Fired Briles says he's scapegoat

Fired Baylor football coach Art Briles ripped his former employer Thursday, accusing the school of wrongful termination and indicating he has no interest in settling a federal lawsuit filed against him and the university by a woman who was raped by a Bears football player.

In a motion filed Thursday as part of the lawsuit, Briles said he wants new attorneys separate from the school, and his personal attorney said Baylor was using Briles as a scapegoat for its failings in handling allegations of sexual assault.

"The conclusion is inescapable that the motive of Baylor and the Board of Regents was to use its head football coach and the Baylor athletic department as a camouflage to disguise and distract from its own institutional failure to comply" with federal civil rights protections, Briles lawyer Ernest Cannon wrote to Baylor's attorneys in the latest development in a scandal that has gripped the world's largest Baptist university for months.

Cannon also demanded Baylor "immediately turn over to me the entire contents of each and every one of their litigation files" — including information given to the Pepper Hamilton law firm that investigated Baylor's response to assault allegations in recent years. Baylor officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Briles had been mostly silent since he was fired May 26, but the brass-knuckles response from the 60-year-old suggests he is willing to fight over his dismissal.

Two years after Dustin Brown accepted the Stanley Cup from NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman for the second time, the longtime Los Angeles Kings captain lost the job.

The Kings named Anze Kopitar their captain, restructuring their leadership after a second straight early summer.

Brown had been captain for eight seasons since 2008, and the hard-hitting American center led the franchise to its only NHL titles in 2012 and 2014. But Brown's production has dipped alarmingly since that first Cup, as the 31-year-old has failed to score 30 points in any of the past four seasons.

Kopitar, 28, is the Kings' first-line center and their leading scorer for nine consecutive seasons.

Brown is signed through 2022, Kopitar through 2024.

• Arizona acquired negotiating rights to pending free-agent defenseman Alex Goligoski from Dallas for a fifth-round draft choice. The Coyotes can negotiate with him until July 1. If a contract isn't reached, the 30-year-old former Gopher would become an unrestricted free agent.

• Carolina announced it signed goaltender Cam Ward to a two-year, $6.6 million contract extension that eanbled him to avoid free agency.

Golf: Defending champion Lexi Thompson shot a 6-under-par 65 for a share of the Meijer LPGA Classic lead in Belmont, Mich., with Laura Davies, Sei Young Kim, Carlota Ciganda and Paula Reto. At 21, Thompson is less than half the age of the 52-year-old Davies.

NFL: Carolina signed Ron Rivera to a one-year contract extension that will keep the two-time NFL Coach of the Year with the Panthers through the 2018 season. Financial terms were not released. … Chicago signed tight end Tony Moeaki and defensive lineman Marquis Jackson. Moeaki, who has battled knee issues in the past few years, got off to a fast start for Kansas City after being drafted in the third round in 2010.

Track and field: The IAAF dismissed allegations that Sebastian Coe, the organization's president, was aware of details of a Russian doping corruption case four months before it became public, or that he enlisted support for his presidential campaign from a key figure in the sport's current doping scandal. … Kendra Harrison continued her impressive run of form in Stockholm, leading an American 1-2-3 in the 100 meter hurdles at the Diamond League event.