Briefly

Former NFL player dies in fiery crash

Justin Strzelczyk, a former player for the Pittsburgh Steelers, died in a fiery head-on collision with a tanker truck Thursday after he led New York state troopers on a 40-mile highway chase during morning rush hour.

Strzelczyk, 36, was an offensive lineman with the Steelers for nearly a decade until the team released him in February 2000.

State police said Strzelczyk crashed his pickup truck into the westbound empty tanker just moments after swerving around a tractor-trailer that pulled across the highway to block the eastbound lanes. Strzelczyk drove 15 miles on three tires and a rim after one of his pickup’s tires was punctured by metal spikes thrown into the road by troopers.

Strzelczyk, who lived in McCandless, Pa., near Pittsburgh, had been involved in another minor accident about an hour earlier just west of Syracuse, which started the bizarre turn of events, Trooper Jim Simpson, a state police spokesman, said.

Police identified the driver of the tanker as Harold Jackson, 60, from Bowman, S.C. He was treated at a hospital for minor injuries and released. No one else was hurt.

College football

UConn beats Pitt

Cornell Brockington rushed for 185 yards and one touchdown to lead Connecticut to a 29-17 victory over Pittsburgh at East Hartford, Conn., the Huskies’ first Big East win as a conference member.

His 11-yard TD run with 6:25 left in the game gave UConn (4-1, 1-1) the 29-17 lead. The Panthers (2-2, 0-1) were playing their first road game of the season and struggled against the crowd noise throughout the game.

Dan Orlovsky was 23 of 43 for 237 yards and one TD for UConn, which is in its third full season as a Division I-A program. He and Keron Henry hooked up for an 8-yard TD pass with 3:28 left in the third quarter, which proved to be the game-winner.

•Geoff Blumenfeld picked a good time to make his first field goal of the season, nailing a 30-yarder with 4 seconds left to lift Navy (5-0) to a 24-21 victory over Air Force (2-3) at Air Force Academy, Colo.

•All 92,000 seats at the Los Angeles Coliseum have been sold for top-ranked Southern California’s Pac-10 game against No. 10 California on Oct. 9.

This will be the first Coliseum sellout in the Cal-USC series since 1930.

•Freshman Erik Ainge will start for the 10th-ranked Tennessee Volunteers on Saturday night against No. 8 Auburn, coach Phillip Fulmer announced.

He replaces Brent Schaeffer.

Basketball

Rick Fox retires

Rick Fox retired, ending a 13-year pro career during which he was part of three NBA championship teams with the Los Angeles Lakers.

Fox, beset by injuries last season, was traded by the Lakers to the Celtics on Aug. 6. It had been expected he would retire rather than report to Boston’s training camp beginning Monday.

The Celtics, who were aware of Fox’s injuries when they made the trade, waived him to facilitate his retirement.

The 35-year-old forward averaged a career-low 4.8 points last season, when the Lakers were beaten by Detroit in the NBA Finals.

Fox was bothered by foot, neck and back injuries that limited him to 38 games last season. He spent the summer rehabilitating, but never fully recovered, his spokeswoman, Staci Wolfe, said.

He had career averages of 9.6 points and 3.8 rebounds in 930 games.

•Here’s a rare scene: The Dallas Mavericks held a news conference to announce the signing of a player who proclaimed that if all goes as planned, he won’t play a single minute this season.

And his bosses happily agreed.

So goes the hiring of Avery Johnson, technically as a backup point guard but realistically as another coach — possibly even the next head coach.

Johnson will spend the season on the injured list, unless a real injury to Jason Terry, rookie Devin Harris or swingman Marquis Daniels forces him onto the roster.

•The Memphis Grizzlies signed restricted free-agent forward Stromile Swift to a one-year deal.

Terms of the contract were not released.

The 6-foot-9, 225-pound Swift has averaged 8.8 points, 5.1 rebounds and 1.4 blocks in 292 career games with the Grizzlies. Last season he averaged 9.4 points, 4.9 rebounds and had a career-high 118 blocked shots while primarily coming off the bench.

Olympics

WADA chief skeptical

Tyler Hamilton’s title from the Athens Games is “no longer a gold medal in the eyes of the world” because of the cyclist’s failed drug test, the head of the World Anti-Doping Agency said.

WADA chief Dick Pound suggested Hamilton got away with cheating in Athens, where a preliminary test indicated he had received an endurance-boosting blood transfusion. The IOC dropped its probe because Hamilton’s backup specimen mistakenly was frozen and there weren’t enough red blood cells left to analyze.

That meant Hamilton was able to keep his gold medal.

But Hamilton still faces a possible two-year ban over a separate positive blood test at the Spanish Vuelta two weeks after the Olympics. Hamilton’s Phonak team said both blood samples he provided there came back positive.

The American insists he is innocent and has vowed to clear his name.

Miscellany

A Senate committee gave its approval to a bill that would limit the sales of steroid precursors such as androstenedione.

The Judiciary Committee sent the full Senate a bill that would ban over-the-counter sales of precursors, which act like steroids in the human body.

The House has approved a similar bill that would modify the definition of “anabolic steroid” to include tetrahydrogestrinone, androstenedione and specified related chemicals.

Congress has taken an increased interest in the issue this year after reports of steroid use among athletes, particularly professional baseball players.