From The Associated Press

LUBBOCK, Texas — Bob Knight left when he wanted to this time.

Almost a decade after he was fired by Indiana, the school he led to three national championships, Knight walked away Monday from college basketball in midseason.

The Texas Tech coach, known as much for his brilliance as his fiery temper, abruptly resigned and handed over the team to his son.

“He’s ready,” successor and son Pat Knight said during his weekly radio show. “He’s tired.”

It was a stunning midseason move by the winningest men’s coach in major college basketball, who gave no hint a change was coming. Pat Knight, a Red Raiders assistant, was appointed his father’s successor in 2005.

“There’s a transition that’s going to take place here from me to Pat and I’ve dwelt on this all year long ... how it would be best for him and for the team and for what we can do in the long run to make this the best thing for Texas Tech,” Knight told the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, which first reported the resignation.

The 67-year-old Knight informed Texas Tech athletic director Gerald Myers of his decision in a meeting around noon Monday, Texas Tech chancellor Kent Hance told The Associated Press. Knight then called Hance and told him.

“I think Bob is through with coaching. I think he got to the point where it wasn’t fun for him,” Hance said. “He thought about it Sunday all day and talked to his wife and decided ’This is something I want to do.”’

Myers said Knight told the team before practice Monday.

The Red Raiders beat Oklahoma State 67-60 on Saturday, giving Knight his 902nd victory. He earned his 900th last month against Texas A&M.

The Red Raiders (12-8) next play Wednesday night at Baylor.

Knight has been a college coach for 42 seasons. He broke in at Army in 1965, but made his mark in 29 years at Indiana, including a perfect season in 1976 that hasn’t been duplicated.

In September, Knight signed a three-year contract extension that ran through the 2011-12 season. In Knight’s first six years at Tech, he led the Red Raiders to five 20-win seasons, a first at the school.

• Vitale to call first game in more than two months after surgery

Say something. Anything. Just do the very thing that made him famous. But Dick Vitale couldn’t. Tears welled up in his eyes as he imagined his beloved career crashing to an end. Then the doctor suggested he count to 10. And with the simplest of words, Vitale heard his own voice again for the first time in weeks.

ESPN’s hyperkinetic college basketball announcer will call his first game in more than two months Wednesday after recovering from throat surgery. It was the cruelest of ailments for the man who yelled his way to becoming a household name. His treatment? A ban on speaking.

“There was a moment there I thought I’d never be behind a microphone again,” Vitale said Monday on a conference call, sounding a bit subdued but very much like himself.

Told he could return to the air in early February, Vitale checked the schedule and found some serendipitous timing: He could make his comeback on the biggest of stages, the Duke-North Carolina game.

Vitale wasn’t allowed to utter a word between his Dec. 18 surgery and a Jan. 13 doctor’s appointment. And when he got the long-awaited go-ahead, he opened his mouth and nothing came out.

Viewers might not have noticed anything the last few years, but the 68-year-old Vitale conceded he was “bluffing” his way through games. He was always hoarse; his throat was constantly sore. Vitale is working with a voice coach to learn to speak more from his diaphragm.

Women’s Soccer

• NBA star looks to bring money, attention to new league

SAN FRANCISCO — All-Star Steve Nash is known on the basketball court for peerless vision that allows him to see plays before they develop.

Off the court, Nash is visualizing the success of the Women’s Professional Soccer league more than a year before it starts. He’s becoming an investor and part owner of the new venture.

“I look at my childhood and realize how many athletes I had to look up to,” Nash said in a phone interview. “I look at the opportunity to put some of these wonderfully talented athletes who are dedicated and committed and put them in a setting to inspire a whole generation below them.”

The deal to bring on Nash and Jeff Mallett, a former president and chief operating officer at Yahoo Inc., as investors for the eight-team league was to be formally announced Tuesday by the San Francisco-based league.

Before Nash became a two-time NBA MVP, he won the British Columbia soccer MVP award while in high school. His college days were spent at longtime women’s soccer power Santa Clara.

Nash comes from a soccer family. His father, John, played professionally in South Africa, and his sister, Joann, was the captain of the University of Victoria soccer team. His brother, Martin, plays professionally for the USL First Division’s Vancouver Whitecaps.

As the father of 3-year-old twin girls, Nash wants to help the growth of women’s soccer in his adopted country. The investment from Nash and Mallett will fund the ongoing development of the league and is specifically earmarked for new media ventures and initiatives.

Women’s Professional Soccer plans to debut in spring 2009 with teams expected in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New Jersey/New York, St. Louis and Washington. The league looks to add an eighth team before the launch, with possibilities including the San Francisco Bay area, Cary, N.C., Philadelphia and Vancouver, British Columbia.

Commissioner Tonya Antonucci said she hopes having a “quintessential soccer dad” such as Nash will help attract other fathers to follow the league.

“Having Steve Nash involved is tremendous for our league given the cachet that comes with such an accomplished professional athlete,” Antonucci said. “Steve brings such a passion for the game. By endorsing us and putting his money in our league, it shows he believes in the promise of what we’re doing. He wants to get involved beyond just investing. He wants to make sure this launch is a successful one.”

Tennis

• Rookie rallies to clinch Fed Cup quarterfinals for U.S. team

SAN DIEGO — Move over, Lindsay Davenport, and make room for another star on the U.S. Fed Cup team. Shaking off nerves, 22-year-old Fed Cup rookie Ashley Harkleroad rallied from a 4-1 deficit in the second set to beat Germany’s Sabine Lisicki 6-4, 7-5 on a picture-perfect Southern California day to clinch the quarterfinal match on Monday.

Harkleroad’s victory followed Davenport’s 6-1, 6-2 win over 19-year-old Julia Goerges in reverse singles, sending the United States into a World Group road semifinal in April against defending Fed Cup champion Russia, which most likely will be led by Maria Sharapova.

The United States finished 4-1 against Germany after Davenport and Lisa Raymond won the doubles 6-2, 6-0 over Tatjana Malek and Anna-Lena Groenefeld.

Despite getting the Americans into the next round with two singles victories, Harkleroad might not make the cut for the semifinal if team captain Zina Garrison can get either Venus or Serena Williams — or both — to commit.

The Americans haven’t won the Fed Cup since 2000. They lost to Russia in the World Group semifinals in both 2005 and ’07.

NFL

• Vermeil: Spying wouldn’t have helped Pats in ’02 Super Bowl

ST. LOUIS — Dick Vermeil, who coached the St. Louis Rams to their first Super Bowl championship in 2000, doubts dirty tricks prevented the franchise from winning it all again under Mike Martz in 2002.

In a telephone interview with The Associated Press from his home near Philadelphia, Vermeil — a Calistoga native — said Monday night that players win games, not schemes. He used the New York Giants’ 17-14 upset over New England on Super Bowl Sunday as an example.

“How was that game decided? By a receiver catching a ball on the top of his helmet,” Vermeil said.

The Boston Herald, citing an unidentified source, reported Saturday that a member of the Patriots’ video staff taped the Rams final walkthrough before the ’02 Super Bowl. The Patriots were two-touchdown underdogs but beat the Rams 20-17 for their first title.

Others with connections to that game were keeping a low profile. Team president John Shaw issued his second no-comment through a spokesman on Monday and the agent for quarterback Kurt Warner, Mark Bartelstein, said his client didn’t want to get involved “until things are flushed out.” The agents for Marshall Faulk and Torry Holt did not return telephone messages.

Vermeil briefly retired after the Rams beat the Tennessee Titans in the 2000 Super Bowl and handed the job over to Martz, his offensive coordinator. The 71-year-old Vermeil thought such spying would be of limited value.