New Mexico women’s soccer defender Elizabeth Lambert has been suspended indefinitely after engaging in rough play — including hauling an opposing player to the ground by her pony tail — in the Lobos’ 1-0 loss to BYU in the Mountain West Conference semifinals.

Lambert is prohibited from taking part in practices, games and conditioning, coach Kit Vela announced Friday.

“Liz is a quality student-athlete, but in this instance her actions clearly crossed the line of fair play and good sportsmanship,” Vela said.

Video footage of the game shows Lambert, a junior, committing a series of excessively rough plays, including kicking, tackles, a forearm shiver to the back — in response to an elbow to the ribs — and yanking BYU forward Kassidy Shumway to the ground by her hair.

Lambert was assessed a yellow card during the 76th minute, apparently for tripping.

On Friday, Lambert apologized for her actions, saying she was “deeply and wholeheartedly regretful.”

“I let my emotions get the best of me in a heated situation. I take full responsibility for my actions and accept any punishment felt necessary,” Lambert said. “This is in no way indicative of my character or the soccer player that I am. I am sorry to my coaches and teammates for any and all damages I have brought upon them.

“I am especially sorry to BYU and the BYU women’s soccer players that were personally affected by my actions. I have the utmost respect for the BYU women’s soccer program and its players.”

The Mountain West said it endorsed New Mexico’s discipline of Lambert, saying her actions violated the conference’s sportsmanship policy. The conference said it would continue an internal review of “the overall dynamic involved in the match” and said it would not comment further.

“Liz’s conduct on the field against BYU was completely inappropriate,” said Paul Krebs, New Mexico’s vice president for athletics. “There is no way to defend her actions.”

BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe, in a news release, said Krebs had contacted him after the incident.

“It’s an unfortunate incident that occurred in the game Thursday afternoon,” Holmoe said. “The University of New Mexico and the Mountain West Conference have reviewed the situation and have acted appropriately … I am pleased with his immediate response to the matter.”

New Mexico (13-5-3) was the No. 4 seed in the tournament. Top-seeded BYU (17-2-2), ranked No. 17 in the NCSAA/adidas College Soccer Women’s Top 25, advanced to the tournament final against San Diego State with the win.

The Cougars scored the game’s lone goal on a Carlee Payne header off a direct kick in the 31st minute.

Published: December 1, 2009

TAMPA – The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have signed punter Sam Paulescu to replace injured Dirk Johnson.

Johnson was placed on injured reserve Monday, one day after tearing a hamstring muscle during Tampa Bay’s 20-17 loss at Atlanta. Johnson was hurt attempting a pass on a fake punt early in the fourth quarter.

He was replaced in the game by kicker Connor Barth, who had not punted since high school.

Paulescu, who worked out for Tampa Bay on Tuesday, played one game with Denver in 2007, 10 games with Dallas in 2008 and one game with Washington earlier this season. His career average is 42.4 yards, with a 36.1-yard net average.

In addition to punting, Paulescu will be asked to hold for Barth on kick attempts. If he is unable, Tampa Bay’s other possible holders include receiver Brian Clark, backup quarterback Josh Johnson and tight end Kellen Winslow.

Paulescu played collegiately at Oregon State.

By MIKE SCHNEIDER
Associated Press Writer

     ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Tiger Woods did not appear to be driving under the influence and showed no signs of having been in a fight in the minutes after his car crash outside his mansion, an attorney for the neighbors who dialed 911 said Tuesday.

     Woods’ injuries were “consistent with a car wreck and inconsistent with him being beat up,” attorney Bill Sharpe said. “The scratches on his face were consistent with someone who maybe was in a minor car accident and hit his head on the windshield. … None of his injuries looked like he was beat up by his wife.”

 In its initial accident report, the Florida Highway Patrol said alcohol was not involved.

 Sharpe said neighbor Linda Adams and her two adult sons went outside their home in the exclusive gated community of Isleworth after hearing the crash and Woods’ wife, Elin Nordegren, asked them to call 911.

