Boxer Died of Head Injuries

An autopsy Monday in Atlantic City, N.J., showed that boxer Stephan Johnson died Sunday of head injuries he had suffered Nov. 20 in a junior-middleweight bout there against Paul Vaden.

The 31-year-old New York fighter, who had suffered previous head injuries, was knocked out by Vaden and never regained consciousness.

Johnson continued to box, even after his manager and mother had urged him to quit after a knockout in a fight in Toronto sent him to the hospital last April.

Put on medical suspension, he failed to take two of the three neurological examinations needed to be removed from the suspension list by the Assn. of Boxing Commissions, according to Ken Hayashi, commissioner of Ontario Athletics.

Still, Johnson managed to get fights in Georgia and South Carolina before his bout with Vaden.

“If he’d had those tests, it might’ve made a big difference,” Hayashi said. “Fighters think the commissions are out to bear down on them. But it’s for their own health and safety.”

College Football

Peter Warrick of Florida State won’t win the Heisman Trophy. In fact, he wasn’t even invited to Saturday night’s presentation in New York.

Warrick, the onetime Heisman favorite who sat out two games because of his involvement in a shopping-mall clothing scam, did not make the list of five finalists announced by the Downtown Athletic Club, which presents the award.

The five finalists are Wisconsin running back Ron Dayne, Georgia Tech quarterback Joe Hamilton, Purdue quarterback Drew Brees, Marshall quarterback Chad Pennington and Virginia Tech quarterback Michael Vick.

Army coach Bob Sutton was fired, two days after a 19-9 loss to Navy. The loss was only Sutton’s third in nine years to the Midshipmen, but it left the Cadets at 3-8.

Kansas State is trying to do something about a weak nonconference schedule, which many people believe is hurting the Wildcats in the bowl championship series standings.

Although they have lost only one regular-season game the last two years, the Wildcats have been shut out of the BCS bowls. This year, after going 10-1, they’re headed for the Holiday Bowl to play Washington, amid the perception that their record is deceiving because of their schedule.

Sources said Kansas State has contacted schools in the Big Ten and Pacific 10 conferences. This year, the Wildcats filled their nonconference schedule with Utah State, Temple and Texas El Paso.

Steve Morton, USC’s tight ends coach last season, will replace the ousted Steve Greatwood as the Trojan offensive line coach. . . . Steve Smith of Utah, who ranked fifth in the nation this season with an average of 17.1 yards a punt return, will sit out the Dec. 18 Las Vegas Bowl between the Utes and Fresno State because of a small crack in a neck vertebra. . . . Fullback Adrian Peterson of Georgia Southern won the Walter Payton Award as Division I-AA’s outstanding player.

Miscellany

A funeral mass for Lawrence Jenkins, a Ribet Academy High basketball player who died Nov. 29, will be said today at 10 a.m. at Holy Trinity Church in Glendale. Jenkins, 17, collapsed during practice after running wind sprints. He was taken to Glendale Memorial Hospital and Health Center by paramedics and was pronounced dead a few hours later. An autopsy was performed last Friday, but no cause of death has been determined and that it will probably be six to eight weeks before test results are complete.

Soccer’s international governing body has not ruled out allowing North Korea to host matches for the 2002 World Cup, FIFA President Sepp Blatter said.

Also, FIFA moved up the next Women’s World Cup to 2002. The next women’s tournament had been scheduled for 2003. The new schedule will allow women to have a qualifying tournament for the 2004 Olympics in Athens.

Italy’s Prada was knocked out of first place in the America’s Cup challenger series after losing to Japan’s Nippon at Auckland, New Zealand.

Prada, dominant throughout the four-month regatta to decide who will take on defender New Zealand, now trails AmericaOne and Nippon.

Outfielder Jay Buhner signed a one-year contract to remain with the Seattle Mariners. The Mariners also exercised the 2002 option on left-hander Jamie Moyer.

The U.S. Supreme Court let stand a ruling that said Indiana’s eligibility rules for high school athletes ran afoul of a federal law banning discrimination against the disabled.