Woodson Joins Raiders

After 15 NFL seasons, 10 Pro Bowl selections and a Super Bowl victory, safety Rod Woodson doesn’t have many lifelong ambitions left. He did get one more Tuesday, joining the Oakland Raiders.

Woodson, 37, was released by the Baltimore Ravens in a cost-cutting move after recording 74 tackles and three of his 61 career interceptions--tops among active players and eighth in NFL history--in 2001.

“I’ve been a Raiders’ fan forever,” Woodson said. “If you could look at the walls of my old bedroom, I had [posters of] Kenny “The Snake” Stabler, [Lester] Hayes, [Jack] Tatum--I had it all. If it was the Raiders, it was mine.”

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Tom Coughlin signed a one-year contract extension that will keep him as Jacksonville’s coach through 2004.

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Joe Buck, Cris Collinsworth and Troy Aikman will replace Pat Summerall and John Madden as the No. 1 NFL announcing team at Fox, which plans to make an announcement Thursday, a source said.

Summerall resigned after the Super Bowl and Madden later left to work on ABC’s “Monday Night Football” with Al Michaels.

Jurisprudence

Colorado football players Marques Harris, Corey Alexander, Ron Monteihl II and Joseph Allen Mackey Jr., all 20, surrendered to police at Boulder, Colo., to face arrest warrants on felony charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor for allegedly providing drugs and alcohol to high school players visiting the school.

The incident took place at an off-campus party Dec. 7 in which a woman alleged she was gang raped. Boulder County District Attorney Mary Keenan said last week she wouldn’t pursue rape charges because of problems with acquaintance-rape cases.

Georgia basketball players Steve Thomas and Tony Cole, and football player Brandon Williams pleaded not guilty to charges of aggravated assault with intent to rape a female student Jan. 14 in a campus dormitory. Thomas also was charged with rape, and Williams faces additional charges of rape and aggravated sexual battery.

Auto Racing

NASCAR officials handed out fines to eight crew chiefs for rules violations the last two weekends at Talladega Superspeedway and California Speedway.

The biggest of the fines was $1,500 to Steve Lane, crew chief of Kyle Petty’s Dodge. Lane was fined $1,000 for having a rear spoiler not conforming to NASCAR rules and $500 for an illegal fuel cell container at Talladega.

Indy Racing League driver Jaques Lazier was released from Methodist Hospital at Indianapolis, six days after surgery to repair a broken back suffered in a two-car accident during the Firestone Indy 225 at Nazareth, Pa., April 21.

Miscellany

Ryan Smyth and Jamie Wright each scored, and Canada beat the United States, 2-1, in the World Hockey Championships at Karlstad, Sweden.

Top-seeded Gustavo Kuerten, playing his first tennis singles match since hip surgery two months ago, defeated Nikolay Davydenko, 6-2, 6-3, in the first round of Spain’s Mallorca Open.

The Sparks suspended reserve center Rhonda Mapp after she failed to agree with league officials on terms of a contract. Under WNBA rules, players sign with the league and must be under contract before they can practice. The Sparks opened practice Tuesday.

Ryan Sims, a 6-foot-9 junior forward at Cal State Northridge, will not return to the team. Sims had been suspended by Coach Bobby Braswell on Feb. 20 for conduct detrimental to the team.

Passings

Services will be held today at 1 at Spangler’s Mortuary in Los Altos for Bob Dorricott, who founded Dorricott Racing and became a dominant player in North American formula-style open-wheel racing. Dorricott died Friday of cancer. He was 65.