SANTA BARBARA, Calif. —  Tennis great Jimmy Connors has been charged with a misdemeanor for an altercation last week before a basketball game between UC Santa Barbara and top-ranked North Carolina.

Connors, an eight-time Grand Slam champion, was charged Wednesday in Santa Barbara Superior Court with disrupting campus activities and refusing to leave a university facility.

His business manager, Karen Scott, says a man tried to pick a fight with Connors and his son before Friday night's game and police asked him to leave. Scott says Connors was arrested after he said he wanted to wait for his son to finish watching the game.

She says he was "extremely disappointed and embarrassed" about the incident.

Connors was ranked No. 1 for five consecutive years in the 1970s, and had a fiery temperament on the court. Earlier this year, he resigned as Andy Roddick's coach after working together for nearly two years.

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