NFL, Giant Executive Young Dies

George Young, who turned the floundering New York Giants into a two-time Super Bowl winner and was one of the NFL’s top executives for more than two decades, died Saturday night after a short illness. He was 71.

Young left the Giants after 19 years following the 1997 season and became the NFL’s executive vice-president for football operations.

He died in Baltimore, where he was born and where he began his NFL career in 1969 with the then-Baltimore Colts after teaching history and coaching high school football.

“He was in essence a teacher, both in the history class and in football who helped people at all levels,” said Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, who spent Thursday and Friday with Young in Baltimore.

“No one cared more about the game of football than George Young. He loved it and lived it for his entire life. His contributions place him in the rare company with the legends of the game.”

Young won five executive of the year awards during his 19 years with the Giants, beginning in 1979, when he was recommended by then commissioner Pete Rozelle to squabbling team owners Wellington and Tim Mara, who couldn’t agree on a new general manager.

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The Jacksonville Jaguars suspended receiver R. Jay Soward for one game for violating unspecified team rules.

Soward, who played at USC, returned to Jacksonville’s active roster two weeks ago after serving a 10-game suspension for violating the NFL’s substance-abuse policy. He did not play last week against Green Bay.

A warrant was issued in Pittsburgh for the arrest of Cleveland Brown tight end O.J. Santiago for marijuana possession, The Plain Dealer reported.

According to a Cleveland newspaper, the warrant for Santiago is connected to the Nov. 20 arrest of Brown defensive tackle Gerard Warren, who faces a charge of carrying an unlicensed firearm in his car.

During a search, police found marijuana, which they believe belonged to Santiago, although he wasn’t with Warren at the time of the arrest, the newspaper reported.

Swimming

Geoff Huegill of Australia set a men’s 50-meter butterfly short-course world record in a World Cup meet at Melbourne, Australia.

Huegill clocked 22.84 seconds, knocking three-hundredths of a second off the record established by Britain’s Mark Foster in January at Sheffield, England.

Four Americans won their events: Ed Moses (100-meter breaststroke), Rachel Komisarz (100 butterfly), Amanda Beard (200 breaststroke) and Lindsay Benko (400 freestyle).

Boxing

Ukraine’s 6-foot-8 Witali Klitschko scored an 11th-round technical knockout of Ross Puritty of the United States at Oberhausen, Germany, to defend his World Boxing Council intercontinental heavyweight title.

Klitschko (30-1, 29 KOs) is ranked No. 2 by the WBC, which selected him as the mandatory challenger to the winner of a proposed Lennox Lewis-Mike Tyson bout in April.

Puritty (28-15-3, 24 KOs was bleeding heavily from above the left eye when the referee ended it.

The Clark County district attorney’s office, which is trying to decide whether criminal charges are warranted, requested that Las Vegas police finish their investigation into a woman’s claim three months ago that Tyson raped her.

Miscellany

U.S. Open golf champion Retief Goosen shot a five-under-par 67 to share a two-stroke lead after three rounds of the $175,000 Vodacom Players Championship at Cape Town, South Africa. The South African was at 14-under 202 along with second-round leader Alan McLean of Scotland, who shot 70.

Olympic champion Rulon Gardner advanced to the quarterfinals of the Greco-Roman Wrestling World Championships, defeating Ukraine’s Georgiy Saldadse, 3-0, in the 286-pound category at Patras, Greece.

Virginia Military Institute’s Board of Visitors voted, 11-5, to move VMI from the Southern Conference to the Big South.

The Long Beach Ice Dogs had four players score in a 4-1 victory over the Anchorage Aces at the Long Beach Arena.