Rams Sign Free Agent Defensive End O’Neal
The St. Louis Rams on Friday signed Leslie O’Neal, a free agent defensive end who had spent his entire 10-year career with the San Diego Chargers, to a contract. Terms were not disclosed.
O’Neal, 31, one of the NFL’s top pass rushers, has appeared in six Pro Bowls and ranks ninth on the league’s career sack list with 105 1/2.
San Diego did not offer him a contract for 1996.
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Quarterback Ty Detmer, the former Heisman Trophy winner who has appeared in only five games in four seasons with the Green Bay Packers, has signed a two-year contract with the Philadelphia Eagles and is expected to contest Rodney Peete for the starting job. Detmer will receive a $500,000 signing bonus and a base salary of $500,000 in 1996 and $700,000 in 1997. . . . Will Wolford, a former Pro Bowl tackle who was once the NFL’s highest-paid offensive lineman, agreed to a four-year, $9.9-million contract with the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Steelers signed Wolford less than 12 hours after quarterback Neil O’Donnell left the team and took the New York Jets’ $25-million offer. . . . The Jets terminated the contract of defensive tackle Tony Casillas, a salary-cap casualty after the signing of O’Donnell.
The Atlanta Falcons and former Buffalo Bill linebacker Cornelius Bennett reached agreement on a four-year contract to be signed Monday. . . . The Jacksonville Jaguars signed Houston Oiler linebacker Eddie Robinson to a four-year contract worth $10.4 million. . . . Ted Marchibroda, head coach of the NFL’s new Baltimore franchise, hired Maxie Baughan as linebacker coach and Alvin Reynolds as defensive back coach. . . . Don Shula, who resigned as coach of the Miami Dolphins in January, quit as co-chairman of the league’s rule-making competition committee. . . . Former Los Angeles Ram defensive tackle Merlin Olsen has been named the 1996 recipient of the Ernie Davis Award from the Leukemia Society of America.
The San Francisco 49ers, seeking to clear additional room under the salary cap, delayed formalizing their six-year, $16.4-million offer sheet to running back Rodney Hampton, who could be retained by the New York Giants if they match the 49ers’ bid. . . . Irv Cross, a former NFL defensive back and CBS sportscaster, was named athletic director at Idaho State.
Winter Sports
U.S. skier Picabo Street, 24, clinched her second consecutive World Cup downhill title by finishing second behind Warwara Zelenskaja of Russia in a downhill race at Narvik, Norway.
Zelenskaja, 23, gained the first World Cup victory by a Russian woman when she overcame a mistake in the second run to win the sprint.
Last month, Street became the first American to clinch the speed event at the World Championships, when she won in Sierra Nevada, Spain.
Japan’s Manabu Horii, after finishing a disappointing second in his specialty, 500 meters, returned to set a world record of 1 minute 11.67 seconds in 1,000-meter speedskating in World Cup competition at Calgary.
Canadian Marc Gagnon broke his world record in the 1,500 meters at the World Short Track Speedskating Championships at The Hague, Netherlands, winning the event in 2:18.16. South Korean Chun Lee-Kyung retained her women’s 1,500 title in 2:35.50.
World Cup skiing events were delayed by heavy snowfall for the second consecutive day at Hakuba, Japan, site of the men’s Alpine events of the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics.
Tennis
Qualifier Chris Woodruff continued the best run of his professional career, upsetting fourth-seeded Marcelo Rios of Chile to reach the semifinals of the U.S. Indoor Tennis Championships at Philadelphia. Woodruff, the world’s 112th-ranked player, rallied to beat Rios, 1-6, 6-4, 6-1.
Woodruff will play seventh-seeded Todd Woodbridge, a 6-4, 6-3 winner over unseeded Tomas Carbonell, in one semifinal; second-seeded Jim Courier meets sixth-seeded Mark Woodforde in the other.
Courier reached the semifinals for the second time in three years with a 6-2, 6-4 victory over eighth-seeded Byron Black of Zimbabwe. Woodforde edged fellow Australian Jason Stoltenberg, 7-6 (7-5), 5-7, 6-2.
Defending champion Yevgeny Kafelnikov beat unseeded Czech Daniel Vacek, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, to move into the semifinals of the Italian Indoors tournament at Milan. The third-seeded Russian takes on eighth-seeded Marc Rosset. The other quarterfinal winners were fourth-seeded Goran Ivanisevic and French veteran Guy Forget.
Boxing
Bronco McKart of Monroe, Mich., defeated Santos Cardona of San Juan, Puerto Rico, in a ninth-round technical knockout to win the vacant WBO super-welterweight title. McKart is 28-1 with 20 knockouts.
In a cruiserweight bout on the card at Cabazon, Calif., former middleweight and super-middleweight champion James Toney used his left hook and combinations to earn a 10-round unanimous decision over Richard Mason.
Jurisprudence
A San Bernardino Superior Court jury deadlocked in the attempted double-murder retrial of former Cal State Northridge football player Jonathan Beauregard. After four days of deliberating, the jury voted, 11-1, in favor of acquittal. In Beauregard’s first trial last October, another jury also deadlocked, voting 9-3 in favor of conviction.
Miscellany
Gwen Torrence regained the American indoor record in the women’s 200-meter dash, coming in at 22.70 seconds during a trial heat at the USA Mobil Championships at Atlanta’s Georgia Dome. The time broke the record of 22.73 set by Carlette Guidry-White at last year’s championships.
The attorney for swimmer Jessica Foschi asked a sports arbitration panel in Garden City, N.Y., to clear the record of the Olympic hopeful. Attorney Mark Levinstein said the 15-year-old Long Island freestyle swimmer, who tested positive for steroids last August, should have a two-year probation against her removed because she did not knowingly ingest the muscle-enhancing drug.
Terry Labonte won the pole for Sunday’s $1.2-million Pontiac Excitement 400 at Richmond, Va. Labonte turned a lap of 123.728 mph on the three-quarter-mile oval of Richmond International Raceway.
The NCAA has sent Texas Tech a letter of preliminary inquiry on possible men’s basketball and football violations dating to 1991.
The United States was the only country to formally bid to stage the 1999 Women’s World Championship soccer tournament after Australia and Chile dropped out. The U.S. team won the event in China in 1991 and was third in Sweden last year. FIFA is likely to grant the bid on May 31.
A dozen Division I rugby teams will compete in May in Santa Barbara in the first tournament to crown a world champion of club rugby.