Athletes

BOYS Lance Fuller Woodlawn, basketball In three Woodlawn victories last week, Fuller, a 5-foot-11 senior guard, totaled 59 points, 12 rebounds, 17 assists and 10 steals. In the No. 12 Warriors' 71-61 victory over Baltimore County rival Randallstown on Wednesday, he scored 21 points to go along with five rebounds, six assists and four steals in helping Woodlawn to its first win over the Rams in five seasons. Friday against Kenwood, Fuller, a second-year player for Woodlawn after transferring from Cardinal Gibbons, had 17 points, four rebounds, four assists and three steals in a 57-33 win. On Saturday vs. Archbishop Carroll (D.C.

Helen Delich Bentley is right on point in criticizing the omission of Tom Matte from The Sun's historical list of outstanding Maryland athletes ("Tom Matte deserves spot on greatest list," May 15). Anyone who's old enough to remember the Baltimore Colts' surprisingly successful season of 1965 despite injuries to Johnny Unitas and backup quarterback Gary Cuozzo recalls what it was like to root for an underdog team whose unlikely substitute quarterback, Mr. Matte, stepped up and led his teammates to victory in late-season games with plays that had to be written on his wrists.

I would like to mention two athletes who should have been included in Mike Klingaman 's list of Maryland's 175 top athletes ("The top 175," May 17). The first is Bill "Swish" Nicholson, born, raised, and died in Chestertown. He went to Washington College and then played one year with the Philadelphia Athletics, 10 years with the Chicago Cubs and five years with the Phillies. In 1943, he led the National League in home runs (29), RBIs (128) and was third in Most Valuable Player votes.

Congrats to Mike Klingaman and staff at The Sun for the job they did in compiling the top 175 greatest athletes in Maryland history. I noticed several glaring omissions, however. Y.A. Tittleplayed two years for the All-American Football Conference Baltimore Colts, and one year for the NFL Colts, at the beginning of a career which would eventually earn him induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The stats and honors he compiled completely dwarf those of Bert Jones, who the Sun charitably ranked at number 34. Yet somehow Mr. Tittle was forgotten.

Varsity Trio of athletes win Brian Piccolo Memorial Award Erika Armetta (Bel Air), Anna Marie Liberatore (IND), and Katelin Mozingo (Fallston) each received the Brian Piccolo Memorial Award from the Northern Chesapeake Chapter of UNICO, an Italian-American service organization that awards scholarships, provides grants for research and supports charities. The awards are given to high school students of Italian heritage who exemplify the character traits of Piccolo, the Wake Forest and Chicago Bears running back who died of cancer in 1970 at age 26 and whose life was the subject of the 1971 film "Brian's Song.

It has become part of college sports -- as ingrained as dunks and FieldTurf -- for large universities to accept prized basketball and football recruits and other athletes under more forgiving admissions criteria than are used for other students. Less understood is what happens to these top athletes once they arrive in their college classrooms. Do their grades ever catch up to those of their teammates or the rest of the student body? Do they remain in school and graduate? Interviews and documents, obtained by The Baltimore Sun through more than a dozen public records requests, offer a rare profile of hundreds of these athletes and show that the "special admits" typically have not performed as well as other players in the classroom and pose unique and expensive academic challenges at the University of Maryland, North Carolina State, Georgia Tech and other schools.