Reggie White

In his 10th season as head coach at Milford Mill, Reggie White has the Millers football team off to a 4-0 start after Saturday's 33-24 win over Perry Hall, their first victory over the Gators during White's tenure. White, 42, returned to his alma mater after four years in the NFL -- three with the San Diego Chargers. A defensive lineman, he played in the 1994 Super Bowl with the Chargers, then spent one season with the New England Patriots. As a player at Milford Mill, he helped the Millers win the state Class C championship in 1987.

Milford Mill's Reggie White was named the Ravens' High School Coach of the Week Wednesday after leading the No. 14 Millers to a comeback 30-27 win over Baltimore County rival Catonsville Saturday. In his 10thseason with the Millers, White has guided his alma mater to a 7-1 record and the top spot in the Class 3A North regional standings with just two regular-season games remaining. In the victory over Catonsville, the Millers rebounded from a 24-6 halftime deficit to win on quarterback Kyle McEachern's 1-yard run with 1:35 left in the game.

So, we got fooled. Certainly, the "Rooney Rule" is going t prevent the top four teams from going wild on top-rate free-agent players come March. That's the purpose.But it isn't going to keep the Dallas Cowboys from landing a big catch -- Eagles defensive end Reggie White.Backup quarterback Steve Beuerlein will afford them that opportunity because, like White, he is a plaintiff in one of the many lawsuits settled between the owners and players.Beuerlein and White will be unrestricted free agents and two of the hottest commodities come March 1, the estimated starting point for free-agent movement under the new labor agreement.

In his 10th season as head coach at Milford Mill, Reggie White has the Millers football team off to a 4-0 start after Saturday's 33-24 win over Perry Hall, their first victory over the Gators during White's tenure. White, 42, returned to his alma mater after four years in the NFL -- three with the San Diego Chargers. A defensive lineman, he played in the 1994 Super Bowl with the Chargers, then spent one season with the New England Patriots. As a player at Milford Mill, he helped the Millers win the state Class C championship in 1987.

NEW ORLEANS -- The most feared pass rusher in NFL history wants to be a modern-day Moses, not the second coming of Attila the Hun.He wants to affect lives with his work in the community, not just his victories on a football field.Reggie White, the minister of defense, wants to take hold of Super Bowl XXXI with both hands and wring as much ministry out of it as he possibly can."One of the things I prayed about was that God use this platform to honor himself," White said yesterday from an elevated podium on the carpet of the Louisiana Superdome.

LOS ANGELES - Reggie White, one of the NFL's fiercest players on the field and most devoted humanitarians off it, died yesterday in Cornelius, N.C., at the age of 43, his wife said. The cause of death was not immediately known, but a family spokesman said White had suffered from a respiratory ailment for several years that affected his sleep. White died at Presbyterian Hospital, where he was taken after his wife called paramedics. An autopsy is planned. White, a two-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year and an ordained Baptist preacher who was known as the "Minister of Defense," played a total of 15 years with the Philadelphia Eagles, Green Bay Packers and Carolina Panthers.

AFCPlayer, team No.Derrick Thomas, Kansas City 19Bruce Smith, Buffalo 19Sean Jones, Houston 12.5Leslie O'Neal, San Diego 12.5Greg Townsend, Los Angeles 12.5NFCPlayer, team No.Reggie White, Philadelphia 13Charles Haley, San Francisco 15Kevin Greene, Los Angeles 13Richard Dent, Chicago 12Lawrence Taylor, New York 10.5

BasketballNBA -- Announced that the Suns' Paul Westphal will coach the Western Conference team in the All-Star Game on Feb. 12 in Phoenix. The Orlando Magic's Brian Hill will coach the Eastern Conference.FootballSan Diego Chargers -- Placed DT Reggie White (Milford Mill), C Greg Engel, TE Aaron Laing and S Lonnie Young on the inactive list.San Francisco 49ers -- Placed S Dedrick Dodge, G Ron Milstead and DE Mark Thomas on the inactive list.HockeyHartford Whalers -- Assigned C Ted Drury to AHL Springfield for conditioning.

Reggie White did not back off yesterday from his remarks in the Wisconsin state Legislature the previous day that left some legislators cringing and some activists criticizing him."I didn't start a ministry to please everybody," said White, a Green Bay Packers star.White, an ordained fundamentalist Christian minister, admitted he was feeling the fallout from his comments, which included scathing remarks about homosexuality. He said people missed his message.An African-American, White said that blacks "like to sing and dance" while whites "know how to tap into money" and he also used what he felt were positive stereotypes of Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans.

PHILADELPHIA -- The notion has been advanced that Philadelphia Eagles All-Pro defensive end Reggie White might be losing it.Ron Heller, a tackle who has to block against him in practice, doesn't even try to be polite. He laughs out loud."Excuse me," he says, "but that's not even close." And he sneers.Well, you know, the years accumulate, the body ages, maybe you lose just the teeniest little bit. . . .David Alexander, the Eagles' center, makes a snorting noise that sounds suspiciously like a horse laugh.

