Miami Says Yes to ACC Invitation

Loyalty and money weren’t enough to keep Miami from bolting the Big East Conference. The Hurricanes believe their future is more secure in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Ending a seven-week courtship, Miami accepted Monday the ACC’s invitation, rejecting a better financial offer from the Big East to stay put.

“Ready or not, here we come,” Miami President Donna Shalala told Clemson President James Barker.

Miami’s decision to join Virginia Tech in defecting from the Big East dramatically alters the balance of power in the conferences. The ACC adds two of the nation’s strongest football programs; the Big East is left with a big void.

“It has been a bizarre, strange, and goofy process,” Shalala said. “But it has allowed us the opportunity to give ourselves some distance, so that we got a view of who we are, where we are and where we want to be.”

The presidents and chancellors of the six remaining Big East football schools -- Boston College, Syracuse, Connecticut, Rutgers, Pittsburgh and West Virginia -- vowed their conference would become “even stronger.”

“Although we are certainly disappointed with the actions taken this week by the ACC, we as a conference will now turn our attention to the future and the challenges that lie ahead,” Commissioner Mike Tranghese said in a statement.

Nonetheless, a lawyer for four of the Big East schools that sued to block the ACC’s expansion said they would continue their court battle.

Miami and Virginia Tech will begin playing in the ACC in 2004-05. Both remain Big East members for 2003-04, since schedules already have been made.

Each school will pay the Big East a $1-million exit fee and the ACC a $2-million entrance fee. If Miami had made its intentions known after Monday, its exit fee could have doubled.

Virginia Tech President Charles Steger said last week his school was joining the ACC and formally accepted the offer Monday.

Less than an hour after Miami accepted, Connecticut Atty. Gen. Richard Blumenthal said Big East schools would seek to recover not only losses in ticket sales and broadcasting fees, but also the cash value of diminished recruiting power and scarred relationships with donors.

Four Big East football schools -- Connecticut, Rutgers, West Virginia and Pittsburgh -- are seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in damages in a lawsuit against the ACC and Miami, Blumenthal said.

“Certainly for the Big East as a whole, the damages could well be in the hundreds of millions of dollars,” Blumenthal said.

The lawsuit, filed in Vernon (Conn.) Superior Court, contends that Miami and the ACC participated in a conspiracy to weaken the Big East.

Blumenthal and the other parties in the lawsuit got word Monday that a motion to speed up the case had been rejected. Blumenthal had asked the judge to order several key participants, including Shalala, to give depositions or sworn testimony as early as today. Instead, the judge began a two-week vacation.

NCAA President Myles Brand said he was “disappointed the issue has been as disagreeable as it has been.”

Basketball

Mike Johnson, 34, a former men’s assistant at UC Irvine and Cal State Northridge, has been hired to replace departed assistant Damon Archibald on Coach Henry Bibby’s staff at USC.

Georgia Tech men’s Coach Paul Hewitt has signed a contract with a $225,000-a-year salary that will keep him with the Yellow Jackets through the 2007-08 season.

Lauren Jackson scored 22 points in front of 5,003 at Charlotte, N.C., to lead the Seattle Storm to an 83-71 WNBA victory over the Charlotte Sting.

Jurisprudence

A Broward County circuit judge has re-sentenced former Miami Dolphin running back Cecil Collins to 15 years in prison, two months after a state appeals court had thrown out a similar sentence at Miami.

Broward Circuit Judge Dorian Damoorgian gave Collins the maximum sentence Friday.

Collins was convicted of burglary for sneaking into his neighbors’ apartment in an early-morning break-in in December 1999. He was on probation for burglary when the crime was committed.

In March, a state appeals court threw out the 15-year sentence Collins was given by Broward County Judge Joyce Julian in his burglary trial. The appeals court argued that Julian didn’t give Collins’ relatives a chance to testify on his behalf.

But testimony of two former coaches and Collins’ parents did not change the original sentence. Collins has served 3 1/2 years of his sentence.

Miscellany

Dallas Cowboy defensive back Keith Davis and another man suffered gunshot wounds at a Dallas topless club, authorities said. Davis, 24, was shot early Sunday in the right hip and left hand outside the Dallas Gentlemen’s Club. Davis was treated at a hospital and said he expected to be ready for training camp later this month.

Laila Ali (14-0, 12 knockouts) will defend her International Boxing Assn. women’s super-middleweight championship against Christy Martin (45-2-2, 30 KOs) in a scheduled 10-round bout Aug. 23 at Biloxi, Miss.

The Tennis Channel becomes available in 125,000 Time Warner cable television households in Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley today. The channel will be free to subscribers until July 15, then put on a $2 tier with several other channels.

The 42nd Transpacific Yacht Race to Hawaii starts today at Long Beach. The first 25 boats will leave the starting line near Point Fermin on the Palos Verdes Peninsula at 1 p.m.

Lee Trevino and Fuzzy Zoeller each won $90,000 in the opening nine holes of the Par-3 Shootout skins event at Gaylord, Mich. Defending champion Fred Couples won $60,000 and Phil Mickelson won $10,000.

Gary Lane, a quarterback at Missouri in the 1960s and an NFL referee for 18 years, died in St. Louis on Friday. He was 60.