Bernard Hopkins

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. -- On the night of April 29, 1995, at USAir Arena, Bernard Hopkins, who had won the International Boxing Federation middleweight title an hour earlier, took a seat at ringside to watch the welterweight-championship showdown between Baltimore's Vincent Pettway and challenger Simon Brown of Mount Airy.Hopkins was as shocked as anyone when a bristling left hook by Pettway in the sixth round left Brown twitching on the canvas, his arms flaring out by reflex in a frightening tableau.

St. Frances' Shawn Hampton will sign a national letter of intent for a full scholarship with Virginia Commonwealth University today.The national letter of intent signing period for high school seniors or junior college players who plan to accept scholarships to play basketball at Division I schools begins today and runs through May 15.Hampton, 6 feet 8, earned All-Metro honors the past two seasons. Last season he averaged 20.5 points, 10.0 rebounds and 5.0 blocks, earning Catholic League Player of the Year honors and leading the Panthers to their fourth consecutive regular-season title.

It takes a nice-sized person to eclipse St. Frances All-Metro forward Shawn Hampton, a sinewy 6 feet 8 and 215 pounds.Yet after almost every game -- "especially the big ones," said Hampton's senior teammate, David Manigault -- Hampton always finds himself in the shadow of his 6-5 former teammate Mark Karcher."

Senior forward Bernard Hopkins (Overlea), who had 16 double doubles in 29 games for Virginia Commonwealth, was voted Colonial Athletic Association men's basketball Player of the Year, the league announced yesterday.Hopkins is first in the conference in rebounding (10.3 a game), third in field-goal accuracy (.566) and fourth in scoring (16.3 points a game). He is the first CAA player to get 400 points (473), 300 rebounds (300), 50 assists (64) and shooting 50 percent from the field in a season.

Reading Time: Two Minutes.Certainly one of the best highlight package inclusions of the NBA season occurred when, on a defensive switch, Charlotte's Muggsy Bogues ended up with the responsibility of guarding Washington's Gheorghe Muresan, who went right to the hoop and pushed it down through. For the uninitiated, Muresan (7 feet 7) holds a 28-inch height advantage over Bogues (5-3) and, when they extend their arms upward, it increases to about four feet.On the other hand, picture Big Gheorghe hawking Muggsy in the open court.

The TV Repairman:Flash! Julio Cesar Chavez's pay-per-view light-welterweight title defense against Andy Holligan Dec. 11 has been moved from Las Vegas to Pueblo, Mexico. See, Ross Perot was right.* The wit and wisdom of Peter Vecsey, known far and wide as "The Insider" on NBC's telecasts of the NBA, has found new territory, the USA Today columnist picking up a show on ESPN Radio Sundays from 9-10 p.m. Just a couple more weekly assignments and he'll be close to matching Larry King's on-air hours.

WASHINGTON -- Ask Philadelphia middleweight Bernard Hopkins a question about his past, and he gives you his life story -- a sordid history of crime, drugs and four years in a state penitentiary for armed robbery."

WASHINGTON -- Ask Philadelphia middleweight Bernard Hopkins a question about his past, and he gives you his life story -- a sordid history of crime, drugs and four years in a state penitentiary for armed robbery."

For some high school seniors, who to ask to the senior prom is their toughest decision of the year. For Bernard Hopkins, life should be so simple.He's like the guy who finds himself with two dates at the prom and doesn't know who to dance with. You're supposed to "dance with the one that brung you," but the Overlea senior can't decide which one that is. Hopkins is a 6-foot-6, 215-pound All-Metro tight end in football and a likely candidate for similar honors in basketball, currently averaging 28 points and 15.2 rebounds for the 5-0 Falcons.

Wilde Lake caught unbeaten Overlea without top gun Bernard Hopkins (ankle injury), but it took some late heroics from Joey Guyton (22 points) to hold off the Falcons, 80-77, in the state Class 2A/Region II semifinals yesterday.Guyton, who has signed to play football for Delaware, scored six straight points after Overlea had trimmed a 21-point lead to six in the fourth period."It has been like this all year, but somehow we manage to pull it out," said Guyton, a defensive back for the state Class 2A football champions last fall.

Trying to write this week's sports media notes while our new kitten keeps walking across the keyboard, annoying me because what she's typing is better than anything I come up with: * There has been some fascinating buzz around the Brett Favre-Detroit Lions story this week. In the wake of Sunday's report by Fox's Jay Glazer that Favre volunteered to spill a caseload of beans about the Green Bay Packers' offense just before his former team played the Lions, we heard a via-text denial on NBC that night as passed through Sports Illustrated's Peter King.

