Clarett to serve time on armed robbery charge

Former Ohio State football star Maurice Clarett was sentenced to prison in Columbus, Ohio, for at least 3 1/2 years Monday after pleading guilty to aggravated robbery and carrying a concealed weapon.

Judge David Fais announced the agreement on the day jury selection was to begin in a case in which Clarett was accused of holding up two people outside a bar.

Sentenced to 7 1/2 years with release possible after 3 1/2 years, Clarett also agreed to serve five years of probation after the prison sentence.

The 22-year-old said he understood he was pleading guilty and reversing his earlier plea.

“I’d like to apologize for my behavior, and I accept the time that was given to me,” he said.

After the deal was announced, Clarett looked at his mother, who was sobbing and holding his 8-week-old daughter while sitting next to his girlfriend.

Hockey

Flyers resign Hitchcock

Philadelphia Flyers coach Ken Hitchcock signed a new three-year contract through 2008-09.

Hitchcock, entering his fourth season, is 130-77-39 in the regular season with Philadelphia. He led the Flyers to the conference finals in 2004, where they lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning, who later won the Stanley Cup.

•Former Montreal Canadiens player Floyd Curry, a four-time Stanley Cup champion, has died. He was 81. Curry died Saturday in a Montreal hospital, according to the Canadiens. He spent 11 seasons with the Canadiens and scored 105 goals and 204 points in 601 NHL games.

Miscellany

Golf coach recovering

Montana women’s golf coach Joanne Steele, the 2006 coach of the year in the Big Sky Conference, was in serious condition after undergoing heart-transplant surgery in Seattle.

The 35-year-old Steele, whose team won the Big Sky championship last spring, got a new heart Sunday after receiving a call early that day informing her the organ was available. She flew from Missoula to Seattle for surgery at the University of Washington Medical Center.

•Candace Parker and Tina Thompson each scored 14 points as the U.S. beat the Czech Republic 63-50 in Sao Paulo, Brazil to secure a quarterfinal berth in the women’s world basketball championship.

•Champion sprinter Lost in the Fog was euthanized in Albany, Calif., after a monthlong battle with advanced cancer in his spleen and abdomen.

•Cristian Mijares of Mexico defeated Katsushige Kawashima of Japan in a split decision to capture the WBC super flyweight interim title in Yokohama, Japan.

•Olivier Panis is leaving Formula One after a 10-year racing career.

•The New Jersey Nets agreed to extend their lease at the Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, N.J., for five years, though they expect to be in a new arena in Brooklyn, N.Y., for the 2009-10 season.

•Chellsie Memmel and Nastia Liukin, who finished 1-2 at the 2005 gymnastics world championships, were among 12 women invited to the U.S. selection camp for this year’s event in Indianapolis.