Irish booster donates

$ for student tickets

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — An anonymous alumnus has donated enough money to cut the price of BCS championship game tickets to Notre Dame students for the game between the top-ranked Fighting Irish and No. 2 Alabama in half, dropping the price from $300 to $150.

Senior assistant athletic director Josh Berlo says the school wasn’t disclosing the amount of the donation. But at a cost of $150 and with 2,500 tickets available, the donation is believed to be about $375,000. Berlo says more than 4,000 Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s College students already have applied for tickets.

Berlo says the school has received more than 100,000 requests from alumni, season-ticket holders and others for the school’s allotment of 17,000 tickets. Tickets for both groups are being distributed by lottery.

 

A-Rod to begin year

on disabled list

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The New York Yankees say Alex Rodriguez will have surgery on his left hip and will miss the start of the season and possibly the entire first half.

Rodriguez has a torn labrum, bone impingement and a cyst, the team said Monday. The Yankees said he will need to follow a pre-surgery program over the next four-to-six weeks and the team anticipates he will be sidelined four-to-six months. That timetable projects to a return between the start of May and mid-July.

A-Rod had right hip surgery on March 9, 2009, and returned that May 8. The Yankees said this operation will be “similar but not identical.”

 

Academic progress

high for bowl teams

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A study of 70 schools selected for college football bowl games this season shows they maintained high academic progress, but the gap between African-American and white players persists.

The report released Monday by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport shows overall Graduation Success Rate improvement from 68 to 69 percent for athletes at the bowl-bound schools.

Also, 97 percent of schools received a score higher than the target 925 on the NCAA’s Academic Progress Rate. Teams with a four-year APR of 925 or below face penalties including loss of scholarships.

This year’s numbers show an average gap of 20 percentage points between the graduation rate of white and African-American players. But primary study author Richard Lapchick notes it’s encouraging that the rate for African-American athletes has risen consistently recently.