BRIEFLY : WHISTLEBLOWER SUIT SETTLED.

A former University of Houston assistant football coach has settled a ``whistleblower'' lawsuit he filed against the school.

The amount of the agreement was not revealed, but a source told the Houston Chronicle that Steve Staggs recently rejected a $650,000 offer. The settlement came shortly before the case was to go to trial. The judge announced it as 100 prospective jurors awaited the start of proceedings.

Staggs, 36, was an assistant under former head coach John Jenkins. He was hired as a $40,000-a-year receivers coach on May 1, 1992. He said that almost immediately he began seeing NCAA rules violations. He also said that during his first month on the job he complained to Jenkins about what he viewed as summer-camp violations.

A grand jury indicted Pittsburgh Steelers running back Bam Morris on felony drug charges after authorities found marijuana and cocaine in his Mercedes-Benz. Morris was indicted on one count of possession of between 5 and 50 pounds of marijuana and one count of possession of between 1 and 4 grams of cocaine. Both charges are third-degree felonies punishable by 2 to 10 years in prison and a maximum $10,000 fine.

Dallas Cowboys star Michael Irvin and three others who were in a motel room where police found cocaine, marijuana and drug paraphernalia appeared before a grand jury in answer to subpoenas. Irvin, former Cowboys tight end Alfredo Roberts, Angela Beck and Jasmine Nabwangu were tight-lipped about the behind-closed-door proceedings with the panel investigating the events that led to Beck's arrest on drug charges.

BASEBALL Sore-armed right-hander Bill Swift was placed on the disabled list by the Colorado Rockies.When the team leaves camp on Thursday, Swift will remain in Arizona for extended spring training. Swift joined right-hander Bret Saberhagen and second baseman Eric Young on the DL.

That means the Rockies will open the season with at least $9,958,000 in salary on the disabled list, a sizable figure considering their entire payroll on Opening Day in their inaugural season of 1993 was $8.7 million.

BASKETBALL It's a Final Four with the same four as last year.

After thousands of regular-season games, a slew of conference tournaments and 60 NCAA Tournament games, the women's basketball season will end this weekend with a familiar Final Four.

Defending national champion Connecticut plays Tennessee and Georgia meets Stanford in the national semifinals Friday night at Charlotte, N.C., the only difference from 1995 being the way they are paired up.

A year ago in Minneapolis, Connecticut beat Stanford and Tennessee defeated Southeastern Conference rival Georgia before UConn prevailed in the finals 70-64.

Jimmy Collins, passed over for the Illinois coaching job when Lou Henson retired, is the new basketball coach at Illinois-Chicago. Collins, 48, replaces Bob Hallberg, whose record was 133-129 in nine years with Illinois-Chicago, including 10-18 last season. Hallberg was reassigned to an administrative job.

Center Darnell Robinson is giving up his final year of eligibility at Arkansas to enter the NBA draft. Robinson missed 13 games this year because of a broken bone in his foot, but averaged 12.7 points and seven rebounds per game. He was a co-captain on the Razorback team that finished 20-13 and advanced to the third round of the NCAA Tournament.

TENNIS Defending champion Andre Agassi reached the quarterfinals of the Lipton Championships in Key Biscayne, Fla., by beating Canadian Sebastien Lareau 6-4, 6-4.

Also advancing were unseeded Americans Vince Spadea and Michael Joyce, along with No. 4 Michael Chang, No. 6 Goran Ivanisevic, No. 7 Jim Courier and No. 15 Arnaud Boetsch. Stefan Edberg lost for the first time in 11 matches against Boetsch, 3-6, 6-4, 6-2. Chang took advantage of consecutive double faults in the next to last game by Petr Korda to win 6-3, 3-6, 6-3.

SWIMMING British swimmer Mark Foster set a world's best time for the 50 meters butterfly, clocking 24.07 seconds to shave a remarkable 0.2 off the old mark. In a specially arranged race against countrymen James Hickman and Jamie Salter, Foster, who also owns the short-course mark of 23.45, beat the time of Sweden's Jan Karlsson set in July 1994.

SOURCE: Daily News Wires

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Photo

Photo: Michael Chang returns the ball to Petr Korda duringthe Lipton Championships in Key Biscayne, Fla. Chang won to advance to the quarterfinals.

Associated Press