Brand

Basketball shoes sit toe to heel on the window ledge of Jon Epstein's office at Fila U.S.A. in Sparks, and portraits celebrate Fila-clad tennis stars and runners. But the more treacherous sport of mountain climbing dominates Epstein's thoughts as the new chief executive struggles to revive the athletic footwear and apparel company.Epstein draws inspiration from the first climber to scale Mount Everest without bottled oxygen, Fila endorser Reinhold Messner, he wages an uphill fight of another sort -- restoring the faded luster of the once-shining Fila brand.

Looking out over Midtown Manhattan from Fila's New York showroom, Jon Epstein sees opportunity. With smart positioning, Fila, the Italian athletic shoe and sports apparel brand long considered a poor stepchild in a world dominated by Nike and Adidas, can become a must-have for the hip, style-conscious types who fill Bryant Park below, making it one of the five top athletic brands worldwide, Epstein believes. "American ingenuity, American financing, American vision can really aid in turning this company from what was once just an Italian sport brand into a great global sport brand with an Italian heritage," said Epstein, chief executive of Sparks-based Sport Brands International, which acquired Fila from an Italian parent company for $351 million last month.

You could be forgiven for confusing the No. 1 song in the country this week with a commercial. But a commercial for what? After all, "Lean Back" by Terror Squad includes references to Rolls Royce's Phantom, the BMW 740, Gucci sweaters and a Gulfstream G4 jet. The No. 2 song on the charts, meanwhile, "Sunshine" by Lil' Flip, has enough car references to fill out a motorcade: Maybach, Chevy Impala and Bentley. That's a lot of name-dropping for any three-minute song. But it's not uncommon these days, as brand names from Cartier to Cool Whip find their way into hip-hop and pop songs.

If there hadn't been a Marilyn Monroe, we would have had to invent her. This maxim, posited by film critic Molly Haskell, plays off the pessimistic crack about religion: If it didn't exist, man would have invented it. And yet the notion of Monroe as a necessary part of our existence - as the celluloid version of universal truth, as D-cup deity, as peroxided opiate of the masses, as religion in Cinemascope - makes perfect sense. For Monroe is a brand. Forty years after her death - on Aug. 5, 1962 - Monroe is still Hollywood's most successful invention, its most instantly recognized product.

TJX Companies Inc. will close one A.J. Wright store in Baltimore as part of a plan to shutter the brand. The company – which also owns Marshalls, T.J. Maxx and HomeGoods – will shut down the store at the Meadows Park Shopping Center on Security Boulevard by mid-February. It is part of a plan to close 162 A.J. Wright stores across the country. Ninety stores will be converted to the other brands, while 71 will shut down entirely, the company said in a press release this morning.

With a little more than a minute to play in Morgan State's Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference opener against South Carolina State, Bears guard Sam Brand made a three-pointer from the top of the key. As he ran back down the court, the 6-foot-3, 200-pound senior from Poly let out a whoop and pumped his fist. Brand's shot gave the Bears a commanding six-point lead over the visiting Bulldogs. He added two free throws about a minute later as the Bears finished off South Carolina State, 85-80, in overtime last night at Hill Field House.

The Morgan State University men's basketball team is enjoying its first two-game winning streak of the season, and the Bears continue to be a tough out on their home court. Last night at Hill Field House, the Bears (5-11, 3-3 Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference) withstood a second-half rally by Florida A&M by dominating the final eight minutes behind guard Sam Brand and rolling to a 74-59 victory. Brand scored 12 of his game-high 19 points during a game-ending 18-6 run by Morgan State. The Bears are 13-3 at home from the start of last season.

Anitria Akins had always wanted a Lexus, and now she'll always have one. She named her 9-year-old daughter A'lexus after the popular car. "There were so many 'Alexises' out there, and I wanted something different," says Akins, a U.S. Postal Service supervisor in Atlanta. "I thought about naming her just 'Lexus,' but I wanted something that started with an A." Plenty of other people have been having the same idea. In 2000, there were 1,263 girls named Alexus whose parents registered them for Social Security numbers.

Morgan State survived a major test last night ... barely. In a position game for the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference tournament, the Bears knocked Delaware State out of second place, 75-74, despite some scary moments down the stretch, winning for the ninth time in 10 games at Hill Field House this season. Two free throws by Sam Brand (Poly) with 10.1 seconds remaining proved the decisive points for Morgan (11-13, 9-5), which then had to fend off a final Hornets' thrust abetted by a questionable foul call.

Less than two weeks after falling to Towson in double overtime in the consolation game of a tournament some 400 miles away, Morgan State didn't need to leave the comforts of home last night to find a measure of revenge against its cross-town rival. Sam Brand stole the ball from Tigers point guard Cantrell Fletcher with three seconds left, then made two free throws at the other end to seal a 54-51 win at Hill Field House. "We just knew we needed a stop ... it wasn't an option to lose this game," Brand said.