COATESVILLE, Pa. — Lincoln University says it's opening a second campus in Chester County.

PHILADELPHIA — Philadelphia Eagles team president Joe Banner is stepping aside from the team's day-to-day operations and taking on an advisory role.

Banner will be succeeded as president by chief operating officer Don Smolenski. Both Banner and owner Jeffery Lurie said it was a mutual decision, disputing any suggestion that Banner was pushed out in a power struggle with general manager Howie Roseman and coach Andy Reid.

"It has been my privilege to work with Jeffrey Lurie over all these years," Banner said in a statement released Thursday. "Together we have built a talented front office team that is now ready to assume leadership of this extraordinary franchise. I plan to pursue a major new opportunity within the sports field — one that will enable me to apply all that I have learned as the Eagles president. I could never thank Jeff enough for the opportunity and support he has afforded me."

Banner has occupied a leadership role with the team since it was purchased in 1994 by Lurie, his longtime friend. He'll stay on as an adviser to Lurie.

"There is no better executive in sports than Joe Banner," Lurie said. "We are making this announcement today because he is looking for a greater challenge, and in Don Smolenski I have a highly regarded, very worthy successor as president of this team. Joe and I have achieved a great deal since I acquired the team. From building Lincoln Financial Field and the NovaCare Complex, to driving the work of the Eagles Youth Partnership and, of course, our successes on the field, Joe has been an integral part of everything we have done."

Smolenski joined the Eagles in 1998 as vice president and chief financial officer before being chosen chief operating officer in 2010. He was previously the CFO of the International Hockey League.

"Joe has been a great friend, teacher and mentor," Smolenski said. "His support and confidence have been instrumental to my growth and development in the organization. As the Eagles new president, I'm excited to build on the work we've done together over the years."

Banner was considered an expert in mastering the salary cap. But he often was the target of strong criticism by fans for some of his public comments. The Eagles reached the NFC championship game five times and the Super Bowl once during Banner's tenure, but the franchise hasn't won a title since 1960. -- (AP)

LeRoy Ellis, who played 14 years in the NBA after a standout career at St. John’s, had died of prostate cancer. He was 72.

St. John’s announced on Sunday that Ellis died Saturday in Portland, Ore., after a long battle with cancer.

Ellis was a native New Yorker, born in Brooklyn, and played at St. John’s from 1959 to 1962. He still holds the school single-season record for rebounding with an average of 16.5 in his junior year, and the record for most rebounds in a game with 30 against NYU on Dec. 30, 1961.

“For a big guy, he was awfully quick. You can never catch him,” St. John’s Hall of Fame coach Lou Carnesecca said. “He had a soft touch and was a good rebounder. He was a quiet guy, you never knew he was around. But when he was on the court, you always knew.”

He was drafted sixth overall by the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1962 draft.

Ellis appeared in 1,048 NBA games with the Lakers, Baltimore, Portland and Philadelphia. He posted career averages of 9.7 points and 8.3 rebounds, and was a member of Los Angeles’ 1972 championship team.

He was a member of the Portland Trail Blazers in their first season in 1970–71 and led the team in rebounds (12.3) and ranked third in scoring (15.9). It was his only season in Portland.

“LeRoy Ellis was a very important member of the first Trail Blazers team and was a very high-class individual,” said Trail Blazers Founder and President Emeritus Harry Glickman. “We extend our deepest sympathy to his family.” — (AP)

NEWARK, N.J. — Newark Mayor Cory Booker's communications director has resigned.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Retired Lt. Cmdr. Wesley Brown, the first African American to graduate from the U.S. Naval Academy, has died, the Academy said. He was 85.

The Capital of Annapolis reported that Brown died Tuesday May 22. An Academy spokesman did not know where Brown died and a cause of death was not immediately known Wednesday.

Brown, a 1949 graduate, was appointed to the Academy in 1945. He was the sixth Black admitted but the first to earn a degree.

Brown “embodied the highest ideals of the Academy’s mission and dedicated himself to decades of selfless and distinguished service to our nation,” Vice Admiral Michael H. Miller, the Naval Academy’s superintendent, said in a statement.

At the Naval Academy, Brown ran varsity track and cross country, and was a cross-country teammate of former President Jimmy Carter. A 1995 interview on Brown by The Baltimore Sun noted a framed 1989 letter from his fellow track team member, who would stop by to talk to him and encouraged him to “hang in there.”

“I ran with you (you were better). Jimmy Carter,” the letter read.

Brown spent his four years at the academy without a roommate by choice, he recalled in a 2005 interview with The Capital. He said he didn’t want to feel responsible for unwilling or friendly white midshipmen.

He was featured in the book, “Breaking the Color Barrier: The U.S. Naval Academy’s First Black Midshipmen and the Struggle for Racial Equality” by Navy historian Robert J. Schneller Jr. The author said in a 2005 interview that upperclassmen would give Brown excessive demerits for allegedly not maintaining his uniform properly and some classmates would not sit next to him in the cafeteria.

He told The Baltimore Sun in a 2005 interview that he learned to not be frustrated when faced with a situation that couldn’t be changed.

“When I came to the academy, I learned that there were all kinds of prejudices — against Jews, Catholics, even the Irish — and I looked around and thought that these prejudices were instilled in them by their families and they could not be blamed for feeling the way they did,” he said.

Brown, a veteran of World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, had a 20-year career with the Navy. He helped build houses in Hawaii, roads in Liberia, waterfront facilities in the Philippines, and a seawater conversion plant in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

He retired from civilian employment at Howard University in 1988.

In 2008, the Naval Academy constructed the Wesley Brown Field House to accommodate physical education classes as well as the academy’s athletic programs.

“I believe this is symbolic,” Brown told The Baltimore Sun that year. “Some of the Navy policies, procedures in the past, have not been the kind that African Americans were in favor of. And I think this indicates their dedication to diversity in general.” — (AP)