Eleanor Roosevelt

At least twice a week, Dwight Parker will hunker down in front of the television set at his family's home, pop in a familiar videotape and relive his own personal nightmare. Parker will watch a confident, purposeful runner dressed in Woodlawn's black track and field uniform lead a pack in the 3,200 meters at the Class 4A-3A state championships this past winter. Excitement builds as the leader maintains a considerable gap over the competition and, even as a runner wearing a blue Eleanor Roosevelt uniform charges forth, Parker will allow himself the slightest hint of a smile as the runner in black takes the final lap with at least a 30-meter advantage.

PHILADELPHIA -- As she rushes down the homestretch of her collegiate track and field career, Kierra Foster continues to raise her sights. The University of Maryland senior from West Palm Beach, Fla., is already a two-time NCAA indoor medalist in the long jump. With a leap of 20 feet, 10 inches yesterday at Franklin Field, she claimed the women's collegiate championship of the 112th Penn Relays. Now the NCAA title - on the line June 7-10 in Sacramento, Calif. - becomes her goal. "It's a boost," she said of her winning jump.

Elan Hilaire, a two-time All-Metro selection in indoor track and field and a 2012 Olympic hopeful, has transferred from Park School to Eleanor Roosevelt in Greenbelt this spring. Anita Hilaire confirmed yesterday that her daughter has been attending Eleanor Roosevelt for nearly a month since the family moved to Prince George's County in March. Elan Hilaire's first performance as a Raider came this past weekend at the Peninsula Relays in Hampton, Va. She won the 200 meters in the AAA division and placed second in the 100. Eleanor Roosevelt's girls have won 13 outdoor state championships, six in the past decade.

COLLEGE PARK -- A boys basketball team from Southwestern might have walked off the court for the final time last night. After the No. 4 Sabers lost to Eleanor Roosevelt, 70-44, in a Class 4A state semifinal, they now must wait to see if Baltimore City will shut down their campus at the end of the school year. Southwestern could not overcome 26 turnovers against the Raiders, who scored 21 points off those giveaways. Sabers coach Terry Leverett told his players before the game how a state championship would be a nice send-off if the school is indeed closed, but Roosevelt was just too tough.

THE GAMES (At Comcast Center, College Park) Today Class 3A No. 8 Mervo (21-4) vs. Lackey (24-1) TIME -- 3 p.m. OUTLOOK -- Mervo stunned last year's 4A state champion, Walbrook, 54-48, to win the North region. Lackey has emerged victorious from a South region traditionally dominated by Prince George's County schools and is trying to win only the second title for teams from its Southern Maryland Athletic Conference. G Walter Saunders, 6-foot C Antoine Williams and 6-4 F John Williams average 18, 15 and 14 points, respectively, for Mervo.

Something unexpected arrived in the mail for the Loyola boys cross country program: a little incentive. Informed that they were being considered for a spot in a national invitational, the top-ranked Dons used that motivation to capture the seeded division of the Harford Invitational at Tollgate Park in Bel Air yesterday. Eleanor Roosevelt of Prince George's County swept the remaining honors, taking the top individual titles in both the boys and girls seeded races and claiming the team crown in the girls seeded division.

Margaret S. Beall, the wife and mother of United States senators who knew every first lady from Eleanor Roosevelt to Hillary Rodham Clinton, died in her sleep Monday at Kensington Algonquin Assisted Living in Cumberland. She was 105. Born Margaret Schwarzenbach in Cumberland, she attended the old Allegany County Academy -- the county's first public school -- and Shipley School in Bryn Mawr, Pa. In 1926, she married J. Glenn Beall, a real estate and insurance broker who became Frostburg's tax collector and then served in the state Senate from 1930 to 1934.

What a difference a year made for the local schools in the Class 4A division of the state track and field meet. The Old Mill boys pulled out a dramatic victory in last year's state meet, but this year the Patriots became the only local school to accomplish much as Eleanor Roosevelt swept the team titles yesterday at Morgan State. The Eleanor Roosevelt girls dominated the meet, finishing with 149 points to easily beat Prince George's County rival Largo (85) for the team crown. This was the Raiders' second team title in three years and their 12th title in 16 years.

PHILADELPHIA - Their celebration was years in the making. After all, Duke's women runners had been chasing archrival North Carolina forever. Or so it seemed. But everything turned around yesterday at the 111th running of the Penn Relays. With 25,183 Franklin Field fans focusing on every stride of the women's distance medley Championship of America final, the Blue Devils finally crashed through to a historic triumph. It took Meghan Leon, Lindsay Owen, Lauren Matic and anchor runner Shannon Rowbury 11 minutes, 10.18 seconds to turn the sands of time.

While television is often blamed for everything from shortened attention spans to college students who cannot name a president before Ronald Reagan, two productions this month about Franklin Delano Roosevelt suggest that television also can illuminate history through evocative storytelling. FDR: A Presidency Revealed, a four-hour special starting tonight on the History Channel, and Warm Springs, an inspirational HBO film starring Kenneth Branagh about Roosevelt's struggle with polio, not only remember the 32nd president of the United States, but also bring his indomitable spirit back to life.