Sports briefs 1/10/05

Baseball

* The San Francisco Giants raised $109,650 for the tsunami relief effort through a two-day silent auction on the team's Web site that included a personal meeting in the dugout with Barry Bonds.

There also were four other "once-in-a-lifetime" experiences available in the auction that ended late Friday.

All the funds are going to organizations doing tsunami disaster relief work in South Asia. The winners of each item will be able to direct the money to the charity of their choice.

The meeting with Bonds went for $30,200 and will give the winner and three guests the opportunity to sit with the slugger in the Giants' dugout before a game this season and have a group picture taken. The four will also get tickets to the game and the opportunity to watch batting practice from the dugout.

Advertisement The other four experiences were throwing out the first pitch on opening day (winning bid $26,400), an all-expenses paid trip to spring training in Arizona for four ($25,050), the chance to swing at 10 pitches off a Giants starting pitcher ($14,975), and a pregame breakfast with manager Felipe Alou ($13,025).

Basketball

* An attorney for the woman accusing Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant of rape said Sunday she wants a public airing of her lawsuit in Denver federal court as soon as possible.

L. Lin Wood said his client decided against filing a second, parallel suit in California state court because of fears that legal maneuvers there would delay a trial in the Denver suit.

"We want to get this case in front of the public as soon as possible," Wood said.

"I think that's an important factor in my client's mind," he said.

Advertisement The woman's lawsuit seeks unspecified financial damages for pain, ridicule and scorn she says she has suffered since her encounter with Bryant in a Vail-area resort in June 2003.

Colleges

* Darren Brooks scored 15 points to lead Southern Illinois to a 69-63 victory over Creighton on Sunday.

Trailing 51-50, the Salukis (12-3, 3-0 Missouri Valley Conference) got a four-point play by Jamaal Tatum, who was fouled while shooting a successful 3-pointer.

After Creighton (10-5, 2-2) tied it on a 3-pointer by Johnny Mathies, Brooks and Stetson Hairston followed with 3-pointers, and LaMar Owen's putback helped build a 62-56 lead with 1:05 to play.

Creighton closed to 65-63 on Kellen Miliner's 3-pointer with 21 seconds left only to have Tony Young and Brooks make two free throws each to wrap it up.

Hairston and Tatum finished with 13 points apiece and Young had 10 for the Salukis, who are vying for their fourth straight MVC title.

Nate Funk scored 19 points and Mathies and Miliner had 11 each for Creighton.

Football

The Chicago Bears named Ron Turner the team's offensive coordinator on Sunday.

On Saturday night, Turner and the Bears reached an agreement on a three-year contract.

In a news release, the Bears did not disclose the terms of the contract, but published reports say Turner will make $500,000 per season to replace Terry Shea. Shea was fired last week after just one season during which the injury-plagued Bears went 5-11 and finished last in the NFL in scoring, total yards and other offensive categories.

The announcement brings Turner back to the team -- and the job -- he held before he left to become head coach at Illinois. Turner was fired in November after eight seasons and a 35-57 mark, including two bowl appearances.

Turner was the Bears' offensive coordinator from 1993-96 under Dave Wannstedt. In 1995, the Bears set several team records when its offense ranked ninth in the NFL.

That year, the Bears averaged 354 yards and 24.5 points, and Erik Kramer set team marks for passing attempts (522), completions (315), yards passing (3,838) and touchdown passes (29).

The Bears also ran for 1,930 yards -- a total that is the highest for the team since rushing for 1,949 in 1991. That could prove significant because when he announced Shea's firing, head coach Lovie Smith said that he would "like to see us become more of a running football team."

Tennis

* Carlos Moya won his second straight Chennai Open title by rallying from a 5-2 deficit in the third set to beat Paradorn Srichaphan 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (5) Sunday in a rematch of last year's final.

Moya donated his winner's check of $52,000 to relief efforts for the Dec. 26 tsunami-earthquake catastrophe that killed more than 150,000 in Asia.

The fifth-ranked Moya is the first player to win the hard-court tuneup for the Australian Open in consecutive years. Paradorn reached his fourth straight final at the tournament, but his lone championship came in 2003.

* Second-seeded Joachim Johansson won his second career title Sunday, beating American Taylor Dent 7-5, 6-3 in the final of the Australian men's hardcourt championships.

Johansson's first tournament victory was at Memphis, Tenn., in 2004, a breakthrough year in which he also made the semifinals of the U.S. Open and moved from 113th in the rankings to No. 11.