Green Bay Packer defensive end Sean Jones,...

Green Bay Packer defensive end Sean Jones, who recently suffered a ruptured disk, retired to join TNT’s broadcasting crew after the team told him he would be a reserve next season. . . NBC Sports and Notre Dame have agreed to a second five-year extension of their exclusive broadcast contract with the Fighting Irish football program.

Tennis

Chanda Rubin won a first-round Italian Open match over Jennifer Capriati, spoiling Capriati’s return to Rome after her career was derailed by drug and alcohol abuse. Top-seeded Monica Seles advanced with a win over Austria’s Barbara Schett.

Martina Hingis, whose injured knee already has forced her to miss the Rexona Cup and the Italian Open, has pulled out of next week’s German Open.

Auto Racing

Jeff Ward, who first passed his Indianapolis 500 rookie test in 1995 but did not qualify for the race, was unhurt when his car spun in the third turn and crashed during the rookie orientation program at Indianapolis Speedway.

Jurisprudence

The family of San Diego Charger running back Rodney Culver, who was killed in the 1996 ValuJet crash, will receive $28 million as part of a settlement reached with the airline and its maintenance company, the family’s attorney said.

Former Nebraska running back Lawrence Phillips told a judge he intends to plead guilty or no contest to a disorderly conduct charge stemming from a rowdy hotel party in February in Omaha, Neb. . . Minnesota Viking running back Maurece “Moe” Williams pleaded innocent to a first-degree rape charge and was released without bond during a court hearing at Lexington, Ky. . . Angel Mangual, a veteran of the Oakland Athletics baseball team that won three World Series championships in the 1970s, has been arrested on charges of trafficking in heroin and cocaine in Puerto Rico.

Soccer

Paraguay, currently leading South America’s World Cup qualifying group, will come to the United States for an exhibition game June 4.

Manchester United clinched its fourth English Premier League title in five seasons when second-place Liverpool lost, 2-1, at Wimbledon and fourth-place Newcastle played a scoreless tie at West Ham.

A Canadian has been banned from playing soccer on a New Zealand university team because she is a woman. Megan McKenna, who played top-level women’s soccer in Canada for two years, was told by FIFA, soccer’s international governing body, she is not allowed to play on the Massey (in Palmerston North) University Staff team because, “It is absolutely forbidden to allow a mixed team to participate in an official competition.”

Miscellany

The NCAA’s Executive Committee will meet Thursday to consider sanctions against the University of Massachusetts over alleged payments a sports agent made to former basketball player Marcus Camby. Camby reportedly paid $28,000 to Connecticut-based agent John Lounsbury after the agent said Camby would be killed unless he repaid it to loan sharks, according to The Boston Globe.

Fresno State has launched its own investigation, led by the university’s vice president, Ben Quillian, into possible point-shaving by its basketball players. . . The Citadel and Charlie Taaffe have settled a lawsuit the former football coach filed last year after a drunken-driving arrest led to his firing. . . The NCAA has lifted the eight-year probationary period for the Portland State men’s basketball program making the Vikings eligible for the Big Sky Conference championship beginning in the 1998-99 season. . . The United States tied Russia, 1-1, in the World Hockey Championships at Helsinki.

Names in the News

Linda Hill-MacDonald, coach of the women’s team at Minnesota the past seven years, was hired as coach of the Cleveland Rockers of the new WNBA. . . Quarterback Andre Ware signed with the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League.