Sports in Brief: Barkley pays $400,000 casino debt
Former NBA star Charles Barkley has retired his debt to a Las Vegas Strip casino that sued him after he failed to pay $400,000 in gambling loans.
Former NBA star
Charles Barkley
has retired his debt to a Las Vegas Strip casino that sued him after he failed to pay $400,000 in gambling loans.
But a civil lawsuit remains open, and it's going to cost him $40,000 more to get out of the legal doghouse.
Barkley, a former 76er and now a basketball analyst for Turner Network Television, said in a statement released by TNT that he did not know about the district attorney's $40,000 processing fee, but intends to pay it.
"True to my word, I sent a $400,000 cashier's check overnight to Wynn Las Vegas, which they confirmed they received," Barkley said. "I was unaware of the additional 10 percent processing fee from the District Attorney's Office and will make restitution on that promptly."
"We've been paid in full," a spokeswoman for Wynn Las Vegas said. "The rest is the district attorney fee."
The 45-year-old Barkley said he would stop gambling, at least for a while.
"For right now, the next year or two, I'm not going to gamble," he said. "Just because I can afford to lose money doesn't mean I should do it."
Olympics
A group of women ski-jumpers is going to court to have its sport included in the 2010 Winter Olympics.
A statement of claim will be filed in British Columbia Supreme Court today against the Vancouver Olympic Games Organizing Committee,
Deedee Corradini
of the lobbying group Women's Ski Jumping USA told the Canadian Press.
Wheelchair athlete
Jeff Adams
plans to compete for a spot on the Canadian team at the Beijing Paralympics after being cleared of doping.
Four members of the Philadelphia Force were chosen for Team NPF, an all-star team that will face the U.S. Olympic softball team twice this summer as part of its Bound-4-Beijing Tour. They are outfielders
Sharonda McDonald
and
Kellie Wilkerson
, first baseman
Megan Gibson
, and pitcher
Katie Burkhart
.
Noteworthy
Landon Donovan
, 26, was among 22 players picked for the U.S. soccer team's exhibition game at England next week and could become the fourth-youngest player to make his 100th international appearance in men's soccer.
James Blake gave the United States a split of its two singles matches against Argentina in the World Team Cup in Duesseldorf, Germany, beating
Guillermo Canas
, 7-6 (4), 6-4.
Elsewhere:
The UCLA women's tennis team beat California, 4-0, for the NCAA championship, the 102d national title in the school's history. . . .
Lindsay Davenport
pulled out of the French Open, the only Grand Slam singles event that she hasn't won, citing personal reasons. . . .
Dave Paulsen
, who won a Division III national championship at Williams, was named the new men's basketball coach at Bucknell. . . .
The Soul signed defensive lineman
Mondre Dickerson
from the practice squad.
Lloyd Moore
, 95, a NASCAR winner in 1950 and the oldest former driver, died in his sleep Sunday in Frewsburg, N.Y., in the home where he was born in 1912, according to NASCAR's Web site. He drove from 1949 to 1955 in the Grand National Series. . . .
Humpy Wheeler
, the "P.T. Barnum" of NASCAR promotions, will retire and step down as president and general manager of Lowe's Motor Speedway in North Carolina after 33 years.