In Brief

football

Receiver Moss agrees to deal
after working out with 49ers

Wide receiver Randy Moss agreed to a one-year contract with the San Francisco 49ers on Monday. ESPN first reported the move, a day before the start of the free-agency period.

Moss, 35, worked out Monday with the 49ers -- with former NFL quarterback and current coach Jim Harbaugh participating. Moss, who worked out March 6 with the New Orleans Saints, spent a year out of football and last played for New England, Minnesota and Tennessee during a rocky 2010 season.

The 49ers also are working to re-sign quarterback Alex Smith, the No. 1 overall draft pick in 2005, and reportedly have made him a three-year offer.

Also: Free-agent quarterback Peyton Manning will visit the Tennessee Titans. ESPN.com first reported Titans coach Mike Munchak will meet with Manning after a session with Miami Dolphins coach Joe Philbin. Manning, who played at the University of Tennessee, already has visited the Denver Broncos and Arizona Cardinals after being released by the Indianapolis Colts last week.

The Pittsburgh Steelers tendered an offer to restricted free-agent wide receiver Mike Wallace, a Pro Bowl selection last season. The Steelers have the right to match any offer made to Wallace or would receive compensation if he signs with another team, probably a first-round draft pick.

The NCAA infractions committee hit North Carolina's football program with a one-year postseason ban, a reduction of 15 scholarships and three years of probation after an investigation into improper benefits and academic misconduct.

The committee said the school was responsible for multiple violations, including academic fraud and a failure to monitor its football program. It also issued a three-year show-cause penalty for former assistant coach John Blake, who had received personal loans from an NFL agent.

Penn State trustees, faced with continued alumni and student criticism for firing football coach Joe Paterno, released a statement intended to underscore their rationale for his ouster after a reported sex assault involving former assistant Jerry Sandusky.

The board found that while Paterno, who died in January after a brief battle with lung cancer, fulfilled a legal obligation to tell his superiors that an employee claimed Sandusky abused a young boy in a shower, it said Paterno should have done more. "We determined that his decision to do his minimum legal duty and not to do more to follow up constituted a failure of leadership by Coach Paterno," the trustees wrote.

miscellaneous

Concerned about permanent
injury, point guard Ford retires

San Antonio Spurs point guard T.J. Ford abruptly retired after the latest scare to his surgically repaired spine, which once sidelined him for an entire NBA season and hampered the dazzling promise that made him a college star at Texas.

Ford, 28, said that lying motionless March 7 on the court against the New York Knicks wasn't the first time it had happened, and he decided to walk away while he still had a chance. He was playing just his 14th game in an injury-prone season when Knicks guard Baron Davis elbowed him in the back, knocking him to the ground.

"If it's anybody else, it's just a regular play," Ford said. "But because of me and my condition, a simple elbow in the back has a different outcome than hitting someone else in the back."

For his career, Ford played in 429 games, averaging 11.2 points, 5.8 assists, 3.1 rebounds and 1.16 steals.

Also: Georgia Tech is reviewing the status of suspended basketball player Glen Rice Jr. after he and a graduate student manager were charged in a shooting incident outside an Atlanta nightclub shortly before the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament last week.

Rice, a 6-foot-5-inch junior guard and son of the former NBA star, already had been suspended from the team last month for an unspecified violation of team rules. He was Georgia Tech's leading scorer (13.0 points a game) and rebounder (6.7) this season.

Top-ranked Novak Djokovic defeated Kevin Anderson 6-2, 6-3 to reach the fourth round of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif., while Americans Mardy Fish and Andy Roddick were eliminated. Fish was beaten 6-3, 6-4 by qualifier Matthew Ebden of Australia, with Fish getting penalized for hindrance. Roddick lost to No. 7 Tomas Berdych 6-3, 4-6, 6-2 to fall to 5-5 this year.

On the women's side, No. 6 seed Sam Stosur lost to 30th-seeded Nadia Petrova 6-1, 6-7 (6), 7-6 (5) in a rematch of their three-set U.S. Open marathon last year that Stosur won on her way to claiming the title.

Dominican Republic prosecutors said Cleveland Indians pitcher Roberto Hernandez agreed to a deal to have false identity charges against him dropped in return for completing a work program in his Caribbean homeland. Formerly known as Fausto Carmona, Hernandez was placed on baseball's restricted list after he was arrested in the Dominican Republic last month. Authorities say he is 31, three years older than the pitcher claimed.