Hopkins

On any warm spring evening, the parking lots at Towson High are full. Volvo station wagons. Troopers. Towncars. Beamers. Jags.Kids from ages 5 to 15 run the fields; carrying long sticks, wearing baggy pants, droopy jerseys and oversized shoulder pads. Parents line the practice field. Dads are dressed in business suits or at least a white shirt and tie, while a lot of moms are clad in short suits.On the field are several players whose first name is Brandon, Tyler, or Tucker or last name is Webster, Thomas, Dressel, Morrill or Radebaugh.

Peggy Murphy, whose tireless fight against advanced breast cancer through traditional means and an experimental vaccine trial at Johns Hopkins was chronicled in a Baltimore Sun series last fall, died yesterday. She was 58. Murphy never gave up hope that something would cure her, or at least slow down the cancer's march. Doctors over the past year told her the cancer had spread to her hip, to her spine, to her adrenal glands and, in January, to her lungs. As the cancer failed to stand down, she feared that it would spread to her brain and cause her to forget the things that meant the most to her or leave her unable to communicate, or to her lungs, so scared was she that she wouldn't be able to breathe.

Dave Pietramala smiles when he hears the question. It's one he has heard before. They look at him - his big-barreled chest, his oak tree of a neck and his linebacker-thick arms - and just assume. You played football growing up, didn't you? No, sadly, Pietramala did not play high school football. It wasn't that he didn't want to, and it wasn't that his parents wouldn't let him. Quite the opposite. There simply was no football in his small world. His tiny Catholic high school, St. Mary's in Hicksville, N.Y., couldn't afford the insurance, and so in the mid-1980s, a generation of broad-shouldered young men like Pietramala were steered to lacrosse and told to seek athletic glory scooping ground balls instead of wrestling running backs to the ground.

A top financial aid administrator at the Johns Hopkins University was put on paid leave yesterday while the university investigates her ties to a student loan company that is at the center of a national probe by New York's attorney general, Hopkins officials said. University officials were informed yesterday by the lender's parent company that Ellen Frishberg, director of student financial services, received about $65,000 in consulting fees since 2002 from Student Loan Xpress. The loan company is one of several "preferred lenders" Hopkins recommends to families for financing their children's education.

Newly minted Johns Hopkins University graduates were proudly proclaiming themselves "pigs" yesterday after an unusual but apparently effective commencement speech by Baltimore Ravens head coach Brian Billick. The football coach repeatedly invoked a homespun bacon-and-egg metaphor to win over a student body that had questioned the appropriateness of having a sports figure honored at an elite college known mostly for its academic rigor and ultra-nerd personality. "In a bacon-and-egg breakfast, the chicken is involved, but the pig is committed," Billick said from the lectern at Hopkins' lacrosse field.

Pace and fatigue How much gas does Duke have in its tank, and can it play at its preferred fast pace? The Blue Devils blew a 10-3 second-half lead against Cornell, largely because Duke lacks depth and it tired in the fourth quarter on a very hot day. Hopkins used three midfields and played five attackmen against Delaware, and would love to be within striking distance after three quarters. Battle for the ball Will Stephen Peyser and Jamison Koesterer take care of business in the faceoff game?

Good morning--Dave Pietramala--Keep winning lacrosse championships and Hopkins will keep you around forever.

The Johns Hopkins University has hired the state's former economic development chief, Aris Melissaratos, to oversee the university's flagging commercialization efforts and to recruit major corporate tenants into its budding research parks, officials said yesterday. Melissaratos, a popular secretary of the Department of Business and Economic Development under Republican Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., will start tomorrow in the new position: special adviser to the president for enterprise development.

The Poly boys figured they had the "petite slalom" all sewn up when their robot was the only one to clear the first heat without jostling any cones - in a blistering 18 seconds. Likewise, last year's "mystery course" champions from Hereford High School were predicting an easy repeat victory - a full hour before the secret course was unveiled. "I'm pretty sure we're going to win," said Justin Zelinsky, 15, with a shrug, as he plunked a pair of infrared sensors into his car-like "bot." Happily for the competition - and their nervous parents and coaches - the day had in store thrilling upsets, spectacular crashes, even disqualification for illegal robot enhancements.

As freshmen, they got after each other so much in practice that Johns Hopkins men's basketball coach Bill Nelson decided to keep them apart as much as possible in that setting. As seniors, Hopkins forwards Danny Nawrocki and Matt Griffin have honed their complementary games and become, in Nelson's eyes, maybe the most punishing combination in the post during his 21 seasons at Homewood. They also are the main reasons the Blue Jays are positioned to go where they have not been in nearly a decade.

Johns Hopkins medical professor Lloyd Minor will become the university's new provost, or chief academic officer, Hopkins announced Friday. Minor, 52, has been a Hopkins professor since 1993 and has led the medical school's head and neck (otolaryngology) department for six years. In announcing the appointment to the university's No. 2 post, Hopkins President Ronald Daniels lauded Minor's commitment to scholarship and his skills as a consensus builder. "His passion is surpassed only by his ability to build consensus and implement ambitious, strategic priorities that are characterized by an uncompromising commitment to academic excellence," Daniels said in a statement.

