Trojans, Nebraska to Play in 2006, ’07

USC and Nebraska, two of college football’s traditional powers, have scheduled a home-and-home series for 2006 and 2007, USC Athletic Director Mike Garrett said Friday.

USC and Nebraska have played only twice, with USC winning, 31-21, at Lincoln in 1969, and the teams playing to a 21-21 tie in Los Angeles in 1970.

The first game under the new agreement is scheduled for the Coliseum on Sept. 16, 2006. Then USC will travel to Nebraska to play on Sept. 15, 2007.

Skiing

Didier Cuche ended a two-year drought for the Swiss men’s downhill team, winning a World Cup event at Kitzbuehel, Austria, as the powerful Austrians failed to finish among the top five.

Cuche won the opening heat and had a two-run time of 2 minutes 31.55 seconds.

Frenchmen finished 2-3, Nicolas Burtin the runner-up at 2:31.69, followed by Jean-Luc Cretier at 2:31.87.

Austrians, led by Hermann Maier, had won 18 of the first 23 races this season. Maier skipped the race because of an injury.

Melanie Suchet of France earned her first World Cup victory on a fast and tricky super-G course at Cortina D’Ampezzo, Italy, that forced out 10 of the top 15 racers, leaving them angry and frustrated.

While Suchet managed to stay in control, several skiers came around a blind corner, edged hard to try to make the tight bend but couldn’t hold the line. They either skied right through the gate or missed it entirely.

Suchet slowed to get by the most difficult spots, completing the race in 1 minute 15.25 seconds. Germany’s Regina Haeusl was second at 1:15.48.

Reigning world champion Fabrice Becker of France battled a storm over Whistler, Canada, that pelted skiers with wet, sloppy snow to win his second consecutive World Cup acro-skiing event of the season.

Natalia Razumovskaya of Russia won the women’s event.

Baseball

Rickey Henderson, returning to the Oakland Athletics for a fourth time, is guaranteed $1.1 million in 1998.

He will get a $50,000 bonus if he has 600 plate appearances and can earn an additional $600,000 in attendance bonuses. He will get $200,000 if Oakland draws 1.5 million, another $200,000 if the A’s draw 1.75 million and yet another $200,000 if they draw 2 million.

Catcher Brad Ausmus and the Houston Astros avoided salary arbitration by agreeing on a $7.5-million, three-year contract. . . . Pitcher Tommy Greene, the forgotten member of Atlanta’s 1990 trade that sent Dale Murphy to the Philadelphia Phillies, returned to the Braves, agreeing to a minor league contract.

Soccer

The United States national team starts its 1998 schedule today at Orlando, Fla., against Sweden, which finished third in the 1994 World Cup but did not qualify for France ’98.

The U.S. will have a familiar face in former captain and goalkeeper Tony Meola, who is seeking the No. 3 goalie spot.

Olympics

Snow is being hauled to places at the site of the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.

Venue managers are generally happy with the snow cover, since a storm earlier this month covered much of the area with a thick blanket of new snow. A few sites, though, have had less snow than organizers had hoped for, and snow is being moved there.

Australia’s Defense Department has discovered two substantial dumps of buried ordnance, including 500-pound bombs, on a site bordering major facilities in Sydney for the 2000 Olympics.

Julia Cowling, who manages the department’s remediation project, said the dump sites are remote and pose no danger to the public. The ordnance is generally old and possibly unstable, but most is not primed or likely to explode, officials said.

Miscellany

Wilson Kipketer, the 800-meter world-record holder in track and field from Kenya, has been hospitalized with malaria in Portugal.

Dutch swimmers will boycott next month’s World Cup meet in Beijing to protest drug use by Chinese swimmers.

Larry Dixon (19-1, 10 knockouts) will meet Edgar Ruiz (11-1-1, seven knockouts), and Alfred Ankamah (18-2, 15 knockouts) fights Giorbis Barthelemy (19-2-1, nine knockouts) in the Mitsubishi Motors Welterweight Challenge semifinals Monday at the Great Western Forum, with preliminary bouts beginning at 7 p.m.

The wife of boxer Hector “Macho” Camacho has gotten a temporary restraining order against her husband in Orlando, claiming he threatened her and one of their children last weekend.

In a complaint filed in Orange County Circuit Court, Amy Camacho, who says she is four months pregnant, said that her husband broke down a door in their Orlando home last Saturday and threatened to destroy her car and the home’s garage door.

The U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that the NCAA violated federal antitrust laws by limiting the salaries of rookie coaches at major schools to $16,000.

Names in the News

Ricky Graham, a three-time American Motorcyclist Assn. champion, has died in a fire at his home in rural Monterey County. He was 39.

Graham, who had 39 career victories, had missed most of the 1996 season because of injuries but finished fifth last year and was preparing for the start of the 1998 season in March.

Houston Harris, who wrestled as Bobo Brazil and was famous for the “coco butt” in which he smashed his head into his opponent’s, died at 74 in St. Joseph, Mich.