Coaches And Players

1. Aberdeen Eagles2. Bel Air Bobcats3. C. Milton Wright Mustangs4. Edgewood Rams5. Fallston Cougars6. Havre De Grace Warriors7. John Carroll Patriots8. Joppatowne Mariners9. North Harford Hawks

Off to a 5-0 start, Maryland is the unanimous top-ranked team in Division I, leads the nation in offense with an average of 16 goals, and trails only Hofstra as the stingiest defense in the country after allowing just 6.8 goals per game . But this season's success - which includes a 12-10 defeat of reigning national champion Loyola, which knocked off the Terps in last year's NCAA tournament final - could worm its way into the players' egos,...

Before the first jump ball of the 1990-91 high school basketball season, there was controversy.* In the Maryland Scholastic Association:Former Lake Clifton coach Woody Williams, who became athletic director at Mervo this fall, replaced John Blake as basketball coach, but, within two weeks, Blake had filed a grievance and gotten his jobback.Two former Southwestern players have been unable to get waivers from the school to play at their new schools. Eddie Rivers, a 6-foot-3 senior guard, is hoping to play at Edmondson, and Shamar Bass, a 6-2 junior guard, wants to play at Walbrook.

Thanks for Kevin Cowherd 's recent column on Cam Cameron ("Finishing just shy of Super Bowl is no reason to can Cameron," Jan. 27). Every week our family looked forward to watching the Ravens. Their fantastic playing was due to teamwork among the coaches and players. We are sad to be losing Chuck Pagano; the Ravens were right not to let Mr. Cameron go as well. The Ravens had an outstanding year. To keep it going next year we need to keep Mr. Cameron as our offensive coordinator.

Thanks for Kevin Cowherd 's recent column on Cam Cameron ("Finishing just shy of Super Bowl is no reason to can Cameron," Jan. 27). Every week our family looked forward to watching the Ravens. Their fantastic playing was due to teamwork among the coaches and players. We are sad to be losing Chuck Pagano; the Ravens were right not to let Mr. Cameron go as well. The Ravens had an outstanding year. To keep it going next year we need to keep Mr. Cameron as our offensive coordinator.

I went out scouting around for a high school soccer practice last week. There were none. I knew there wouldn't be.For the first time since the high school soccer program began in the early 1970s, soccer practice failed to start Aug. 15.The school system of one of the richest counties in the United States claims that budgetary constraints forced a cutback in pay for soccer coaches, delaying the soccer season one week.Varsity soccer coaches were the only varsity coaches whose pay was cut, since only football and soccer coaches were being paid for two weeks of summer practice.

A man makes a lot of friends in 30-plus years of coaching -- even if 612 times opponents have been on the losing end of the score.Cardinal Gibbons' Ray Mullis found this out firsthand last night as fellow coaches and players past and present packed Martin's West for a night in his honor. Mullis, the area's winningest coach, was found to have pancreatic cancer in July.But the night was one of celebration."Cancer can be beaten," said Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, who headed the impressive list of basketball talent who turned out to honor Mullis.

Jimmy Anderson wears a Washington Capitals ring on his right hand. Wearing a team ring isn't unusual for coaches and players who have won championships. But the ring Anderson wears is not the ring of a champion.Anderson's ring came as recognition for being the Capitals' first coach. Jimmy Anderson has the distinction of having coached ** the worst team in modern NHL history, the 1974-75 Capitals."It was a great experience," Anderson recalled from his Agawam, Mass., home ,15l this week. "It was my one NHL head coaching job, and, sure, the record was a disaster, but it wasn't anybody's fault.

Frank Robinson, Baltimore Orioles manager: "To Orioles fans, patience to understand what we're doing here."Gary Williams, Maryland basketball coach: "I hope there is a wato just focus on basketball and not all the outside things. I'd like to see each school be responsible for running its own program, and I'd like to see the kids enjoy themselves more because they only have four years. It's not like the pros where you have 11 years or more."Kenny Cooper, Baltimore Blast coach: "Sellout crowds with standing room only."

In the spring of 1995, a handful of parents in Aptos, Calif., a small town south of San Francisco, entrusted their 5-year-old boys to the tutelage of a baseball coach named Dave Anderson. Seven years later, those kids had matured into one of America's finest Little League teams. In a new PBS documentary, Small Ball: A Little League Story, (tonight at 8 on MPT), filmmakers Louis Alvarez and Andrew Kolker do more than follow the Aptos All-Stars through their 2002 season, a nail-biting campaign that took them to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa. They remind viewers of the national pastime's almost endless capacity to bring out the best in those who play it, teach it and treat it with respect.

