Sports in brief: UNLV hires Livengood

Colleges: UNLV has officially announced 64-year-old Jim Livengood as its next athletic director.

Livengood’s hiring was announced during an afternoon press conference at UNLV, which has been without a permanent athletic director since July.

Livengood, pictured above, spent 15 years at Arizona, directing 19 teams in the university’s athletics program. Arizona’s teams won 10 NCAA titles during Livengood’s tenure. Previous to that, he was athletic director at Washington State.

Livengood said his top priority at UNLV will be to hire a football coach as soon as possible.

UNLV football coach Mike Sanford was told before the end of a 5-7 season that he would not coach the Rebels next year.

Associated Press

Hughes tops Hall of Fame class

Figure skating: Olympic gold medalist Sarah Hughes is now a Hall of Famer.

The 2002 champion headlines the newest class for the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame, joining three-time world pairs medalists Jenni Meno and Todd Sand and longtime Ice Capades director Robert Turk. The class, announced Thursday, will be inducted during a Jan. 21 ceremony at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Spokane.

Hughes won the gold medal at the Salt Lake City Games with the most technically demanding program in Olympic history. Then 16, she was the fourth-youngest Olympic champion.

Meno and Sand, who married in 1995, were three-time U.S. champions who won bronze medals at the world championships in 1995 and ’96, and a silver in 1998.

They are each three-time Olympians.

Associated Press

Patrick’s debut in California

Auto racing: Danica Patrick will ease her way into NASCAR by skipping the Nationwide Series opener at Daytona International Speedway in favor of a less-stressful debut one week later at California.

The IndyCar star is still working on piecing together a 13-race schedule for JR Motorsports in NASCAR’s second-tier series, but announced she’s marked the Feb. 20 race at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana for her debut.

Patrick will make her stock-car debut in the Feb. 6 ARCA opener at Daytona, but will not try the Nationwide race.

Associated Press