Legendary UNLV coach sent to hospital with infection

LAS VEGAS – Family members said Hall of Fame basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian is hospitalized in Las Vegas with breathing trouble and some type of infection.

Son Danny Tarkanian on Tuesday characterized his father’s condition as “minute by minute.”

He says his 84-year-old father was taken by ambulance Monday to Valley Hospital Medical Center after his blood oxygen fell to dangerous levels.

He says doctors worked overnight to stabilize his father’s condition and identify the infection.

Danny Tarkanian said Jerry Tarkanian is heavily medicated.

It’s the third hospitalization in 10 months for the coach dubbed “Tark the Shark.”

He had a heart attack last April and was treated for pneumonia in November, just before Thanksgiving.

Tarkanian led three schools to the NCAA tournament, including the 1990 UNLV team that won a national title.

NHL

Las Vegas gets to prove it wants new expansion team

TORONTO – Canadian poker star Daniel Negreanu knows a thing or two about odds. And the Toronto native and lifelong hockey fan likes Las Vegas’ chances of getting an NHL team.

Prospective owner Bill Foley and his company, Hockey Vision Las Vegas LLC, got to prove it beginning Tuesday when the VegasWantsHockey season-ticket drive begins. The goal is to get at least 10,000 full-season deposits to show there’s significant interest in an expansion team starting in the 2016-’17 season.

Negreanu is part of the “Founding 75,” a group of locals helping sell NHL hockey to those in Las Vegas and surrounding areas. He has his four season tickets reserved and has already sold plenty of others.

Olympics

Dick’s Sporting Goods to give Olympians opportunity

Soon, it could be a future Olympic gold medalist helping people pick out their soccer balls, bows and arrows and swim suits.

The U.S. Olympic Committee signed a sponsorship deal with Dick’s Sporting Goods, part of which involves giving jobs at the stores to athletes training for the Olympics.

The Dick’s Team USA Ambassador Program is an important component of the partnership for the USOC, which has been looking to reinvent a program that put as many as 200 athletes to work at Home Depot until the big box store ended its long-running sponsorship in 2009.

The deal runs through next year’s Rio Olympics. Financial details were not disclosed.

Dick’s will also offer sponsorships and sporting equipment to a number of U.S. athletes and will make donations to the Olympic Training Centers.

Soccer

Women’s Club World Cup on the horizon for FIFA

ZURICH –FIFA is aiming to launch a Women’s Club World Cup competition in 2017.

A FIFA task force for women’s soccer set the target Tuesday. The plan could be approved at a March 19-20 meeting of the FIFA executive committee, which includes task force chairwoman Moya Dodd of Australia.

An elite competition would give incentives to clubs, member federations and confederations to develop women’s football, FIFA says in a statement.

FIFA has pledged to use World Cup profits to double funding for women’s football through 2018.

The men’s Club World Cup, played each December, features the champion from each of FIFA’s six confederations, plus the host country’s league winner.

Real Madrid won the latest edition in Morocco.

Associated Press