Abound

As an NBA assistant coach since retiring after a Hall of Fame career, Patrick Ewing might have a better seat than many of his contemporaries to compare this year's U.S. Olympic men's basketball team to the fabled Dream Team of 20 years ago. Ewing was one of 11 Hall of Famers on that team and played in the shadow of Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and even Charles Barkley in Barcelona. But Ewing doesn't't think the current team led by LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Durant could compete for one simple reason.

For the better part of a decade, Jill Crowther-Peters has portrayed the widowed seamstress who stitched the Star-Spangled Banner, but on Thursday she had the chance to really feel what it was like to be her. Crowther-Peters, dressed as 19th-century flag maker Mary Pickersgill, stopped to savor the moment as she helped darn three threads from the original banner into a 30-foot American flag that flew over Ground Zero in New York after the Sept....

It's minicamp folks, not Armageddon. Because the NFL has become so 24/7, minicamps are given the same hype as training camp, which means teams are expected to re-invent themselves in that short, three-day window. If you subscribe to that theory, and there are many in town who do, I suggest taking a couple of deep breaths, count to 10 and repeat this three times: "It's only minicamp, it's only minicamp, it's only minicamp. ... " No team can solve all of its problems in a minicamp, which begins today for the Ravens.

In 2007, Steve Bisciotti made his first major decision as the majority owner of the Baltimore Ravens. He fired Brian Billick, in part because the team had just gone 5-11 to miss the playoffs for the third time in four years, but also because he wanted to change the entire culture of the organization. He wanted someone who possessed not only a first-rate football mind, but also someone who would deal with the players, the media, the community, the fans and the support staff differently.

If your next remodeling project includes Travertine floors in the bath or mosaic backsplashes for the kitchen, The Tile Shop has the stuff homeowners dream of, from grout to glass and everything in between. The Tile Shop, in the retail center at the intersection of Snowden River Parkway and Oakland Mills Road, is a 20,000-square-foot showroom filled with a wide variety of floor and wall tile options, along with coordinating trim pieces, stone vessel sinks, switchplate covers and fixtures.

After watching his New York Jets' offense get steam rolled in a 34-17 loss Sunday night, Rex Ryan paid the Ravens' defense the ultimate compliment, saying the group reminded him of the 2000 and 2006 units that he helped coach. The Ravens' 2000 defense set the NFL record for allowing the fewest points scored, and, of course, found Super Bowl glory. Their 2006 model finished the season as the league's No.1 ranked defense, a franchise first. The current unit must go a long way to garner such recognition, but the dizzying rate it is forcing turnovers and converting them into touchdowns has brought back pleasant memories of the defense's dominant past.

"When I grow up, I want to be a supply chain analyst. " You don't hear these words too often - but I'm hoping that changes fast. When I was a child, my siblings and I would sit around the kitchen table and tell our parents about the jobs we might hold as adults. My mother bought me a bag with bandages and a toy thermometer; I wanted to be a nurse. Radiologic technologist, debit card specialist and, yes, supply chain analyst just weren't common terms back then. But today these jobs - and thousands more - are providing opportunities and hope to people entering or re-entering the workforce.

When Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. won election as governor in 2002, he was faced with a tricky problem. He had campaigned on a pledge to build the long-delayed Intercounty Connector in suburban Washington. The highway project would cost a fortune, far more than the state could afford out of its Transportation Trust Fund, and the Republican Ehrlich had taken a hard line against new taxes. He had to come up with some way to pay the $2.6 billion it would eventually cost. The answer? He would make it a toll road.

Virginia vs Denver (Saturday, 4 p.m., ESPN2) There are only two things that can beat Denver: the humidity and the Pioneers themselves. History shows that experience matters. Only Princeton in 1992 was able to capture gold in its first championship weekend appearance. The coach: Bill Tierney. After building a dynasty in New Jersey, he is back in the final four with Denver, and people are comparing the Pioneers to that Princeton team of 1992, when the Tigers came from nowhere to win the NCAA title.

Firing Ozzie Guillen isn't going to fix what's wrong with the White Sox, not in 2011 and certainly not in future seasons. To sack him and leave general manager Ken Williams in charge would be a mistake, as Guillen consistently has found a way to stay competitive without the homegrown studs who ruled Comiskey Park when Ron Schueler was the GM. But there's no easier "fix" for a team than changing its manager, and in the Williams era...