Former Coach Osborne Running for Congress

Tom Osborne, former Nebraska football coach who won three national championships before retiring in 1997, said Thursday that he will run for Congress in this football-crazy state.

“I don’t think this is an ego trip,” Osborne said. “It would be a lot easier to go fishing.”

Osborne, a Republican, ended weeks of speculation with his announcement at Hastings College, where he excelled as a three-sport star.

Osborne, 62, is widely revered in the state, where there are no other major college football programs or professional sports franchises.

Osborne’s career was not without controversy, however. His decision to allow Lawrence Phillips to return to the team during the Cornhuskers’ 1995 national title season after the troubled running back had assaulted his girlfriend was widely questioned.

But political experts don’t expect Phillips to be a detriment, mainly because of Osborne’s reputation as a straight-shooting, soft-spoken Christian.

Miscellany

Joan Benoit Samuelson, 42, winner of the first Olympic women’s marathon in 1984, will try to make the U.S. team again this year. Her announcement ended speculation about whether she would compete in the U.S. marathon trials Feb. 26 at Columbia, S.C.

Warren Richards, a former Australian Olympian in judo, was dropped from the Olympic torch run after organizers learned he is serving a 12-year jail sentence for drug trafficking.

Organizers of a track meet in Karslruhe, Germany, will allow two-time 200-meter world champion Merlene Ottey of Jamaica to compete in a meet Saturday, despite pressure from the IAAF.

Ottey tested positive for the banned substance Nandrolene at a July meet in Lucerne, Switzerland, but later was cleared by Jamaican authorities. The 39-year-old Ottey, the 1993 and ’95 world champion, still faces possible suspension from the IAAF, track’s international governing body.

Cancellation of women’s World Cup ski races that were to serve as test events for the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics has left local organizers explaining that unusually high temperatures made it impossible to use recently installed snow-making equipment.

USC receiver Kareem Kelly, the Pacific 10 Conference freshman football player of the year last season, will run in the 50-meter dash in the L.A. Invitational indoor track meet Feb. 19 at the Sports Arena.

Roberto Baggio scored one minute after AC Milan had taken the lead, giving Inter Milan a 1-1 tie against its cross-town soccer rival and a spot in the Italian Cup semifinals at Milan. . . . South Africa became the first nation to advance to the quarterfinals of the African Cup, beating Congo, 1-0, at Kumasi, Ghana.

A federal appeals court ruled in New Orleans that Louisiana State’s athletic department intentionally violated a federal law requiring equal opportunities for male and female college athletes. The decision means five women who filed a discrimination lawsuit can now seek unlimited monetary damages from the university.

A memorial service for John Brooker, a boys’ basketball coach at Los Angeles High from 1994-1999, will be held Saturday at 10 a.m. at Spalding Mortuary in Los Angeles. Brooker died Sunday of heart failure. He was 48.

Baseball

Workers at Miller Park in Milwaukee stopped lifting a 125-ton piece of the stadium’s roof after a warning signaled that a hydraulic hose in the crane had worn out. In July, a different crane collapsed while lifting a 400-ton load, killing three ironworkers and causing $100 million in damage. . . . The San Diego Padres have agreed to spend up to $47.8 million more on their downtown ballpark, with the money to cover increased construction costs and the rising costs of acquiring land. . . . New York Yankee infield prospect D’Angelo Jimenez, 22, probably will sit out the season after suffering a broken bone in his neck in a car accident in the Dominican Republic. . . . Relief pitcher Rick White signed a one-year, $610,000 contract, avoiding arbitration with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. . . . The Cleveland Indians agreed to a one-year contract with right-hander Scott Sanders. . . . The Montreal Expos agreed to a minor league contract with second baseman Mickey Morandani.