There's only one sport Brett Favre definitively can say he's still playing: golf. Football? Well, that's the big question the Green Bay Packers quarterback still can't answer. Not when he isn't sure if he wants to risk another losing season, and he wonders whether his team improved enough this offseason to justify coming back for one more year. "I'd like to say I think we are better, but I don't know if we are," Favre said yesterday at his charity golf tournament in Tunica, Miss. "I don't make those decisions, never asked to. ... I know when we signed Reggie White [in 1993]

A"PRIVILEGE." That's what Jets quarterback Chad Pennington said the media enjoy when covering pro athletes. But that's old news, overtaken by events since then. The sports world, the one Pennington is grasping to understand beyond his own place in it, lost Johnny Oates and Reggie White in the past week. If Pennington really understood how much of a privilege it was to be around those two men during their too-short stays on Earth, he'd never use the word in that context again, no matter what point he was trying to make or gaffe he was trying to play off. Not to speak for everybody covering sports in America these days, but it's safe to say Pennington's crack a week and a half ago - that it's a privilege, not a right, to be around the best athletes in the world - gave a number of us in this business pause to reflect.

CHICAGO - Reggie White probably died of a mysterious inflammatory disease of unknown origin that can strike any organ in the body, exist without detection and disappear without treatment in many cases, according to a preliminary autopsy report. Sarcoidosis in White's lungs and heart was the likely trigger that "resulted in a fatal cardiac arrhythmia," Dr. Mike Sullivan, medical examiner of Mecklenburg County, N.C., said yesterday. "Sleep apnea may have been a contributing factor." Sullivan's is the jurisdiction where White died at 7:51 a.m. Sunday after being taken from his home in Cornelius, N.C., to Presbyterian Hospital in Huntersville, N.C. He was 43. Though sarcoidosis is lethal in only 5 percent of cases and is reported in only one of every 2,500 U.S. residents, its insidious nature apparently has been revealed again in White's case.

NATIONAL Cleaning up after 'meltdown' US Airways started delivering luggage to passengers yesterday after suffering what its chief executive called an "operational meltdown," while Comair put some of its passenger planes back in the air a day after canceling all of its 1,100 flights. [Page 3a] Protest ends at closing parish A protest vigil at a parish slated for closure by the Boston Archdiocese ended yesterday when police sealed off the 114-year-old church after its final Mass and ordered parishioners to leave.

LOS ANGELES - Reggie White, one of the NFL's fiercest players on the field and most devoted humanitarians off it, died yesterday in Cornelius, N.C., at the age of 43, his wife said. The cause of death was not immediately known, but a family spokesman said White had suffered from a respiratory ailment for several years that affected his sleep. White died at Presbyterian Hospital, where he was taken after his wife called paramedics. An autopsy is planned. White, a two-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year and an ordained Baptist preacher who was known as the "Minister of Defense," played a total of 15 years with the Philadelphia Eagles, Green Bay Packers and Carolina Panthers.

ASHBURN, Va. - The request from Washington Redskins coach Norv Turner is a simple one. Just get an eight- to 10-play drive going in the first half of tonight's preseason game against New England at FedEx Field at 8. If a touchdown is scored, fine. If the offense has to settle for a field goal, that is fine too. Turner just wants more out of his first-team offense - which will play the entire first half - than what he got last week against Tampa Bay. The offense went three-and-out on its first two possessions against the Buccaneers.

Several Philadelphia Eagles say the team gave them no special consent forms and no counseling before testing players for AIDS during the preseason.Scott Burris, a lawyer who specializes in AIDS-related cases, said the team violated state law by not obtaining a separate informed consent before testing and by not conducting pre- and post-test counseling.Lawyers for the players said they would investigate.Team president Harry Gamble said Thursday that all the players signed consent forms before they were tested and had the option of refusing.

There's only one sport Brett Favre definitively can say he's still playing: golf. Football? Well, that's the big question the Green Bay Packers quarterback still can't answer. Not when he isn't sure if he wants to risk another losing season, and he wonders whether his team improved enough this offseason to justify coming back for one more year. "I'd like to say I think we are better, but I don't know if we are," Favre said yesterday at his charity golf tournament in Tunica, Miss. "I don't make those decisions, never asked to. ... I know when we signed Reggie White [in 1993]

BOSTON -- So what do we have here? The economy is humming along, the country's at peace, even the battle of the sexes seems scattered along the Lewinsky Line, and suddenly the religious right is focusing on homosexuality as a threat to the republic.If 1994 was the Year of the Angry White Male, is 1998 being cast as the Year of the Angry Heterosexual?You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to see some political method behind the madness. First James Dobson of Focus on the Family goes to Washington to tell the Republican leadership to get with the program.

Fuzzy Zoeller and Al Campanis must be outraged. A black sports figure, Reggie White, has joined them and the late Jimmy the Greek in the Insensitivity Hall of Fame.White is a good man who was well-intentioned even in his worst moment. But his remarks to the Wisconsin Legislature were inexcusable, and he deserves the same criticism as those who stumbled before him.Gay bashing, racial stereotyping, it doesn't matter whether the offender is black or white, a minister or a layman.It's wrong.Yet White, an ordained fundamentalist Christian minister, refuses disavow his comments.