Bloom Drops Endorsements, Will Play Football

Olympic skier Jeremy Bloom decided Monday to give up his endorsement deals and play football for Colorado.

Bloom, ninth in freestyle moguls at the Salt Lake City Games, had hoped to keep his skiing sponsorship deals while playing for Colorado, but NCAA rules prohibit endorsements by college athletes.

On Thursday, a judge denied Bloom’s request to bar the NCAA from enforcing those rules.

Bloom, who will be a freshman receiver, still hopes to ski in the 2006 Olympics. If he can find a way to finance skiing, the 5-foot-9, 165-pounder said he would like to start training after the regular season, play in a bowl game, and then concentrate on skiing in the spring.

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Basketball

Shawn Kemp, the former NBA All-Star forward whose career has crumbled because of weight and drug problems, is expected to be waived today by the Portland Trail Blazers, according to a published report.

Kemp, 33, has reportedly agreed to forfeit more than $25 million of the $46.5 million left on his contract, the Oregonian said in today’s editions.

In the agreement, the Trail Blazers will pay Kemp about $20 million over more than 10 years.

Kemp’s agent could not be reached for comment. The Trail Blazers also could not be reached.

Kemp, who averaged 6.3 points in Portland, signed a seven-year, $107-million contract in 1997 before he was traded from the Seattle SuperSonics to the Cleveland Cavaliers, then traded to the Trail Blazers before the 2000-01 season.

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A hip injury forced Jay Williams to sit out practice for a second consecutive day at San Francisco, leaving him contemplating whether to withdraw from the U.S. national team.

Williams sprained his left hip Saturday in a collision with teammate Andre Miller during the team’s first hard practice.

Williams, originally selected to Team USA as an alternate, was added to the main roster last week after Ray Allen pulled out because of a knee injury.

The World Championships are Aug. 29-Sept. 8 at Indianapolis. The U.S. plays an exhibition game against China on Thursday

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Laker center Shaquille O’Neal was recovering Monday from a flu-like virus that gave him a 103-degree fever and forced him to miss an appearance at a youth basketball camp in Florida.

O’Neal spent Thursday night in an Orlando hospital and was released Friday. O’Neal was resting at home in Florida and was expected to be in Los Angeles later this week. Doctors don’t expect anymore complications and are allowing the virus to run its course.

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The Seattle SuperSonics exercised their contract option on swingman Desmond Mason.... The NBA has reached an agreement with the Spanish-language network Telemundo to televise NBA and WNBA games in the U.S. for the next three seasons.

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Tennis

Martina Hingis’ second tournament since returning from ankle surgery started out positively, but with a struggle.

The fifth-seeded Hingis beat Anna Smashnova, 6-4, 6-4, in the first round of the Pilot Pen at New Haven, Conn.

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Qualifier Angelika Roesch survived some long rallies and beat eighth-seeded Elena Dementieva, 6-3, 1-6, 6-3, and wild-card entry Alexandra Stevenson defeated qualifier Jelena Kostanic, 6-3, 7-5.

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In the first round of the TD Waterhouse Cup at Commack, N.Y., Richard Krajicek, the 1996 Wimbledon champion who sat out last year because of surgery on his right elbow, routed Dominik Hrbaty, 6-1, 6-2. The tournament was known as the Hamlet Cup until this year.

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Golf

The PGA Championship’s final round drew TV ratings 25% higher than in 2001. CBS Sports’ coverage Sunday, when Rich Beem beat Tiger Woods by one stroke, had an 8.0 overnight rating. Only the fourth round in 2000, when Woods went on to win, drew a higher number (10.0) for the PGA Championship.

The final-round overnight rating was 6.4 last year, when Woods wound up tied for 29th, 14 strokes behind winner David Toms.

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Conner Robbins of Bremerton, Wash., Zach Atkinson of Coppell, Texas, and Alan Weant of Germantown, Tenn., each shot a five-under-par 65 in the first round of stroke play at the 102nd U.S. Amateur at Bloomfield Hills, Mich. Henry Liaw of Rowland Heights shot a 68.

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Miscellany

Heavyweight champion John Ruiz sued Don King, saying the promoter was blocking a bout with former champion Mike Tyson that would be the most lucrative fight of Ruiz’s career.

The lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan alleged that King had refused to let Ruiz fight Tyson until Tyson dropped a $100-million lawsuit he had filed against King in the same court. King filed a countersuit against Tyson.

NASCAR released its 2003 schedules for the Winston Cup Series and Busch Series with few changes. The Winston Cup season again will have 36 championship events, beginning with the Daytona 500 on Feb. 16.

The Winston Cup and Busch series races at California Speedway in Fontana are April 26-27.

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Torben Grael and Marcelo Ferreira posted an 11-second victory over Bermuda’s Peter Bromby and Martin Siese on Day 2 of the Nautica 2002 Star Class World Championship at Santa Monica Bay. They are 10 points in front of France’s Xavier Rohart and Yannick Adde.

El Segundo won its third consecutive game in the Babe Ruth World Series (ages 13-15) with a 14-5 victory over Bryant, Ark., in pool play at Connersville, Ind.

Defending NCAA women’s volleyball champion Stanford will open the season No. 1 in the country, according to the USA Today/American Volleyball Coaches Assn. preseason poll. USC is third, Long Beach State is fifth, Pepperdine is eighth, UCLA is 11th and UC Santa Barbara is 20th.