Kansas City, Mo. ? Kansas City Royals prospect Bubba Starling has been given a citation for underage drinking in Arizona.

The Royals said Wednesday that the 19-year-old Starling was cited during a random alcohol check after Saturday’s football game between Arizona State and Southern California in Tempe. He and two other prospects cited during the stop did not test over the legal limit for driving.

The other two people were not identified.

Starling picked a $7.5 million signing bonus with the Royals over a football scholarship to Nebraska. He is taking part in the Instructional League in the Phoenix area.

Royals general manager Dayton Moore said the team was disappointed in the players’ actions and would deal with the incident internally.

NBA

Key stretch in talks looms

New York — Regular-season games could be at stake when NBA owners and players meet this weekend.

And those might not be all that is lost, Commissioner David Stern warned, without real headway toward a new labor deal.

“All I’d say to that is that there are enormous consequences at play here on the basis of the weekend,” Stern said Wednesday. “Either we’ll make very good progress, and we know what that would mean — we know how good that would be, without putting dates to it — or we won’t make any progress and then it won’t be a question of just starting the season on time, it will be a lot at risk because of the absence of progress.”

Talks between negotiators ended after two days Wednesday so they could return home before summoning their respective bargaining committees to New York for the most important stretch of the lockout. They will meet Friday and are prepared to talk through the weekend if progress toward a new collective bargaining agreement is being made.

Colleges

NCAA prez: ‘It’s not a business’

Indianapolis — As a growing number of schools play musical chairs with conferences, NCAA President Mark Emmert says he is concerned about the perception that money is driving the decisions and declared “this is not the NFL, the NBA, it’s not a business.”

Instead, Emmert is urging school presidents to consider factors besides revenue when choosing conference affiliation.

“I think what came across (with realignment) is that all we care about is money and what we can do that is to our advantage,” Emmert said in an interview Wednesday with the Associated Press. “Nobody was talking about what this is going to do for student-athletes or intercollegiate athletic programs. It was all about let’s make a deal.”

NFL

Schottenheimer HOF candidate

Canton, Ohio — Retired coaches Bill Cowher, Bill Parcells and Marty Schottenheimer are among the modern-era candidates for the 2012 class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Cowher is eligible for the first time, as are players Keyshawn Johnson, Tiki Barber, Drew Bledsoe, Stephen Davis, Rod Smith, Will Shields, Troy Vincent and Mike Vanderjagt.

Parcells and Schottenheimer previously were eligible under different requirements.

In 2008, the Hall of Fame made it mandatory for coaches, like players, to be retired five consecutive seasons. Before that, coaches were eligible immediately upon retirement, allowing Parcells to be a nominee in 2001, 2002, and 2003, and Schottenheimer in 2000. This is their first year of eligibility under the new provision.

Altogether, 103 men are eligible; voting will take place in February the day before the Super Bowl in Indianapolis. From the original list of nominees, the selection committee will choose 25 semifinalists in November. That group of semifinalists will be further reduced by a mail ballot to 15 modern-era finalists and announced in early January.

Between four and seven enshrinees will be announced on Feb. 4, and will be inducted in August.

College Football

LSU charges reduced

Baton Rouge, La. — A grand jury reduced charges against Jordan Jefferson to a misdemeanor for his involvement in a bar fight, and the LSU quarterback’s suspension from the top-ranked Tigers was lifted soon after Wednesday night.

Jefferson, who testified before the grand jury, is now charged with simple battery and faces maximum penalties, if convicted, of up to six months in jail and fines up to $500.

Kill returns to Minnesota drills

Minneapolis — The occasional seizure and subsequent hospital stay apparently aren’t enough to keep Jerry Kill from his mission of turning around Minnesota’s moribund football program.

Kill returned to practice Wednesday, three days after checking into the Mayo Clinic to seek more treatment for seizures that have been plaguing him the last three weeks.

He said he plans to be on the sideline when the Golden Gophers (1-3) play at No. 19 Michigan on Saturday.