Thomas cannot read or write. He lives with his mother in a two-story house in Hamilton, purchased with rolled change and savings from working as a groundskeeper at the Johns Hopkins University. He has longed to escape Baltimore and buy a ranch house in the country with a fenced yard and a room large enough for a pool table. Now, Thomas, 43, knows he'll never get that - because two people he trusted stole his entire life savings. Two weeks ago, Joseph L. Moody, a groundskeeper who worked with Thomas for a decade, and Moody's girlfriend Janet Gilmore pleaded guilty to stealing more than $150,000 from Thomas.

At the place where two gardening admonitions meet - "Keep off the grass" and "Stop and smell the roses"- there are plants that you can step on and find yourself rewarded with a burst of fragrance. They are "Stepables," and they are ideal for planting around pavers in a path or patio, as ground cover or even as a lawn substitute. They are the brainchild of Frances Hopkins, owner of Under A Foot Plant Co. in Salem, Ore. At 5 feet 2, she says, she was never going to grow big garden elements, so she focused on short, close-to-the-ground perennials.

Calling climate change "the greatest challenge of our day," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi credited young voters yesterday with pressuring Congress to finally craft a national response, and she predicted that the United States would join other countries this year in an international pact to reduce planet-warming pollution. Pelosi, speaking at commencement ceremonies for the Johns Hopkins University's arts and sciences and engineering graduates, called climate change a national security, economic, environmental health and moral issue.

Johns Hopkins junior attackman Chris Boland was one of those guaranteed success stories that almost didn't have a happy ending. At Boys' Latin, he was a three-time All-American and set the school's all-time scoring mark with 130 goals and 171 assists. As a freshman at Hopkins in 2007, he played in only four games. Last season he didn't play at all because he was academically ineligible. This season Boland is the Blue Jays' top points producer as No. 8 seed Hopkins (10-4) heads into an NCAA Division I quarterfinal against No. 1 Virginia (14-2)

3 more probable flu cases in Md. State health officials reported Wednesday three new probable cases of swine flu in Maryland. The cases, which include two children from Prince George's County and one child from Anne Arundel Count, bring the state's tally of probable cases to 18. Maryland also has four confirmed cases of the virus, known as H1N1, which has spread rapidly across the country since an outbreak in Mexico last week. Nationwide, at least 1,487 probable and confirmed cases have been found in 44 states, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Johns Hopkins rallied late in the second half Saturday and had a chance to force overtime with time winding down, but No. 19 Penn State forced a turnover and the visiting Nittany Lions won, 12-11. The Blue Jays fell to 5-11 overall and 0-4 in the American Lacrosse Conference in their regular-season finale. The Nittany Lions improved to 8-7 and 2-2. Trailing 12-9 with 8:51 to play, Hopkins got goals from juniors Sam Schrum and Angela Hughes to make it a 12-11 game with 2:56 left. Sophomore Brooke Lipinski won the ensuing draw, but Stephanie Ellis forced a turnover with 1:57 remaining, and the Nittany Lions cleared the ball.

Dave Pietramala smiles when he hears the question. It's one he has heard before. They look at him - his big-barreled chest, his oak tree of a neck and his linebacker-thick arms - and just assume. You played football growing up, didn't you? No, sadly, Pietramala did not play high school football. It wasn't that he didn't want to, and it wasn't that his parents wouldn't let him. Quite the opposite. There simply was no football in his small world. His tiny Catholic high school, St. Mary's in Hicksville, N.Y., couldn't afford the insurance, and so in the mid-1980s, a generation of broad-shouldered young men like Pietramala were steered to lacrosse and told to seek athletic glory scooping ground balls instead of wrestling running backs to the ground.

After watching every second of the Peabody- and Emmy Award-winning Hopkins 24/7 and Hopkins documentary series from ABC News, I did not think there was anything that TV had left to tell me about the making of and professional lives of medical doctors. But after seeing the final installment of Nova's 21-year project, Doctors' Diaries, which premieres Tuesday night at 8 on MPT (Channels 22 and 67), I now know I was wrong. It is not that producer-director Michael Barnes finds new emotions, themes or narratives that ABC's Terry Wrong didn't in his brilliant studies of Hopkins and its doctors.

Second-ranked Syracuse used a 6-0 first-half run and a 5-1 second-half run to pull away from visiting and No. 6 Johns Hopkins en route to a 14-11 victory yesterday in front of an announced 9,197 at the Carrier Dome. The win was the third straight for the Orange against the Blue Jays. Syracuse improved to 4-1 this season, and Hopkins dropped to 3-2. Hopkins took a 3-1 lead less than six minutes into the game as the Blue Jays scored on each of their first three shots. Brian Christopher's goal at the 11:30 mark was answered just more than a minute later by the Orange's Dan Hardy, but it took just 62 more seconds for the Blue Jays to grab a 3-1 lead as Steven Boyle and Kyle Wharton scored.