Florida Sentinel Bulletin

LAS VEGAS — Charles Oakley, one of the NBA’s all-time tough guys and now a Charlotte Bobcats assistant, has sued a Las Vegas resort over what he calls a May 2010 “gang-style beat down” by security guards who injured him.

Oakley filed the lawsuit Thursday in Clark County District Court against the Aria hotel-casino at MGM Resorts International’s CityCenter complex, the Las Vegas Sun reported. Five security officers also were named in the lawsuit.

Oakley was an invited guest at Aria’s VIP pool area May 28 when he left the area, the complaint says, but security officers and staff prevented him from re-entering.

After a “verbal altercation” with officers, Oakley attempted to return to his room when he was “assaulted” by them in a secluded area of the resort, the lawsuit alleges.

The complaint contends the officers wrestled Oakley to the ground and punched and handcuffed him, and that he was taken to the hospital with injuries to his neck, back, head and wrist, “all or some of which may be permanent and disabling.”

The complaint alleges negligence, assault, assault with excessive force, battery, false imprisonment and defamation. It seeks unspecified general, special and punitive damages.

An MGM Resorts International spokeswoman said the company doesn’t comment on pending litigation.

The openly transgender member of the George Washington women’s basketball team, whose groundbreaking season was cut short by a pair of concussions, says he won’t play in his senior year.

The school announced that Kye Allums ”has decided that it is in his best interest to no longer participate in intercollegiate athletics.”

“I alone came to this conclusion,” Allums said in a statement released by the university, ”and I thank the athletic department for respecting my wishes.”

The statement offered no further details, although GW said Allums has enrolled in classes for the fall semester.

Allums made international headlines when he announced before the start of the season in November that he preferred to be known as a man. He said he was putting off hormone treatments and gender-changing surgery so that he could continue to play for the women’s team.

But he suffered two concussions early in the season and played in only eight games. He said that he had suffered a total of eight concussions, that he was having memory problems and that he was unsure whether he would be cleared medically to play his senior season. He said doctors told him that if he were a football player, his playing days would certainly be over.

”I’m a fighter. I’m still trying to come back,” he said at the time. ”I really do want to come back and play.”

In his forthcoming autobiography, former professional boxer Sugar Ray Leonard makes a few unexpected accusations.

In the book entitled “The Big Fight: My Life In and Out of the Ring,” the ex-fighter reveals darker moments in his life, from cocaine use to growing up in a household with domestic violence and alcohol abuse to surviving a car wreck.

Still, the most shocking account in the book is when Leonard reveals that he was sexually abused as a young fighter by an unnamed “prominent Olympic boxing coach.”

According to reports by the New York Times:
Leonard writes that when the coach accompanied him as a 15-year-old and another young fighter to a boxing event in Utica, N.Y., in 1971, he had the teenagers take a bath in a tub of hot water and Epsom salts while he sat on the other side of the bathroom. They suspected “something a bit inappropriate” was occurring, but did not want to question a strong male authority figure.

Several years later, Leonard describes sitting in a car in a deserted parking lot across from a recreation center, listening intently as the same coach, said to be in his late 40s, explained how much a gold medal at the 1976 Olympics would mean to his future.

He was flattered, filled with hope, as any young athlete would be. But he writes: “Before I knew it, he had unzipped my pants and put his hand, then mouth, on an area that has haunted me for life. I didn’t scream. I didn’t look at him. I just opened the door and ran.”

He adds that when he first decided to discuss the incident in the book, which is co-authored with Michael Arkush, he offered a version in which the abuser stopped before there was actual contact.

“That was painful enough,” Leonard writes. “But last year, after watching the actor Todd Bridges bare his soul on Oprah’s show about how he was sexually abused as a kid, I realized I would never be free unless I revealed the whole truth, no matter how much it hurt.”

Sugar Ray Leonard’s book comes out on June 6th, and it will be interesting to read whatever the boxing Hall of Famer has written in his autobiography.

TAMPA, Fla. — The Buccaneers have said no to HBO.

Tampa Bay has declined an invitation to be featured on the cable TV network’s next edition of “Hard Knocks,” the team said on its Twitter account Monday.

“We have respectfully declined this year’s ‘Hard Knocks’ invitation,” the team announced. “Wonderful show, but the team wants to keep the focus on the field in 2011.”

Tampa Bay went from 3-13 in 2009 to 10-6 last season and has a strong core of young players led by quarterback Josh Freeman, receiver Mike Williams and defensive tackle Gerald McCoy.