 He said the neighbors found Nordegren kneeling beside her husband, upset about his injuries. Sharpe said Woods appeared woozy and had scratches on his face and that his wife was trying to console him. The Adams wrapped Woods in a blanket and made sure he didn’t move.

 According to the Florida Highway Patrol accident report, Woods crashed his SUV into a fire hydrant and a tree at 2:25 a.m. Friday. The airbags did not deploy in the crash, and Woods’ wife told Windermere police she used a golf club to smash the back windows to help him out.

 Tabloid speculation has focused on whether Woods and his wife were fighting before the accident. The crash came two days after The National Enquirer published a story alleging that Woods had been seeing a New York nightclub hostess, and that they recently were together in Melbourne, where Woods competed in the Australian Masters.

 The woman, Rachel Uchitel, denied having an affair with Woods when contacted by The Associated Press.

 Sharpe said the Adams family did not see the crash and did not see Woods’ wife with a golf club.

 ”One thing we want to make clear is that Mrs. Woods’ attitude was consistent with her being concerned about her injured husband,” Sharpe said. “Mrs. Woods was trying to help him. Mrs. Woods was worried about her husband. She was concerned.”

 Woods withdrew Monday from his own golf tournament, citing injuries from the crash.

 Sharpe says the Adams family hired him to get out the message that they’ve told investigators everything they know about the crash and aren’t hiding anything.

 © 2009 The Associated Press.

The Rays acquired Kelly Shoppach on Tuesday from the Cleveland Indians for a player to be named later.

The 29-year-old catcher hit .214 last season with 12 home runs in 271 at-bats. In 2008, he led all American League catchers with 21 home runs.

He is a career .295 hitter against left-handed pitchers. He has been added to the 40-man roster, so the Rays will make a corresponding move today to get back to 40 players.

By JOE HENDERSON | The Tampa Tribune
Published: December 1, 2009

Florida State University – Bobby Bowden made it official Tuesday. He will retire after 34 years as head football coach.

We knew this was coming but it still feels weird.

We even knew it had to come because Florida State University doesn’t win as many football games any more. People screamed for change.

Change has come. Bobby Bowden made it official Tuesday. He will retire after 34 years as head football coach. It just seems so strange to be typing that.

He’ll coach FSU’s bowl game, presumably on Jan. 1 in (of all things) the Gator Bowl. Better stock up on hankies now.

“It’s been 34 great seasons,” Bowden said in the official news release.

It was a lot more than just that.

One day soon, we’ll talk about what all this means for the future at FSU – but not just yet. It’s more important first to look back on the remarkable life and career of Robert Cleckler Bowden. I know that last sentence sounds like something you’d write in an obituary, but the man’s not dead. Far from it.

While the circumstances surrounding this forced retirement have been undeniably messy, Bowden will make this all work. He’ll do some fundraising for the school and he’ll continue to be the best ambassador Seminole Nation ever had.

Like I said, though, today is about reflection and perspective about the bit of history that just happened. The move goes beyond just the passing of an era, though. To say the ride that FSU and Bowden went on for 34 years was just an “era” doesn’t do it justice.

Countless lives were affected and changed for the better by this single good-hearted man who showed them how to win, how to lose, how to take responsibility, and how to enjoy the ride.

I covered FSU for five seasons starting in 1981, the year the Seminoles played their fabled “Octoberfest”. No school in their right mind would play consecutive road games at Ohio State, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Pitt and LSU, but the Seminoles did.

They weren’t in a conference then and the only way large schools would play an independent was at home.

Bowden took them all on, beat a lot of them, and built a champion.

FSU didn’t have a large media following in those days and access to Bowden was virtually unlimited. His home phone number was listed in the Tallahassee directory, for goodness sakes. Because of that, I got to know him pretty well, and he will always rank No. 1 on my list of favorite coaches. I guess we’re not supposed to admit that, but if you didn’t like Bobby Bowden then I’d suspect the problem is inside you and not him.

