Eddie Pells

A group of professors seeking reform in college sports wants to explore the possibility of an antitrust exemption, which could allow the NCAA to better regulate spending on coaches' salaries and other costs.

His stamina is still shaky, but overall, his health is good again.

After a fight with cancer, Jake Burton has emerged in the same place he left off -- as the most recognizable name this side of Shaun White in snowboarding, a sport Burton helped turn into a billion-dollar business.

Burton's U.S. Open Snowboarding Championships celebrate their 30th anniversary next week -- the $25,000 first prize on the halfpipe in Stratton, Vt., still modest by "big-sports" standards but a heck of a long way from 1982, when the competitors didn't even have the luxury of a ski lift to get them to the top of the hill.

ASPEN, Colo. -- Holding white glow sticks above their heads, Sarah Burke's friends took a slow trip down a darkened halfpipe at the Winter X Games on Thursday -- bidding a sad farewell to the skier who helped push their sports to the heights they've reached today.

With light snow falling on them at the bottom, those friends embraced Burke's parents and her husband -- all still mourning a week after the 29-year-old Canadian freestyle icon's death following a training accident on a halfpipe in Utah.

It was a touching moment in front of a normally raucous X Games crowd that fell silent while watching the tribute. It opened with a video remembrance of Burke, the four-time champion in skiing superpipe who used to save her best work for the fans in Aspen.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- If there's any sense of urgency to bring the Olympics back to the United States, the president of the IOC isn't tipping his hand.

In an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday, Jacques Rogge said returning the games to big countries -- for instance, the U.S. after a drought of at least 20 years -- is no more or less important than someday taking them to Africa.

Rogge has carefully cultivated this down-the-middle approach in his 10 years as the IOC's leader. He offered neither encouragement nor discouragement to the U.S., which pumps the most money into the Olympic movement but is guaranteed to go at least two decades between taking its turn as host.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- The Olympic Training Center, long idealized as the American athlete's home base in the quest for Olympic glory, is turning into a for-profit operation, offering space for corporate outings, swim clubs and other outsiders in an attempt to recoup some of the $21 million a year spent on the facilities.

The U.S. Olympic Committee runs three official Olympic Training Centers -- in Colorado Springs, Lake Placid, N.Y., and Chula Vista, Calif.

NEW YORK -- What started out as a breeze turned into something much more difficult for Serena Williams on Saturday.

Williams won her third-round match, 6-1, 7-6 (5) over fourth-seeded Victoria Azarenka, but not before losing her first four match points and getting pushed to the limit in the second set by the Belarussian, who suddenly found her footing in Arthur Ashe Stadium.

On the fourth of those match points, Azarenka ran Williams off the court and Williams slid and did the splits in an unsuccessful attempt at a passing shot, a move that prompted John McEnroe, calling the match on TV, to say, "If I did that, I'd be out for a year. Life."