Pac-10 to Play in New Zealand Bowl

Former NFL linebacker Riki Ellison left New Zealand to play American football. Now he’s bringing football back home.

The Haka Bowl will be played in Auckland on Dec. 27 and feature the third-place team from the Pacific 10 and an at-large team splitting a $6-million guarantee and playing at Eden Park, which seats 50,000.

ESPN will televise the game.

It will be the first major postseason football bowl game outside the United States since World War II, and it is named for Haka, an ancient Maori war party’s war dance performed in preparation for battle. It has been synonymous with New Zealand rugby for more than a century.

NCAA Infractions

The NCAA Committee on Infractions put the Florida State football program on one-year probation for rules violations involving the school’s failure to adequately monitor sports agents and their involvement with Seminole players between 1992 and ’94.

The investigation was prompted by the so-called “Foot Locker” incident in 1993, when several agents, led by Las Vegas-based Raul Bey, took Florida State players on a $6,000 shopping spree at a sporting goods store in Tallahassee.

Eleven members of the University of Southern Maine baseball team who bet on college sports were suspended by the NCAA for periods ranging from four games to the entire season.

Jurisprudence

Former heavyweight boxer Tommy Morrison pleaded no contest to two counts of misdemeanor assault and battery in Jay, Okla. He received six-month suspended jail sentences and $200 fines on each count, was ordered to pay $15 in restitution on one count and $89 restitution on the other as well as 30 hours of community service on each count.

Morrison’s boxing career ended abruptly in February when he was diagnosed with the HIV virus.

Former Miami Dolphin and Denver Bronco running back Sammie Smith, 29, pleaded guilty in Orlando, Fla., to two federal charges of possession and distribution of cocaine and faces a minimum sentence of 20 years in prison.

Nebraska receiver Riley Washington’s trial for attempted second-degree murder, set for April, was delayed. The case involves the Aug. 2, 1995, shooting of a Lincoln man.

A High Court in London declined to issue an injunction that would halt the International Tennis Federation’s investigation of Mats Wilander and Karel Novacek, players who allegedly tested positive for cocaine at last year’s French Open.

Auto Racing

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway has canceled a licensing agreement that allowed Championship Auto Racing Teams to use the name “IndyCar” for its race series.

Tennis

American Jeff Tarango upset eighth-seeded Carl Uwe-Steeb, 6-7 (9-7), 6-2, 6-1, in the second day of the St. Petersburg Open in Russia.

Pro Football

The Buffalo Bills have signed Chris Spielman to a four-year, $8-million contract. . . . Free-agent wide receiver Irving Fryar, who has made the Pro Bowl three times, agreed to a three-year contract with the Philadelphia Eagles.

Miscellany

Comcast Corp., a Philadelphia cable television operator, has agreed to buy the Flyers and 76ers as well as two sports arenas, the Spectrum and CoreCast Spectrum. The deal is expected to cost Comcast between $500 million and $600 million in stock.

Two steel girders being used in construction of the Olympic aquatic center in Atlanta fell shortly after being installed. No one was injured when the 176-foot, 10,000-pound girders fell.