Sports briefs 4/12/06

Baseball

• Derrek Lee is staying put. The NL batting champion's lucrative new contract is a reward for his breakout season and a deal he helped negotiate.

Lee hit .335 with 46 homers and 107 RBIs last year while winning a Gold Glove at first base. He joined the Cubs before the 2004 season in a trade from Florida, one year after helping the Marlins beat Chicago in the NL Championship Series and then win the World Series.

Bowling

• Just a little more than two months after announcing his retirement from football, Pittsburgh Steelers running back Jerome Bettis is already headed for the Hall of Fame -- the Bowling Hall of Fame.

For the first time, the hall is honoring celebrity bowlers. Bettis, 34, will be the first inductee into the Celebrities Bowling Hall of Fame, the organization announced Tuesday.

Bettis has bowled since growing up in Detroit and, according to the Bowling Hall of Fame, maintains an average of more than 200. He has rolled a perfect 300 game.

Bettis is scheduled to be enshrined June 28.

Colleges

• Jeff Capel was hired as Oklahoma's basketball coach Tuesday, resigning at Virginia Commonwealth to replace Kelvin Sampson and take over a program under NCAA investigation.

The 31-year-old Capel is a former Duke player who was 79-41 in four seasons as coach at VCU. He signed a two-year contract extension last month to keep him at the Richmond school through 2012.

Instead, he will replace Sampson, hired as Indiana's coach March 29. Sampson was 279-109 in 12 seasons at Oklahoma.

* Football coach Tommy West will remain at the University of Memphis through 2010 under a contract extension announced Tuesday.

The five-year deal adds one year to West's current contract, increases his salary and adds more bonus incentives, athletic officials said in a news release. The deal's amount was not released.

The 51-year-old will also receive more funding to boost salaries for his coaching staff.

Hockey

• The Los Angeles Kings' Luc Robitaille, the highest scoring left wing in NHL history, announced his retirement on Tuesday.

Robitaille, 40, the Kings' career leader in goals, has 15 goals and nine assists in 62 games this season, his 19th in the NHL. He has 668 goals and 726 points for 1,394 points in 1,428 regular-season games with the Kings, Pittsburgh, the New York Rangers and Detroit.

-- From wire reports