Tackle Boselli Is Expected to Retire

Five-time Pro Bowl offensive tackle and former USC All-American Tony Boselli is expected to retire this week because of injuries, a source within the NFL told Associated Press on Wednesday.

A former Jacksonville Jaguar and the first player the Houston Texans selected in the 2002 expansion draft, Boselli, 31, sat out nearly all of the last two years because of three operations on his left shoulder.

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Safety Terrence Kiel, the San Diego Chargers’ second-round draft pick who was shot during an attempted carjacking July 4 in Houston, had surgery to remove a bullet from his abdomen and fragments from his left knee. He is expected to sit out at least the first two exhibition games.

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The NFL said that Bayer Pharmaceuticals Corp. and GlaxoSmithKline, which expect their experimental impotence drug Levitra to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration this year, will become league sponsors.

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College Sports

Rick Neuheisel’s final appeal hearing to keep his job as football coach at Washington is expected to be scheduled next week, said Norm Arkans, a special assistant to the school’s president.

Neuheisel was fired June 26 by Athletic Director Barbara Hedges for taking part in neighborhood gambling pools on two NCAA basketball tournaments, in violation of NCAA rules.

The Big West Conference is changing its men’s and women’s basketball postseason tournament format starting in March.

The first round will feature teams seeded Nos. 5 to 8, with the winners advancing to play teams seeded Nos. 3 and 4 in the second round. The second-round winners will play in the semifinals against the two top-seeded teams.

Postage stamps to be released in August will honor Walter Camp, Ernie Nevers, Red Grange and Bronko Nagurski.

They are members of the College Football Hall of Fame. Nevers, Grange and Nagurski are also members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

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Tennis

Top-seeded Carlos Moya lost to Tomas Behrend, 7-6 (5), 7-6 (2), and fourth-seeded Sebastien Grosjean lost to Filippo Volandri, 6-2, 6-1, in the second round of the Mercedes Cup at Stuttgart, Germany.

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Pro Basketball

Deanna Nolan’s 15-foot shot as time expired gave Detroit a 70-68 victory over Indiana in a WNBA game before 7,232 at Indianapolis.... Katie Smith scored 27 points to lead Minnesota past San Antonio, 85-78, before 11,192 at Minneapolis.... Ratings for Saturday’s WNBA All-Star game were up substantially from last year, with the game drawing 1.1% of the 106.7 million U.S. households with televisions, according to Nielsen Media Research Inc.

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Miscellany

Anheuser-Busch is investing about $80 million in a deal that runs through 2008 to sponsor the Williams-BMW Formula One cars driven by Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya.

Haas CNC Racing replaced rookie Jack Sprague with John Andretti, who was fired last month by Petty Enterprises.

Andretti will drive the car for at least the next two Winston Cup races.

More than 473,000 of the 3 million tickets available to the public for the 2004 Athens Olympics were purchased during the first month of sales.