assistants Kevin Gray and Gary Thomas, who were sentenced last week for their part in the scandal, say Johnson condoned the cheating.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Walter Smith Jr., put Gray and Thomas and another former assistant, Troy Drummond, on three years’ probation for their part in giving five junior college recruits term papers and changing the players’ test scores in 1993.

The same jury that convicted them of conspiracy, wire fraud and mail fraud acquitted Johnson.

Phil Mathews, who coached Ventura College to a 37-1 record last year and the California state community college title, was hired as basketball coach at the University of San Francisco.

Football

The Denver Broncos released safety Dennis Smith and put linebacker Karl Mecklenburg on the reserve-retired list.

Mecklenburg, 34, said after 12 years in the NFL, he was ready to leave.

“I got to accomplish all I could individually, and we got to accomplish almost everything you could as a team,” he said.

New Orleans Saint fullback Lorenzo Neal suffered a minor wound on his left forearm during an early-morning fight at a party in Merced, Calif., police reported.

Marcus Dowdell, a former Saint receiver, was given a two-year suspended sentence and fined $1,000 after pleading guilty in Gretna, La., to the unauthorized use of a car that was stolen from one of Saint owner Tom Benson’s dealerships.

Nebraska running back Lawrence Phillips has reimbursed a sport agent’s recruiter for a meal and the university plans to send a complete report to the NCAA, a school official said.

Nebraska’s senior associate athletic director in charge of NCAA compliance, Al Papik, said the university figured to finish its investigation in a few days.

Tennis

Defending champion David Wheaton used a potent service game to easily defeat Australia’s Jamie Morgan, 6-4, 6-2, in the first round of the Hall of Fame Tennis Championships at Newport, R.I.

In the only other match played due to a five-hour rain delay, Australia’s Mark Philippousis defeated Kenny Thorne 6-3, 6-4.

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Unheralded Belgian Kris Goossens upset top-seeded Jonas Bjorkman of Sweden, 6-2, 6-4, in the first round of the $328,000 Swedish Open tournament in Bastad.

Miscellany

Three-time U.S. Open golf champion Hale Irwin has withdrawn from the British Open for the third year in a row. Organizers of next week’s tournament at St. Andrews, Scotland, said that Irwin had given no reason.

The St. Louis Blues signed right wing Brian Noonan to a three-year contract. Noonan, an unrestricted free agent, had 14 goals last season for the New York Rangers.