2 Hurt on Bronx-Whitestone Bridge

George Attwal

George Attwal was driving on the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge on Friday when the accident occurred in front of him. He took this photo from inside his car.

An M.T.A. construction truck struck an overhead road sign on the Queens-bound plaza of the Whitestone Bridge at 1:10 p.m. on Friday, causing the steel sign structure to come crashing down on all six lanes and injuring two people who were on the truck, according to M.T.A. Bridges and Tunnels. The accident, which did not injure other passengers, the agency said, forced the immediate closure of the bridge. Cars were being rerouted to the Throgs Neck or Robert F. Kennedy Bridges just before the onslaught of Friday afternoon traffic.

The boom truck was driven by Alpha Painting and Construction Company, a contractor for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority hired to paint the bridge’s Queens and Bronx towers, according to Judie Glave, a spokeswoman for the authority. Two men sustained minor injuries, one had a head injury and another had a fracture leg, and both were taken to New York Queens Hospital.

“Right now we have our maintenance crews out there, they have to cut the metal part of the sign and remove it,” Ms. Glave said. “The hope is to get it open by rush hour.” She admitted that might be difficult.

By early evening, crews for the M.T.A. were able to remove one piece of the fallen steel roadway sign on the southbound side of the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge, but the biggest piece is still hanging over the divider on the northbound, Ms. Glave said. At best, she said, “we hope to open the three southbound lanes by 7, but that’s not written in stone. They are working as hard as they can to try and get open as soon as possible.”

George Attwal, a witness who said he was driving his Volkswagen Passat two cars behind the truck, described it as a pickup truck, with a cranelike operator in its bed, perhaps used like a cherry-picker to fix things, he said.

“I guess he forgot to lower it and it hit the roadway sign,” Mr. Attwal, 23, of Flushing, Queens, said in a telephone interview. “It collapsed right in front of us and two people fell off. They were standing in the back of the pickup. On person fell off and he rolled onto the road itself.”

Mr. Attwal, who was returning from a business call in New Jersey and headed to Long Island, said the accident “all happened within two seconds.” The car in front of him slammed on its brakes, and he hit his brakes hard to avoid a collision.

He estimated that the truck was going 15 to 20 miles an hour, but questioned why the two people would be outside on the bed of the truck.

Ms. Glave said she had no information about where the passengers of the truck were at the time. As soon as officials arrived on the scene, they directed Mr. Attwal to turn around and take the Throgs Neck Bridge.

Ms. Glave said that the last time a bridge in the vicinity was closed, it was February. The Throgs Neck Bridge was shut down in both directions for 90 minutes due to high winds that overturned an empty tractor-trailer.

Donovan not a UK candidate; recruits react to news

Once again, Billy Donovan won't be accepting the vacant head coaching position at the University of Kentucky.

University of Florida spokesperson Fred Demerest told Florida Today, "Billy (Donovan) will not be a candidate for any job that comes open, I can confirm.”

The school is scheduled to release a statement later Friday.

In a statement from coach Billy Donovan, he said, “In response to the rumors circulating about my interest in other jobs, I wanted to address this as quickly as possible," Donovan said. "I am committed to the University of Florida and look forward to continuing to build our program here."

- In other news, the Louisville Courier-Journal reports that top Kentucky recruit Jon Hood is "heartbroken" over the news of Billy Gillispie's firing, but would wait to see who the school brings in before deciding whether to opt out of his national letter of intent.

- The Courier-Journal also talked to the father of G.J. Vilarino, a point guard from McKinney (Texas) and the first recruit that Gillispie signed with Kentucky.

Gerry Vilarino told the newspaper, “It’s a tough day for us because we have known those guys (the staff) for years and they’re like family. We’re hurting today and we feel for them. It’s a difficult day on that side of it.

“But from a basketball perspective – solely – G.J. has had his mind set for a long time. Based on our conversations, it’s going to be pretty hard for him to turn it off now and say he’s not going to Kentucky. He has everything ready to go.”

UConn Violated Recruiting Contact Rules

By LYNN ZINSER

University of Connecticut men’s basketball coaches broke N.C.A.A. contact rules in the recruiting of Nate Miles, a former player, according to a report by Yahoo Sports on Wednesday. The article drew on cellphone records to detail contact among Miles, UConn coaches and a former student manager.

Yahoo cited multiple sources in establishing a relationship between Miles and Josh Nochimson, who became an agent after his years as a UConn student manager. By N.C.A.A. rules, Yahoo reported, Nochimson would be a representative of the college’s athletic interests. Therefore, providing Miles with lodging, transportation and meals, which the report alleges, might be a serious violation.

UConn released a statement on Wednesday addressing the allegations and promising to look into the report’s details.

“The N.C.A.A.’s Eligibility Center reviewed all information that it had concerning the student-athlete’s eligibility status and determined that he was eligible for his freshman year,” the statement said. “The student-athlete departed from the university before ever participating in athletics competition.”

The controversy surrounds Miles, a 6-foot-7 swingman from Toledo, Ohio, who signed with UConn in 2007 and was expelled as a freshman in 2008 when he violated a restraining order obtained against him by a female student. Miles never played a game for UConn and played this season at the College of Southern Idaho, a junior college.

N.C.A.A. rules limit contact to one phone call a month to recruits (or their family or associates) still in their junior year of high school, but Yahoo reported a stream of communications with Nochimson and significant phone calls and texts to Miles himself. Tom Moore, a former UConn assistant coach, was reported to have made 27 calls to Miles’s guardian and a man Miles called his uncle as well as three calls to Miles in December 2006 alone.

“The university takes very seriously its responsibilities of N.C.A.A. membership and will do all that is expected to follow up on any information related to possible N.C.A.A. rules violations,” the college’s statement said.

The Yahoo article, by Adrian Wojnarowski and Dan Wetzel, includes cellphone records obtained by a Freedom of Information Act request.