The Seminoles would do anything to get on TV in those days, so Bowden agreed to play a weak Louisville team for the national cable exposure. Because of TV, the kickoff was pushed way back. That meant it would end right on newspaper deadlines, so I made a request that wouldn’t dare come out of my mouth now.

Since FSU was going to win easily, I asked Bowden several days before the game if it would it be OK if I interviewed him on the sidelines during the game – say, after the third quarter. That way I could get his comments into the morning Tribune.

He pondered a second or two, then said, “Well, just use your own judgment.”

FSU was comfortably ahead after three quarters that night, so down I went to the sideline, accompanied by the Seminoles’ sports information director (who was still shaking his head at this notion). Bowden was wearing headsets, and the fourth quarter was getting ready to start when the SID tapped him on the shoulder and pointed at me.

Bowden came straight over, gave me a few nuggets as I scribbled in my notebook, and then went back to the game.

I’m trying to picture Urban Meyer doing that. Or anyone else.

A few weeks after I left the beat to do other things at the Tribune, I got a handwritten note from Bowden. He talked about the good times, and there were many. It’s the only note I’ve ever gotten from a coach after leaving a beat.

One more story. You learn a lot about people in how they handle adversity or, in this case, tragedy. We were in Miami, and it was the worst of times. His grandson and former son-in-law had been killed in a car crash and the funeral was the day before FSU met the Hurricanes.

After the game, I asked him a few questions about the ordeal and the pain was so obvious, so deep.

As he was leaving the old Orange Bowl stadium that night, I heard him call my name. The cap he had worn that night came flying in my direction, with his name scrawled on the bill.

“Give it to your grandson,” he said.

The cap remains on my mantle at home. One day, hopefully, I’ll bounce a grandson on my knee and tell him about a cap that belongs to him now and how it came to be.

It’s hard sometimes to separate the man from the coach, especially when the coach has a record like Bowden’s.

He had his measure of problems. Even as he leaves, FSU is battling with the NCAA to keep 14 wins from being stripped from Bowden’s record as part of an academic cheating scandal that rocked the athletic department.

There were players over the years that didn’t do what they should off the field, and a suspicion that he looked the other way when his boys got in trouble. He always told us that wasn’t so, that he handled matters like that privately. Learning the consequences of bad behavior is part of life’s lessons, too.

I suspect a lot of players learned that the hard way.

No school will ever top the record 14 consecutive top five finishes FSU had under Bowden, and if the Seminoles only had a kicker they would have won many more than two national championships – not that two is a trivial number.

Bowden has 388 wins. The Seminoles either won outright or shared Atlantic Coast Conference championships their first nine seasons in the league. They were as dominant as any program in the history of college football.

We know what has gone on in Tallahassee the last several years as the Seminoles slid into mediocrity. It really is time for a change – and Bowden knows that, even as he suggested publicly many times that he wanted to come back next year. I think he knows it never would have worked. Under that circumstance, next season would have been totally about him. It would have been chaos.

Stepping down is the right call.

He always said he was in no hurry to retire. When you do that, he said, “There’s only one big event left.”

That’s not true.

At 80 years old, Bowden remains a vigorous, vital man with a lot to give. He’ll find that out soon enough.
It’s Jimbo Fisher’s team now because time and circumstances made it so.

It will always be Bobby Bowden’s program, though. Nothing will ever change that.

By Bill Dwyre 

     The $82,500 fine of Williams for her tirade at U.S. Open is pocket change to the No. 1-ranked women’s player. But at least the sport did something; that in itself is progress, albeit in baby steps.

     The news of the day is not that tennis fined Serena Williams. It is that tennis did something.

     For many, including this typist, the action was a shocker. Not the size of the fine, the existence of one.

     This is a sport that tiptoes around its superstars like lion trainers at the zoo during feeding time. Outbursts such as Williams’ tirade of intimidation against a lineswoman in the semifinals of this year’s U.S. Open usually send the mice in blazers scurrying to the basement. Tennis runs via a dysfunctional collection of Grand Slam officials, men’s and women’s tour officials, men’s and women’s tournament directors and players’ agents. Each has an agenda and, despite efforts to demonstrate the contrary to the public, never the twain shall meet.

