Duke suspends team amid rape allegations
Duke University’s highly ranked lacrosse team will not play again this season until school administrators learn more about allegations that several team members raped an exotic dancer at an off-campus party, the school said Tuesday.
President Richard Brodhead decided to suspend the team from play “until there is a clearer resolution of the legal situation involving team members,” the university said.
The case has roiled the campus, raised racial tensions and heightened antagonism between the affluent students at Duke, which costs about $43,000 a year, and the city of Durham, N.C., which has a large population of poor people and is about evenly divided between white and black.
A woman told police she and another dancer were hired to perform March 13 at a private party in an off-campus home. The dancer, a student at North Carolina Central University, told police she was pulled into a bathroom, beaten, choked and raped by three men. No one has been charged.
Armed with a judge’s order, police took DNA samples with a cheek swab from 46 of the lacrosse team’s 47 players last week. The 47th player, the only black member of the team, did not have to provide DNA because the dancer said her attackers were white.
The alleged victim is black, which has proved a source of tension on campus.
“The circumstances of the rape indicated a deep racial motivation for some of the things that were done,” District Attorney Mike Nifong said. “It makes a crime that is by its nature one of the most offensive and invasive even more so.”
College women’s basketball
AP team announced
In her first college game, Courtney Paris broke loose for 24 points and 10 rebounds – in only 20 minutes.
Four months and 33 double-doubles later, the Oklahoma center has become the first freshman selected for The Associated Press All-America team.
LSU senior Seimone Augustus was the lone unanimous choice on the team. Also chosen were North Carolina junior Ivory Latta, Rutgers senior Cappie Pondexter and Baylor senior Sophia Young. Augustus was a first-team pick on all 46 ballots from the national media panel.
•Former Gonzaga University men’s basketball assistant Joe Hillock has been fired as women’s basketball coach at Southern Utah after consecutive 11-17 seasons. In 10 years his teams went 128-146.
•Mary Hile-Nepfel resigned after 19 seasons as coach at the University of San Francisco. Her record was 270-264, but the Dons have had four straight losing seasons, including a 9-20 mark this season.
Pro football
NFL still looks at L.A.
Before he retires as commissioner, Paul Tagliabue would like to see the NFL get closer to placing a team back in Los Angeles.
While Tagliabue plans to be gone from the league in July – if the owners can get together and find a successor by then – a solution to the situation doesn’t figure to come that soon.
Two sites are being considered, in Anaheim and at the current location of the Los Angeles Coliseum, each with cost estimates at $800 million.
Sports people
Majerus, ASU talk
Rick Majerus has met with Arizona State athletic director Lisa Love about the Sun Devils’ men’s basketball coaching job, according to a person familiar with the meeting. … Hofstra men’s basketball coach Tom Pecora agreed to a five-year contract following a season in which the Pride went 26-7 and twice beat Final Four team George Mason. … Former NBA player and coach Butch Beard resigned as head coach of Morgan State after going 39-105 since taking over the struggling program in 2001. … Ron Everhart, who built successful programs at Northeastern and McNeese State, will reportedly be the next basketball coach at Duquesne. … NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon was fined $10,000 and put on probation for shoving fellow driver Matt Kenseth following Sunday’s race at Bristol, Tenn.