UAB to resume playing football in 2017

UAB to resume playing football in 2017

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.

UAB football can take the field again in 2017 and remain an FBS program.

Athletic director Mark Ingram said Tuesday that rifle will return in the upcoming season, while bowling will compete in 2016-17 and football in two years. UAB dropped all three sports in December to cut costs and announced six months later they would be reinstated.

Ingram says the NCAA has told UAB that football can resume in 2017 and remain in the Football Bowl Subdivision. UAB supporters pledged enough money to cover the projected $17 million cost to operate football over the next five years.

The NCAA won’t subject UAB to FBS requirements for three academic years beginning with 2015-16. The Blazers would be eligible immediately for postseason play and a Conference USA title.

FSU’s Fisher says ’Noles working on problems

PINEHURST, N.C.

Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher says the Seminoles are “stepping up” their process of educating players about domestic violence and other issues, after a pair of high-profile allegations overshadowed the program in recent weeks.

Fisher says the team has started a four-step program to address the problems, and that character-building exercises have been part of the FSU football culture for years.

Running back Dalvin Cook has been suspended from the team indefinitely after it was alleged that he punched a woman outside a Tallahassee bar, which subsequently led to him being charged. That news came not long after freshman quarterback De’Andre Johnson was kicked off the team after video showed him punching a woman in the face in a bar. Fisher says that it’s not just a Florida State problem, “but a national problem.”

DeAndre Jordan happy after free agent ‘fiasco’

LOS ANGELES

DeAndre Jordan thought the Dallas Mavericks offered everything he wanted, including a fresh start and a bigger offensive role.

When Jordan thought about it a little more, the craziest free-agent recruitment story in recent NBA history ended with him back on the Los Angeles Clippers. The league rebounding champion was reintroduced Tuesday by the Clippers, who managed to keep Jordan after he changed his mind about his verbal commitment to Dallas. While referring to his free agency as “this whole fiasco,” Jordan gave a bit of insight into his reasoning for his flip-flop.

Pacers to occasionally wear ‘Hoosiers’ unis

INDIANAPOLIS

The Hickory Huskers are coming to the NBA next season.

The Indiana Pacers will celebrate the upcoming 30th anniversary of “Hoosiers” by wearing the maroon and gold uniforms that Jimmy Chitwood and the Huskers made famous in the beloved film. The Pacers said Tuesday that the Hickory uniforms will be worn in select 2015-16 games through a partnership with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, the company that debuted “Hoosiers” in 1986.

Pacers President Larry Bird says the team is honored to wear the uniforms “because of the attention it will bring to the storied history of Indiana basketball and the success of that movie.”

Surfer who fended off shark returns home

Mick Fanning sat up on a high stool, straight backed and good humored, recounting the story he will be telling for the rest of his days, about how he fought off a shark with his bare hands during a surfing competition in South Africa.

It sounds like the plot of a movie, but this three-time world champion is no fictional Crocodile Dundee-style character. He’s the real thing: his shark-wrestling exploits were broadcast live. Fanning arrived back in Australia on Tuesday and appeared at a news conference in Sydney before heading home to the Gold Coast, the burgeoning city surrounding Surfers Paradise beach.

He says: “It was so close. I’m doing OK, though. I haven’t got a scratch on me. Just more of an emotional, mental sort of trauma right now.”

Wire report