Justice Department will meet with BCS

The Justice Department's antitrust division will meet with the BCS this summer, following up on concerns the department raised with the NCAA about college football's postseason format.

Bowl Championship Series executive director Bill Hancock told the Associated Press yesterday that a Justice Department attorney last week asked for a voluntary background briefing on how the BCS operates. Hancock said he agreed to provide one, but that no date has been set yet.

"We view it as an opportunity to make it clear that the BCS was crafted very carefully with antitrust laws in mind," Hancock said.

The Justice Department initially raised its concerns with the NCAA, asking why there wasn't a playoff for college football's highest level and said there were "serious questions" about whether the current format to determine a national champion complies with antitrust laws. But NCAA president Mark Emmert responded in a letter last month that the department's questions were best directed to the BCS.

Critics who have urged the department to investigate the BCS contend it unfairly gives some schools preferential access to the title game and lucrative, top-tier bowls at the end of the season.

In other college news:

* The lawyer for Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Pryor has questioned the facts in a Sports Illustrated special report on the Buckeyes' NCAA problems, saying the story is "90-percent wrong." Attorney Larry James also said there is nothing out of the ordinary about the cars Pryor has driven or purchased. In a lengthy cover story in this week's SI, released just hours after coach Jim Tressel's forced resignation Monday, investigative reporter George Dohrmann writes that there was a country-club atmosphere at a local tattoo shop for Buckeyes players and that at least 28 of them are either known or alleged to have traded or sold memorabilia in violation of NCAA rules. Scott Novak, a spokesman for the magazine, said, "We stand by our reporting." Meanwhile, ESPN reported that Pryor and his mother, Thomasina, were interviewed by an NCAA investigator about Pryor's use of loaner cars.

* Duquesne basketball coach Ron Everhart withdrew his name from consideration for the same job at Penn State.

* Nebraska hired former major league All-Star outfielder/first baseman Darin Erstad to lead his alma mater's baseball program into the Big Ten.

* Chris Evert will serve as a television analyst for ESPN at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open.

* Hall of Famer Pauline Betz Addie, the top women's player in the United States in the 1940s, died Tuesday in Potomac, Md. She was 91.

* Lionel Messi was not hurt after a teenager threw a punch at the Barcelona star as he was leaving a restaurant in Buenos Aires, Argentina. A witness told Argentine television that the teenager was part of a throng seeking Messi's autograph.