“Hard Knocks” won three Sports Emmys for its portrayal of the New York Jets in last year’s series. The show has been on the air intermittently since its debut in 2001 with the Baltimore Ravens.

In subsequent years, the Dallas Cowboys (2002 and 2008), Kansas City Chiefs (2007), Cincinnati Bengals (2009) and Jets have been spotlighted.

“Finding and selecting a team for ‘Hard Knocks’ each year is a process,” HBO spokesman Ray Stallone said. “We remain optimistic.”

BOSTON — Boston Celtics coach Doc Rivers is recovering from surgery to remove a benign polyp from his throat.

The team said doctors told Rivers he is cancer free.

Rivers joked that his family will be happy that he can’t talk for two weeks. But he also urged all coaches to get their throats checked after the stress put on their vocal cords during the season.

The Celtics were eliminated from the playoffs in the second round by the Miami Heat. Rivers signed a five-year extension with the team last week.

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FL — Tiger Woods says he didn’t do any more damage to his left leg at The Players Championship and expects to play the U.S. Open next month.

Woods made it only nine holes last week at The Players – his shortest tournament ever – when he withdrew after nine holes because of what he described as a chain reaction of pain from his left knee to left Achilles and tightening in his calf. He shot 42 on the front nine.

On his website Monday, Woods said he irritated the knee and Achilles without making them worse. He said doctors have advised rest, cold water therapy and soft tissue treatment, which he said he already had been receiving.

“Aggravating my injury is very disappointing,” Woods said. “I’ll do whatever is necessary to play in the U.S. Open, and I’m hopeful I can be there to compete.”

The U.S. Open is June 16-19 at Congressional, a course on which Woods won in 2009 at the AT&T National.

MINNEAPOLIS — The NFL’s lockout remains in place, a federal appeals court ruled Monday. That means the league likely won’t get back to business until at least next month – and maybe much longer than that.

The 8th U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the lockout can stay until a full appeal is heard on whether it is legal. That hearing is scheduled for June 3 in St. Louis, before the same panel that issued this 2-1 decision.

The appellate court said it believes the NFL has proven it “likely will suffer some degree of irreparable harm without a stay.” The court also cast doubt on the conclusions of U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson, who ruled April 25 that the lockout should be lifted to save the players from irreversible damage. The 8th Circuit panel put her decision on hold four days later.

ATLANTA — One week after being named the youngest Most Valuable Player in league history, Chicago’s Derrick Rose made headlines again by being selected to the All-NBA First Team for the first time in his short career.

Los Angeles’ Kobe Bryant, Miami’s LeBron James, Oklahoma City’s Kevin Durant and Orlando’s Dwight Howard join Rose on the first team.

Bryant was named to the team for the sixth straight season and ninth time in his career. James — the lone unanimous choice — earned honors for the fourth straight season and fifth time overall. Howard was voted in for the fourth consecutive season and Durant made the team for the second time.

The All-NBA Second Team features Miami’s Dwyane Wade, Oklahoma City’s Russell Westbrook, Los Angeles’ Pau Gasol, Dallas’ Dirk Nowitzki and New York’s Amar’e Stoudemire.

San Antonio’s Manu Ginobili, New Orleans’ Chris Paul, Memphis’ Zach Randolph, Portland’s LaMarcus Aldridge and Atlanta’s Al Horford comprise the third team.

DALLAS — Former Dallas Cowboys running back Ron Springs, who spent the past four years in a coma after losing oxygen during a 2007 operation, has died without ever regaining consciousness. He was 54.

Former Cowboys teammate Everson Walls, who donated a kidney to Springs for a transplant, says the Springs family informed him that his friend died about 4:30 p.m. Thursday at Medical City Dallas hospital.

The hospital is where Springs first slipped into the coma in 2007 after undergoing surgery to remove a cyst from his forearm about seven months after receiving the kidney.

In 2008, Springs’ wife, Adriane, filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against two doctors she says caused brain damage to her husband during the cyst surgery.

Despite the lengthy coma, the death came as a surprise, Walls said.

Springs was drafted by the Dallas Cowboys out of Ohio State in 1979 and became a starter alongside Tony Dorsett in ‘81, the year Walls arrived as an undrafted rookie from Grambling. Springs left in 1985, finishing his career with two seasons in Tampa Bay.

He ran for 2,519 yards, had 2,259 yards receiving and scored 10 touchdowns in his NFL career.