Thomas Louis "Pep" Perrella, a schools caterer and former Archbishop Curley soccer coach and player, died of pancreatic cancer Sept. 25 at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson. He was 59 and lived in Overlea. The Baltimore native grew up on Kentucky Avenue. A childhood baseball coach named him "Pepper" or "Pep" after Pepper Martin, the 1930s St. Louis Cardinals base stealer. Before graduating from Archbishop Curley High School in 1970, he scored a soccer goal to secure the school's first Maryland Scholastic Association championship.

The refrain began soon after the Ravens left the field on Sunday with a decisive playoff win in hand. Defensive coordinator Rex Ryan was only too happy to nudge it along. "Nobody has respected this team until right now, and that's fine with us," Ryan said. "Tough on everybody else, just right for us." Respect is a motivational tactic as old as sport itself. Coaches and players portray themselves as unwanted, overlooked and underpraised. Around every corner lurks another rival ready to steal credit.

Just three years after he quit playing football, Jason Garrett stood near the pinnacle of his next chosen profession. He had the chance to increase his salary, to work with bosses who draft Pro Bowl players in droves and, most importantly, to run his own team. So why did Garrett turn down the Ravens' coaching job yesterday morning? And, more generally, why would anyone turn down the opportunity to become a head coach in the NFL, the nation's most popular professional sports league? Agents and former NFL executives listed several reasons that could lead a coach to refuse an offer.

Ask baseball players about the change in attitudes among some umpires, and they'll recoil as if they've just been brushed back by a 98-mph fastball. And they're hesitant to step back in the box. Nobody wants to carry an umpire's grudges into spring training. Their hands are full with all their gear. But it has become a hot topic in clubhouses, dugouts and closed-door offices around the majors. Orioles manager Dave Trembley received a three-game suspension this month for a tirade that concluded with him mimicking a gesture of throwing out umpire Paul Emmel.

Mike Williams probably has seen more game tape this week than in all his years as a coach, and it's still not enough for Williams, Howard County's athletics coordinator, to render a final judgment on what happened at the Centennial-Oakland Mills football game last Friday. That's why no punishment has been decided on in conjunction with the incident. And Williams said, there may not be one, as the stories that have emerged from nearly six days of questioning have conflicted. "No matter what we do as a system, there's going to be somebody who doesn't like it [the prospective decision]

Sarah Masek found a great way to improve her field hockey skills this summer: playing alongside her coach. As part of the summer league organized by the county Department of Recreation and Parks, the Severn School co-captain wound up playing with Severn coach Jessica Burke, as well as South River head coach Katie Corcoran and assistant coach Megan Atkinson. The South River Seahawks have won consecutive state titles. "It was so much fun," Masek said. "I was mixed with a lot of older kids who'd already graduated from college.

Karlis Larsen, Joppatowne High School football coach, was ticking off the names of his assistant coaches the other day, "Greg Komondor, Ray Gerald, Jerry Lee, Mary Ann Smith. . . .Say what?A woman football coach for a high school team may not be impossible, but certainly has to be considered unusual. "She coached other sports and working with the cheerleaders brought her closer to football," Larsen said. "She knew the players, and it just seemed like a good idea." To which Smith, when approached about the idea, had said "Sure!

The refrain began soon after the Ravens left the field on Sunday with a decisive playoff win in hand. Defensive coordinator Rex Ryan was only too happy to nudge it along. "Nobody has respected this team until right now, and that's fine with us," Ryan said. "Tough on everybody else, just right for us." Respect is a motivational tactic as old as sport itself. Coaches and players portray themselves as unwanted, overlooked and underpraised. Around every corner lurks another rival ready to steal credit.

Navy senior wide receiver Amir Jenkins can still see his old teammate joking with him in the huddle or showing off his throwing arm by heaving a football 80 yards on a cold day. Head coach Paul Johnson holds a lasting image of his former player polishing his chiseled physique with maniacal dedication in the weight room. Senior safety Josh Smith marvels at how easily his buddy could turn strangers into friends. At the Naval Academy this week, as has been the case in 104 previous years throughout one of the greater rivalries in all of sports, the primary focus is on beating Army.