     When Williams made her full-throated projection to the lineswoman, in front of a stadium crowd of 23,000 and an international television audience of many millions, that she had a destination for the tennis ball she held in her hand, it became a moment tough to swallow for tennis officialdom.

     This was one of the sport’s main meal tickets, a player who had won 11 Grand Slam titles, would finish the season with a women’s tour-record $6.5 million in winnings and the No. 1 ranking.

Oh, my. What to do now? Cue the hand-wringing.

     Now, 11 weeks after Williams’ angry show at match point against eventual champion Kim Clijsters, tennis has announced that Williams will be assessed the largest fine in the sport’s history for violation of its “aggravated behavior” rule. She has written a check for $82,500, and the arithmetic goes as follows:

* Her total fine is $175,000.

* She was originally fined $10,000 shortly after the incident.

* Subtract the $10,000 from the $175,000 and her latest penalty becomes $165,000.

* But she has to pay only half of that, contingent upon her avoiding any other major violation at any Grand Slam event in the next two years. Tennis, laughably wanting to sound like tough cops, is calling that Serena’s two-year probation. If she violates that, she will be asked for another check of $82,500.

* The $175,000, the largest fine in tennis since Jeff Tarango and his wife took on a chair umpire at Wimbledon in 1996 and he was assessed $48,000, was determined by subtracting the difference between quarterfinal and semifinal money at this year’s Open.

* At the U.S. Open, Williams earned $350,000 by reaching the singles semifinals, and $210,000 more as her share of her doubles title with sister Venus. So her U.S. Open pay of $560,000 is now down to $467,500, with the original $10,000 fine and the current $82,500 assessment.

* The $92,500 out-of-pocket fee she has paid amounts to slightly more than 1% of her $6.5 million in 2009 purses.

Money is not the biggest issue. Action by tennis is.

     Granted, the pressures the sport faced were imposing. Trying to corral all the divergent interests on a daily basis is like herding cattle with Yorkshire terriers. This extra wrinkle further complicated things.

     As soon as the incident occurred, there was much sentiment for having Serena and Venus defaulted from the doubles final two days later. Tennis passed on that. As the 11-week passage of time on the final penalty shows, two days is just too fast for tennis, and perhaps correctly so.

     But 11 weeks is silly to the other extreme. This investigation wasn’t about the Hope Diamond. This was a tennis player, throwing an obscenity-laced hissy fit, with TV cameras rolling and microphones all over the place and at least 50 reporters from around the world sitting in a press section within 100 feet of the incident. Inspector Clouseau couldn’t have messed this one up.

     But once the politics of tennis apparently kicked in, the process slowed to a crawl. That brought the expectation of the norm: They wouldn’t dare do anything to Serena. They would hope everybody just forgets. They would not mess with the marquee player on a women’s tour that all too often features fragile stars, tournament dropouts, mid-match calls for trainers and potty breaks.

     You can almost see 10 well-dressed, middle-age people, sitting around a table in a boardroom, pondering this decision, and one of them gasping, “Oh, my. If we make Serena too angry, that would leave us with, well, Dinara Safina!”

Easy call after that. Do something, but make it gentle.

     So, tennis stood up. Kind of. It took action that it thought wouldn’t infuriate one of its biggest stars and would still speak to that part of the public offended by what she did.

For a sport whose spine tends toward mushy, give it credit. About a B-minus.

    As for Williams, give her credit for being predictable. This was one more chance for her to say, upon further review, that what she did was ugly and embarrassing and she was sorry. She passed. Again.

Her statement was your basic athlete’s put-this-behind-me routine.

“I am thankful that we now have closure on the incident and we can all move forward,” she said.

At least tennis moved forward, as long as you count baby steps.

bill.dwyre@latimes.com

Image was provided by  (Charles Krupa / Associated Press / September 12, 2009) – Serena Williams, shown talking to U.S. Open officials after her tirade against a lineswoman, will be on probation for two years.