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Ex-Buc Sapp On This Season's 'Dancing With The Stars'

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TBO.com

Published: August 25, 2008

Updated: 08/25/2008 11:15 am

Warren Sapp, the outspoken tackle who anchored the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' defensive line for nine years, will be among the celebrities competing on this season's "Dancing With the Stars" on ABC.

Warren Sapp, who retired from pro football after last season, played with the Bucs from 1995 to 2003 before finishing his career with the Oakland Raiders. He will be paired with dancer Kym Johnson, who is in her fifth season on the show.

He'll be joined this season by two Olympic athletes: Misty May-Treanor, who won her second gold medal for beach volleyball at this year's summer games in Beijing, and Maurice Greene, who won two gold medals in track at the 2000 games in Sydney.

Actress Susan Lucci and singers Toni Braxton and Lance Bass are also among the 13 celebrities slated to compete when the new season of the top-rated dance contest premieres at 8 p.m. Sept. 22.

The other contestants are actress Cloris Leachman, actress-model and reality TV star Kim Kardashian, actor Ted McGinley, model-actress Brooke Burke, chef Rocco DiSpirito, Cody Linley of "Hannah Montana" and comedian Jeffrey Ross.

Kardashian, who co-stars with her family on the E! reality series "Keeping Up With the Kardashians," checked into a New York City hospital Sunday after cutting her foot on a glass table in her hotel room.

"I will be able to dance. I went to the hospital. I'll be fine," she said in a phone call to "GMA."

Sapp, a Florida native who lives in the Orlando area, is following in the footsteps of other former NFL players Jason Taylor, Emmitt Smith and Jerry Rice to be on the ABC show.

Sapp's 96.5 career sacks are the second-highest career total sacks for a defensive tackle in the NFL. He was named the NFL Defensive Player of the Year in 1999, played in seven consecutive Pro Bowls and won Super Bowl XXXVII with the Bucs in 2002-03. He was an All-American at the University of Miami before Tampa Bay selected him the first round of the 1995 NFL draft.

This fall, Sapp will co-host Showtime's "Inside the NFL" and will be a studio analyst and game commentator for the NFL Network.

The other pairings for this season are: Linley and Julianee Hough, Braxton and Alec Mazo, Bass and Lacey Schwimmer, McGinley and Inna Brayer, Leachman and Corky Ballas, DeSpirito and Karina Smirnoff, Kardashian and Mark Ballas, Green and Cheryl Burke, May-Treanor and Maksim Chmerkovskiy, Lucci and Tony Dovolani, Ross and Edyta Sliwinska, and Burke and Derek Hough.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

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