Sports

Duke is leading the Atlantic Coast Conference in a statistic not frequently reported in the sports pages. The Blue Devils topped the league in the percentage of student-athletes who graduated in 6 years.

97 percent of the student-athletes who came to Duke in 2004 graduated by 2010. That ties Boston College for the best rate in the ACC. The NCAA graduation rate does not take into account student-athletes who leave school in good academic standing.

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro is hosting a national conference on girls and women in sports.

The three day event will feature speakers from around the country. Presenters will discuss practices for encouraging girls to be physically active, myths about muscles and strength for females in sports, and the role of nutrition before and after physical activity.

The Carolina Hurricanes have extended the contract of General Manager Jim Rutherford. Rutherford is the only G-M the franchise has had since moving to North Carolina 14 years ago.

The tenure of many professional sports general managers can be measured in months. But Rutherford has been at the helm of the franchise for 18 years – the second longest tenure in the National Hockey League.

In that time, the Hurricanes have a winning record overall, have hosted an NHL All-Star game, and won a Stanley Cup in 2006.

North Carolina will vacate all 16 victories from the 2008 and 2009 football seasons following an NCAA investigation into improper benefits and academic misconduct. The university issued a response Monday to the NCAA's notice of allegations. It says three scholarships will be cut for the next three years and the football program will be on probation for the next two years as part of self-imposed penalties. UNC will pay a $50,000 fine, but did not impose a postseason ban. The school still has to appear before the NCAA infractions committee in October.

Pittsburgh and Syracuse are joining the Atlantic Coast Conference. The ACC announced yesterday it's council of presidents unanimously voted to accept the two Big East schools, expanding the conference to 14 universities. ACC commissioner John Swofford says the council started exploring the idea of expansion more than a year ago.

John Swofford: "We had had, I'll just say, a double-digit number of schools that had reached out to us. What we try to look at is to try to ensure the conference's viability for years to come and our strength moving forward."