Hard Work

So as not to scare us off, garden writers have a tendency to resort to dainty euphemisms. Take "amend the soil" or, alternately, "improve the soil." They mean: Get out and dig. Or, if you have a lot of ground to cover, hit it with one of those urban plows called rototillers. It isn't just hard work. It's backbreaking. If you haven't done it to your lot, or a certain bed, the bad news is: Now is the time to do it. The good news is, it is the single most important thing you will ever do for your garden and your house and, if done right, it will bear endless rewards.

Three years ago as New York Giants head coach, Jim Fassel would arrive at 6:30 a.m. to his training camp office, where he would be greeted by Darnell Dinkins. Interested in watching some tape, Dinkins was a fourth-string quarterback with no chance of making the team. But it was an opinion Dinkins did not share. It's that same attitude that allowed him to persevere through two position changes (from quarterback to free safety to tight end), two stints on NFL practice squads and one season playing semi-pro football.

Marcus Valentine wasn't a part of a prestigious football team in high school. Maybe that's what made it easier for the defensive tackle to leave New Jersey to play for Towson Unviersity — a team stuck in the depths of college football. But for whatever reason, Valentine saw winning potential in the Tigers. He knew at some point the program would turn things around. Four years later, after enduring 27 losses in his first three seasons, Valentine is a part of history. With most of the attention this season focused on Coach Rob Ambrose for resurrecting the Towson football program, it is Valentine, a senior captain and leader of the defense, who is the "heart and soul" of the Tigers as they enter the FCS postseason for the first time.

He was signed as an undrafted free agent from the Dominican Republic and for several seasons, Roberto Rivera didn't do a whole lot to distinguish himself.A new work ethic has changed all that, and Rivera has developed into one of the most pleasant surprises in the Orioles' farm system in 1999."He has made himself a prospect," said Frederick Keys manager Andy Etchebarren. "He's got tools as good as anybody we've got, but he didn't always apply them. But the attitude changed, and he took it upon himself to work hard."

Dawn Stauffer Hyde, who founded an affirmative action and human resources consulting firm, died of early-onset dementia, or posterior cortical atrophy, May 11 at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson. She was 57 and had homes in Ellicott City and on Gibson Island. Born in Baltimore and raised on Berkshire Road, she was a 1972 Northern High School graduate. She earned a bachelor's degree at Goucher College and her master's degree in administrative science at the Johns Hopkins University.

A year or two ago, the Broadneck Bruins would have walked off the field with a loss in a game like Tuesday's. That was a year or two ago.This year's Bruins didn't, twice coming back from one-goal deficits and then getting a goal with four minutes left from one of their senior leaders, tri-captain Rachel Shuck, to continue a new trend this fall: Broadneck 3, Northeast 2.Winning just one game in each of the previous two regular seasons, the Bruins cleaned their...

If there's a strategy for making a million dollars by joining the rush for a piece of the cyberbusiness boom, it seems a lot like the one for scoring big in the pre-digital age. Namely, tightly focus your business strategy, treat your customers and employees exceptionally well, and -- above all -- work very, very hard. Even then, there's no guarantee. "The road to riches on the Internet is littered with more failures than successes," Shervin Pishevar, chief executive officer and founder of MywebOS.

We graduate from college, full of enthusiasm and ideas. Most of us were inspired by one or more teachers in our youth, and we want to share that enthusiasm, our love of learning or love of our subject matter. We all care about students and education and really want to make a difference. In the beginning, we willingly accept the extra assignments, even ask for them. We run the school paper, the yearbook, the clubs. Many of us volunteer to coach athletics. While we may get a small stipend, it amounts to very little when we add up the extra hours — but we don't mind because we are making a difference, we are working with children.

To hear Lance Bass tell it, he and the other members of 'N Sync are five of the hardest-working guys in show business.It isn't just that the quintet puts on a show with enough singing, dancing and eye-popping razzle-dazzle to rival the attractions at Universal Studios amusement park. As much work as the show may be, it's only part of the job of being in a teen sensation like 'N Sync."We never knew how difficult it would be," Bass says, over the phone from a tour stop in Albany, N.Y. "You just never imagine that it would really be a 24/7 job, that you would be on [24 hours a day, 7 days a week]

CLEAR SPRING - One of the most remarkable election upsets in recent Maryland political history was engineered by a self-described political "nobody" who hadn't intended to take on House Speaker Casper R. Taylor Jr., but was thrown against him by a court's redistricting map and chose to accept the challenge. "If you know my character, I'm not a quitter," says Republican LeRoy E. Myers Jr., a Washington County building contractor. Myers, 51, who had never before run for office, decided that even if he lost Nov. 5 - as almost everyone, including himself, anticipated - he would at least meet lots of people and build a political base for a possible second try. "To be honest, I did not think I had that great of a chance.