DURHAM -- Duke University says that Andrew Giuliani, the son of Rudy Giuliani, a former mayor of New York, was properly dismissed from the golf team and was never promised a spot on the team.
Andrew Giuliani sued Duke in July, saying that he was improperly cut from the team earlier this year and that the coach violated a contract he entered when he agreed to come to the university and pay $200,000 in tuition and fees.
But Duke said in a court filing yesterday that Giuliani, 22, was properly suspended after throwing an apple in the face of another player, breaking a golf club during a tournament, injuring a teammate and becoming verbally abusive with a coach.
Giuliani's lawsuit says those statements were fabricated as Coach O.D. Vincent III tried to shrink the size of the team.
More golf
■ South Korea's Se Ri Pak defended the LPGA Tour in the wake of its short-lived plan to suspend players who don't speak English well enough to satisfy sponsors, saying yesterday that learning the language can benefit rising international stars.
Others at the Bell Micro Classic in Mobile, Ala., the first LPGA tournament since the dispute surfaced, also supported the goal of improving international players' English skills. But they disliked the idea of suspending non-English speakers -- which was proposed and then quickly shelved after a blast of criticism.
The LPGA Tour membership includes 121 international players from 26 countries, including 45 from South Korea. Asians won three of the four majors this year.
Connie Wilson, an LPGA Tour spokeswoman, said yesterday the language policy is still being written with input from players.
Golfweek reported last month that Commissioner Carolyn Bivens of the LPGA Tour disclosed the tour's original plan in a meeting with South Korean players at the Safeway Classic in Portland, Ore. Critics quickly called it discriminatory, particularly against Asian players.
Track & field
■ Bill Cason, a longtime track and cross-country coach, was hired as Guilford College's first assistant men's and women's cross-country coach yesterday. Cason, from Clemmons, will assist Heidi Pinkerton, the Quakers' first-year coach, specifically with recruiting.
Cason brings seven years of head track-and-field and cross-country coaching experience to Guilford. He served as Clemson University's head men's cross country/assistant track-and-field coach from 1985 to 1988.
In 1988, Cason took over as head men's and women's cross country coach at the UNC Wilmington, where he also started the Seahawks' track-and-field teams.
■ A Coastal Carolina University sprinter was arrested after police found him with marijuana.
Authorities said Javarius Lavontae Phelps, 21, of Greenwood, was charged with marijuana possession and intent to distribute the drug. The Web site for the J. Rueben Long Detention Center in Conway, S.C., said Phelps remains in custody there.
The Horry County Police Department said officers stopped a car that was driving left of the center line. Authorities discovered three ounces of what they believe to be marijuana. They also seized $355.
Phelps, a junior, was part of the Chanticleers' 400-meter and 1,600-meter relay teams, each of which set school records at the Big South Conference meet.
A college spokeswoman said in a release that Phelps was temporarily dismissed yesterday from the men's track team. A final decision depends on the outcome of the case.
Basketball
■ Linda Sharp, who coached Southern Cal to two NCAA titles and later coached the L.A. Sparks and Phoenix Mercury, resigned yesterday as coach of Division III Concordia University.
Sharp has an 87-87 record since taking over at Concordia in 2001. She is 496-271 after 27 years of college coaching.
Sharp coached at Southern California from 1976-1989, reaching four Final Fours and winning two NCAA titles. She went on to coach Southwest Texas State University from 1989-1997, then spent one season with the Sparks in 1997 and another with the Mercury in 2002.
Sharp was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 2001.
■ The Boston Celtics have extended the contract of Coach Doc Rivers, who led the team to its first championship in 22 years last spring. Rivers guided the Celtics to a 66-16 regular-season record and the franchise's 17th title.
Rivers also led the Celtics, who won just 24 games during the 2006-07 season, to the biggest single-season turnaround in NBA history. Rivers has a 168-160 record in four seasons as the Celtics coach.
■ Michael Glover, a Seton Hall basketball recruit who was declared ineligible to play, has sued the Big East Conference and the NCAA. Glover enrolled at Seton Hall in 2007, but was ruled ineligible that fall after the NCAA invalidated his entire senior-year transcript from American Christian Academy in Pennsylvania.
Glover says in his suit that the NCAA never gave a reason for invalidating the transcript. The suit asks a judge to declare Glover eligible to play, award him the equivalent of four years tuition at Seton Hall and compensatory damages. On Monday, the NCAA asked a judge to dismiss the lawsuit.
■ Darrell Arthur and Mario Chalmers, former Kansas teammates, were fined $20,000 apiece after being banished last week from the NBA rookie symposium, the league said yesterday.
Security at the resort near New York where the symposium took place found Arthur and Chalmers in a room with two women, and the scent of marijuana was detected. No drugs or drug paraphernalia were found, but having guests in the room violated NBA policy, and Arthur and Chalmers were sent home.
Arthur and Chalmers apologized but denied using marijuana.
Next year they'll have to again attend the symposium, which addresses the challenges of making the transition to pro ball.
Arthur and Chalmers helped Kansas win the NCAA championship and were selected in the June draft. Arthur is with the Memphis Grizzlies and Chalmers with the Miami Heat.
Hockey
■ The Carolina Hurricanes have decided that black is the new black.
The Hurricanes unveiled a new third jersey yesterday that features the team's secondary storm-warning logo attached to a hockey stick and laid over a triangle, a tribute to the team's home in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina.
Each piece of the new uniform is primarily black, including the helmets, gloves, socks and jersey.
Eric Staal, Cam Ward and Tim Gleason helped with the unveiling by skating onto the ice at RBC Center in their new uniforms for the first time.
Carolina plans to wear the uniforms for 15 home games this season.
■ Four members of the Twin City Cyclones hockey team in 2007-08 and two players the team picked up in the offseason will move to the Central Hockey League for 2008-09, and two other former Cyclones will play in Europe, Coach Mark Richards announced yesterday.
Headed to the CHL are former Cyclones Kevin Druce (Odessa), Daryl Moore (Rio Grande Valley), Justin Schmit (Tulsa) and Ryan Bartle (Rocky Mountain) and offseason acquisitions Chad Swartzentruber (Rio Grande) and Donald Melnyk (Wichita). Also, Jason Cassells and Adam Gebara will play in Europe.
Miscellaneous
■ The starting time for the North Carolina-Wake Forest women's soccer match at Spry Stadium on Oct. 5 has been changed to 3 p.m. North Carolina is ranked No. 5 in the country, and Wake Forest is No. 14.
■ With Hurricane Ike barreling toward the Texas coast, sports officials across the state must decide if the games will go on this weekend.
Baylor and Houston are watching weather reports to decide if college-football games should be postponed.
The Houston Astros are scheduled to open a key three-game series with the Chicago Cubs starting on Friday, and several school districts along the Gulf Coast and in Central Texas have already decided to call off or reschedule weekend games.
Yesterday, storm forecasts predicted Ike would come ashore Saturday near Corpus Christi and move northwest toward Austin and Waco.
Although Austin is more than 200 miles from Corpus Christi, the capital city could still get slammed with tropical-storm level wind and rain when Ike reaches the area.
Complicating matters is that if the state orders a mandatory evacuation of the coastline, Austin is likely to be flooded with residents trying to get out of the way of the storm.
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