Linebacker Dies After Workout at Florida State

Florida State sophomore Devaughn Darling, set to begin spring practice next week as a starter at outside linebacker, collapsed and died Monday after an early morning workout on campus in Tallahassee, Fla. He was 18.

Darling, from Houston, was stricken shortly after 7 a.m. He had just finished intensive agility and conditioning drills with teammates, one of them his twin brother Devard, at the football complex.

The cause of death was not immediately determined. An autopsy will be done today.

Devard Darling, Coach Bobby Bowden and other players and coaches were at the hospital when the player was pronounced dead by an emergency room physician.

“Obviously it’s a very emotional time for everyone associated with our program,” Athletic Director David Hart said. “We’re all in a state of shock.”

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Texas defensive end Cole Pittman was found dead at the scene of a one-car accident.

State troopers discovered Pittman’s pickup truck on the side of U.S. 79 near Easterly, Texas, about 100 miles northeast of Austin.

Pittman, a sophomore who had played in 23 games in his two seasons at Texas, was returning to school from his family’s home in Shreveport, La.

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California completed an academic fraud investigation, concluding that two football players were given credit for work they had not done.

The school told the Pacific 10 Conference the players should not have been allowed to play during the 1999 season because they had enrolled retroactively in a class in which they did no work.

The university recommended to the conference that as punishment it lose four football scholarships for the next two years and face a two-year probation.

School spokesman Matthew Lyon would not identify the two players or professor involved.

The San Francisco Chronicle said those involved were wide receivers Michael Ainsworth and Ronnie Davenport, and Chicano Studies professor Alex Saragoza.

Pro Football

Ray Lewis was sued for $10 million in a wrongful death case stemming from a slaying outside an Atlanta nightclub 13 months ago.

Lewis, the Super Bowl MVP for the Baltimore Ravens, was charged with murder in the deaths of Richard Lollar and Jacinth Baker after a street fight that erupted after a post-Super Bowl party. However, the charge was dropped during a four-week trial last spring and Lewis pleaded guilty to misdemeanor obstruction of justice.

Track and Field

Maurice Greene, the Olympic 100-meter gold medalist and world-record holder, will make his 2001 debut in the USA Indoor Track & Field Championships this weekend in Atlanta.

The eight Germans who ran in the same race with former Olympic champion Dieter Baumann last weekend have been suspended by track and field’s governing body.

Baumann obtained a court order to compete at the German indoor championships in Dortmund despite a two-year international ban for drug use.

The German track and field federation promised to fight the ban and protested the decision by the IAAF.

Miscellany

Second-seeded Magnus Norman of Sweden was a 6-4, 6-4 winner over Jeff Tarango, and third-seeded Yevgeny Kafelnikov of Russia defeated Slava Dosedel of the Czech Republic, 7-6 (3), 6-2, in the first round of the Dubai Open tennis tournament in the United Arab Emirates.

Johnny Weir, a 16-year-old from Newark, Del., upset the defending silver medalist, winning in a qualifying group in the World Junior Figure Skating Championships at Sofia, Bulgaria.

Weir completed two triple axels and eight triple jumps, beating Vincent Restencourt of France, who has been second the last two years. Weir also highlighted his routine with two triple-triple combinations.

Another American, Evan Lysacek, was third.

All German wrestlers have been suspended internationally because Olympic champion Alexander Leipold competed despite a ban for drug use, the German Wrestling Union was notified by letter from the international body.

Leipold was stripped of his Olympic gold medal after testing positive for nandrolone, a banned anabolic steroid. He was suspended for two years.