For the nearly 20 months since losing to Bernard Hopkins, Oscar De La Hoya has enjoyed the life of a man whose ring earnings have surpassed $100 million. Teaming with Hopkins, the former eight-belt world champion has launched Golden Boy Promotions, enlisting names such as Marco Antonio Barrera and Shane Mosley into the stable of fighters he now promotes. And with his wife, Millie, a former Puerto Rican singer, De La Hoya has a 4-month-old son. "Life has been awesome," De La Hoya told Jay Leno during a Monday interview on The Tonight Show, when he also shared that his son kept him up "for all but two hours" the night before, that changing dirty diapers can be a hassle, and that Millie's shedding of ringside tears at tense moments "can be a distraction."

LAS VEGAS - When undisputed middleweight champion Bernard Hopkins stares across the ring at Jermain Taylor tonight, he said he won't just see the face of the young, former Olympian, but also that of Lou DiBella. DiBella, once Hopkins' promoter, now is serving the same role for Taylor. The acrimonious separation of Hopkins and DiBella ended with the latter winning a $610,000 libel suit, a settlement Hopkins said will make Taylor "a whipping boy for my controlled frustrations." Hopkins has appealed the decision.

In a Philadelphia recreation center last August, undisputed middleweight world champion Bernard Hopkins reminisced while reading a story about him first winning the title in Landover on April 29, 1995. The story recalled former world champs Joe Frazier and Michael Spinks leading Hopkins into the ring at USAir Arena before he knocked out Segundo Mercado for the International Boxing Federation crown. Tonight, he'll try to defend his title for the 20th consecutive time, at Los Angeles' Staples Center.

LAS VEGAS - Undisputed middleweight champion Bernard Hopkins leaped onto the ring ropes, then did a goofy forward roll on the ring floor - even as Oscar De La Hoya flopped around on the canvas gasping for air like a goldfish out of his bowl from Hopkins' piercing left hook to the liver. De La Hoya failed to beat the 10 count of referee Kenny Bayless, giving Hopkins a ninth-round knockout Saturday night at the MGM Grand over a man who never before had been stopped in a bout. "It just paralyzes you," said De La Hoya, 31. "You can't do anything about it. You lose your breath.

Late fight: Last night's middleweight title bout between Oscar De La Hoya and Bernard Hopkins ended too late to be included in this edition. A complete report can be found in later editions or on the Internet at www.baltimoresun.com. LAS VEGAS - Oscar De La Hoya still was scheduled to fight Bernard Hopkins last night, despite an incident Wednesday night in which a trainer's scissors gouged a cut just above the palm of De La Hoya's oft-injured left hand following a workout. The injury, initially reported by the Las Vegas Review Journal yesterday, was made known to Nevada Athletic Commission chairman Marc Ratner following Friday's weigh-in at the MGM Grand Arena because De La Hoya is taking pain killers that might appear in his post-fight urinalysis.

LAS VEGAS - Sugar Ray Leonard emerged from a three-year retirement to dethrone undisputed middleweight champion Marvelous Marvin Hagler in 1987 by tying up and frustrating Hagler as well as flurrying punches to steal rounds and win fans and ringside judges. Leonard and experts such as Bert Sugar believe Oscar De La Hoya (37-3, 29 knockouts) can use a similar strategy to achieve as monumental an upset over Bernard Hopkins (44-2-1, 31 KOs) tonight before an expected sellout at the MGM Grand's 17,005-seat arena.

LAS VEGAS - Oscar De La Hoya can expect the biggest payday of his career for tomorrow night's fight against Bernard Hopkins, but De La Hoya already is wealthy. What De La Hoya really wants is to enrich his legacy. He sees the fight as a means of silencing critics who are skeptical of his heart, his stamina and his place among boxing's all-time greats. "It doesn't get any bigger than this - fighting for the undisputed middleweight crown against the best fighter out there who hasn't lost in [11]

PHILADELPHIA - Less than two months ago, Philadelphia staged Bernard Hopkins Day. Saturday in Las Vegas, it could be Bernard Hopkins' night. Philadelphia was celebrating Hopkins' boxing achievements, for having given the city a middleweight champion. The honor came as Hopkins prepared for the biggest fight of his career. On Saturday, Hopkins puts his three world titles - International Boxing Federation, World Boxing Association and World Boxing Council - on the line against Oscar De La Hoya.

Olympic gold medalist Andre Ward said last night that he has signed a professional contract with James Prince for an unspecified bonus at the manager's home in Houston. Ward, a deeply religious 20-year-old from Oakland Calif., defeated Magomed Aripgadjiev of Belarus, 20-13, in their light heavyweight bout in Athens last weekend. Ward had been in Houston since Monday with Prince. Last night's meeting lasted an hour before Ward signed, "but the decision was made a long time ago," said the fighter, whom Prince said he has been pursuing "for about three years."