Jordan Says He’s Finished as Pitchman

Michael Jordan is finished endorsing products.

One of the biggest names in advertising says he no longer wants to be a corporate pitchman and has told his sponsors to gradually adopt new campaigns.

“It’s a stage you get past,” the former Chicago Bull star told the Chicago Sun-Times. “Now I don’t want my name just used. Endorsements are good for a while--they give you a personality, a lot of credibility. And now I have that name. But I want to understand the business itself, see the value in something other than just endorsing.”

Jordan, a part owner of the Washington Wizards, has endorsed an array of products. In 1997, it was estimated he stood to earn $40 million a year in endorsements.

Pro Football

After the first season with replay since 1991, the NFL’s competition committee has voted, 6-1, to recommend use of instant replay in 2000. It will be voted on by all 31 teams at the league owners’ meetings next week in Palm Beach, Fla., with 24 votes needed for approval. . . . Linebacker Lee Woodall, one of 12 players released by the San Francisco 49ers last month as part of a $6-million cost-cutting move, agreed to a contract with the Carolina Panthers, who also re-signed unrestricted free-agent defensive tackle Tim Morabito. . . . The Washington Redskins and unrestricted free-agent running back Adrian Murrell agreed to terms on a two-year contract worth about $3 million, the Washington Post reported. . . . The Atlanta Falcons signed offensive lineman Anthony Redmon, an unrestricted free agent. . . . The injured right thumb that bothered Brett Favre all last season is still swollen, but the Green Bay Packer quarterback says he’s throwing the football more accurately and not experiencing as much pain.

Jurisprudence

The mother of Rae Carruth’s slain girlfriend insists she is entitled to the former NFL player’s home and three cars. Saundra Adams said the proceeds would be used to support Carruth’s baby, Chancellor. Adams’ daughter, Cherica, gave birth before dying of wounds from the Nov. 16 drive-by shooting. Carruth, a former Panther wide receiver, is charged with murder for plotting the shooting. Prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty against him and three co-defendants.

Linebacker Ray Lewis of the Baltimore Ravens, charged with murder in a brawl after the Super Bowl, will not have to face assault charges stemming from a bar fight in Baltimore last year. Prosecutors dropped the assault charges because of conflicting accounts by witnesses. Lewis did not appear in court. He was freed last month on $1-million bail from a jail in Atlanta. Lewis was charged in the stabbing deaths of two men after a Jan. 31 Super Bowl party in Atlanta.

Miscellany

Tiger Woods will face Sergio Garcia in a televised 18-hole match-play event Aug. 28 at the Bighorn Golf Club in Palm Desert. The winner of the “Battle at Bighorn” will receive $1.1 million, the runner-up $400,000.

Sen. John McCain introduced the Amateur Sports Integrity Act, which would make it unlawful to bet on Olympic, college and high school sports.

Half the 10,000 athletes at the Sydney Olympics are expected to be screened for drug use before the Games. The World Anti-Doping Agency will start out-of-competition testing in April, the group’s interim leader said in Lausanne, Switzerland.

The International Olympic Committee and FIFA, soccer’s world governing body, remained on a collision course over nandrolone. A recent FIFA study of 148 Swiss soccer players showed that when under stress illegal levels of the anabolic steroid could be produced naturally in the body. The study contradicted one carried out by the IOC at the 1998 Nagano Olympics which found only five of 621 athletes above the level, all women.

Carlo Parola, an Italian soccer star credited with inventing the bicycle kick, died in Turin, Italy, after a long illness. He was 79.