SPORTS
By Pat O'Malley | April 25, 1999
The Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association executive council voted on Thursday to use boys and girls basketball as a pilot in seeding the top four teams in each state region by record for the first time in the annual state tournament.The open tournament with its lottery draw began as a experiment with soccer and volleyball in 1994. The following year, the format was implemented for all sports.But Annapolis coach John Brady and Broadneck's Ken Kazmarek, among others, have been extremely vocal over the appearance of rewarding mediocrity when it was possible under the random draw for an 0-20 team to host a 20-0 team.
ENTERTAINMENT
By Judy Chernak | March 7, 1999
2 TO 4 YEARS OF AGE"All Kinds of Children," by Norma Simon. Illustrated by Diane Paterson. Albert Whitman & Co. 32 pages. $15.95.No matter how many children the world holds, no matter how unusual they may look or sound or seem, they all share many characteristics. After all, did you ever meet a child who didn't love to play? Didn't need food? Didn't want someone to love? This book celebrates difference and similarity in a reassuring way."Billy and the Big New School ," by Laurence Anholt.
FEATURES
August 2, 1999
Beginning today, a strip called "Jump Start" begins a one-month, Monday- through-Saturday run in place of "Non Sequitur" on The Sun's comics pages. "Jump Start," created by Robb Armstrong of Philadelphia, is about the daily lives of a middle-class African-American family. It currently appears in more than 400 newspapers."Non Sequitur," whose creator, Wiley, is taking a month off, returns to its usual spot in The Sun in September.
FEATURES
By Rob Hiaasen | September 6, 1999
Robb Armstrong and his wife were in Baltimore earlier this year, just visiting, staying at the Marriott Inner Harbor, doing the crab thing. Then Armstrong, the 37-year-old cartoonist and creator of the strip "Jump Start," picked up The Sun. He wasn't in it."It broke my heart," says Armstrong, who has depicted its characters Joe and Marcy Cobb for more than a decade. The Cobbs, one of the first middle-class black couples to be featured in a nationally syndicated comic strip, now appear in 375 newspapers across the country.
SPORTS
By Kaija Langley | July 17, 1999
Most people mistake Ryan Olkowski for a basketball player. At 6 feet 4, 150 pounds, he has the height and agility to play seriously, but doesn't anymore. This 19-year-old Penn State sophomore from Perry Hall uses his athleticism on the track instead.Last week, after six jumps, Olkowski claimed a silver medal in the long jump at the Junior Pan Am Games in Tampa, Fla. He captured second with a leap of 24 feet, 2 inches, but at a price: a swollen, bandaged leg after spiking himself earlier in the meet.
SPORTS
By Phil Jackman | January 7, 1999
Mount St. Joseph, along with Calvert Hall toast of the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association to date, knows how to get the most out of its athletes.The Gaels' leading point scorers are Cordis Stanfield and captain Dan Ramirez. They run four events in a meet, including relays, and usually earn points in each.In the first MIAA meet of the indoor season, Stanfield was second in the mile, third in the 600, fifth in the mile and tossed in a leg on the victorious 3,200-meter relay for good measure.
FEATURES
By Ingrid Slyder | August 2, 1998
When the Fabulous Flying Fandinis moved in, the neighbors said they were strange."Strange house," said Mr. Smith."Strange pets," said Mr. Jones.Bobby Brown lived two doors down."
SPORTS
By Don Markus | January 9, 1998
PHILADELPHIA -- Michael Weiss made history and stole the spotlight last night here at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships. But he didn't quite land his biggest jump or his biggest prize.Weiss became the first male skater to attempt a quad Lutz at a major championship and, just as he did on his quad toe loop at last year's nationals, narrowly missed making a clean jump.This time, videotape replays weren't needed to see that Weiss two-footed the jump. But they were used anyway to just make sure.
SPORTS
By Bill Glauber | February 15, 1998
HAKUBA, Japan -- It was the moment all Japan had waited for. The light snowfall had finally stopped. The sun began to peek through the milky-white sky. The crowd of 40,000 spectators crammed into a stadium tooted horns and waved tiny Rising Sun flags.And then, down a 120-meter ski jump came a man named Kazuyoshi Funaki.Funaki soared into the light wind and came down 142.5 meters later, an Olympic champion.The Japanese star who hails from a city that produces jumpers and whiskey, won the large hill jumping gold medal to ignite a raucous demonstration today.
SPORTS
By Ken Rosenthal | February 11, 1998
HAKUBA, Japan -- Masahiko Harada adjusted his goggles, then his helmet. He was at the starting gate, the noise from the crowd rising to a crescendo, a sea of Japanese flags waving below.It was one of those Olympic moments that stays with you forever. A cloudless sky. A national holiday. A crowd of 45,000 waiting for the final jump, thousands more outside the venue, lining the streets, standing on the hills.Harada stood perfectly still, waiting, waiting. One jump to a gold medal. One jump to atone for his shocking failure in Lillehammer four years ago, when he cost Japan the team gold medal.