Senior Year

I find it incredible that Joe Seivold, touted by Sports Illustrated magazine in 1958 as "possibly the greatest lacrosse player to ever play the game," was not included in your list of the 175 top Maryland athletes ("The top 175," May 17). Seivold began his illustrious career in lacrosse at Friends School, where he was selected All-Maryland at midfield in 1953 and 1954. In 1954, during his senior year at Friends, he was a member of the Maryland Scholastic Association Championship Team.

I find it incredible that Joe Seivold, touted by Sports Illustrated magazine in 1958 as "possibly the greatest lacrosse player to ever play the game," was not included in your list of the 175 top Maryland athletes ("The top 175," May 17). Seivold began his illustrious career in lacrosse at Friends School, where he was selected All-Maryland at midfield in 1953 and 1954. In 1954, during his senior year at Friends, he was a member of the Maryland Scholastic Association Championship Team.

High school seniors like me, who are looking to go to college this fall, are preparing for our moment of truth: The pile of college applications on my desk is toppling over and the February deadlines are days away. How did it come to this? When I entered my high school's double doors on the first day of my senior year in August, I was excited and had much to look forward to - or so I thought. I was one of the oldest and therefore coolest kids in the building. Soon I'd be running onto the field during the pep rally, getting ready for prom, taking graduation pictures - it was going to be a great year.

Jazz Napravnik didn't even wait for her sister, Rosie, to get across the finish line. She saw the way the jockey was riding Believe You Can in the Kentucky Oaks, saw the horse stretch its legs down the final hundred yards under guidance from a nearly motionless rider, and she knew. "I just left my box, ran toward the winner's circle," Jazz Napravnik said. With her win in Kentucky, Rosie Napravnik, 24, pushed her name even further into the discussion of the country's top jockeys.

"It's official. With the final payment on the cap and gown, we haven't any money left."My friend shared this information with a note of awe in her voice.Easing her toward the living room, I murmured words of sympathy."Stop that!" she cried. "You don't have a clue what awaits you. Your child isn't a. " She choked on the word "senior.""First, it's senior pictures. Photos so poor you question the DNA evidence that this could be your child. Then it's SATs -- payment for the privilege of proving your child's career goals are best suited for refilling a Slurpee machine."

Brad Fordyce believes a player's senior year should be his best one.A two-way starter in football, he backed this thinking with action in helping C. Milton Wright to its third straight unbeaten regular season.In the process, his work earned him the honor of The Baltimore Sun's Harford County Football Player of the Year.That work included leading the county in tackles and finishing among the leaders in pass receiving. For 10 games, the 6-foot, 185-pound player had 203 defensive hits, including 103 solo tackles, and caught 16 passes for a county-high 393 yards and four touchdowns.

One way or another, Ben Whitacre was determined to get his kicks in college. In either style of football, the European kind Americans call soccer or on the gridiron, Whitacre was passionately devoted to the goal of playing a Division I sport. Early on in his high school career, soccer appeared the favorite. Slightly built physically, he had the aim to join the midfield at the University of Virginia - and that did not mean the 50-yard line. But times changed when he began performing for the more publicized Sherando (Va.)

Senior skip days are seen by some as a right of passage for teens. But with the importance that attendance plays in school funding and assessments, and the skills that are taught during the last year of high school, many educators are warning their students against skipping school. On Monday - as predicted - some seniors at area high schools followed a nationally organized trend and skipped school. Some school officials sent home letters condemning the practice.

Dante DePaolaPos.: SafetyHeight: 5-10Weight: 190Age: 23College: CaliforniaYear: RookieHow acquired: 1996 free agentHighlights: Finished college career with 183 tackles (122 solos), four tackles for losses, three interceptions and nine pass break-ups. As a senior in 1995, he started all 11 games and finished second on the team with 90 tackles, including 66 solo stops. Consistent performer who never had fewer than five tackles a game his senior year.Personal: Graduated from El Molino High School in Villa Grande, Calif.

Westminster wrestling coach Solomon Carr still remembers returning home after competing in his first official wrestling tournament.He was in the second grade at the time and ended up going against a cousin who was in the fourth grade.He said he got "crushed," and when he got home, all of his brothers and sisters made him do extra chores for losing."I wanted to get out of wrestling then and there. They gave me no slack at all," Carr said.He did, but only until the fifth grade. When you're a Carr brother in Erie, Pa., it's almost a given you are going to wrestle and wrestle well.

Loyola men's basketball Jones, Laster, Tuohy join 2012-13 class Loyola coach Jimmy Patsos announced the addition of three players to the Greyhounds' 2012-13 freshman class: Jarred Jones (John Carroll), Eric Laster and Sean Tuohy Jr. , whose adoptive older brother is Ravens offensive tackle Michael Oher . "We're excited to have Jarred, Eric and S.J. join our program," Patsos said. "With Jarred, we are bringing in another player who knows what it takes to be successful in the Baltimore Catholic League, one of the top high school conferences around, and Eric certainly had a terrific senior year in Delaware.

Carrying a .667 batting average into this week, it's clear senior shortstop Melanie Slowinski has had her share of big games for No. 1 Glen Burnie. When asked to pick the best of her four years playing for the Gophers, she took time to consider before coming up with a two-homer game in a win against Arundel during her sophomore year. Another question that had her stumped was what she would be doing if not playing softball. She started playing catch with her father every night in the backyard when she was little, started T-ball when she was 5 and then played travel softball when she was 8. "Sometimes I'll get sick of it and just don't feel like doing it," Slowinski said.

Aquille Carr's days at Patterson are over for now, but maybe not forever. Recently named the All-Metro Boys Basketball Player of the Year for the second straight season, the 5-foot-7 junior guard left the East Baltimore school and is now enrolled at St. Patrick High School in Elizabeth, N.J. His first day was Monday. St. Patrick is a national boys basketball powerhouse and is one of the oldest parochial schools in New Jersey, but it is reportedly closing its doors at the end of the school year due to dwindling enrollment and financial struggles.

For the better part of the past three years, Virginia enjoyed the rare luxury of knowing that the net on the defensive side of the field was filled by Adam Ghitelman. Ghitelman's nine-save performance in the national title game allowed him to ride off into the sunset with a NCAA crown - and left the Cavaliers with a decision to make regarding his successor. Coach Dom Starsia thinks he has found the right man in senior Rob Fortunato. “We feel like Rob Fortunato is the likely starter,” Starsia said.

Laura Fehle, of New Windsor, was scheduled to present her senior soprano recital Nov. 13 at 3 p.m. in the Pealer Recital Hall of the Performing Arts Center at Frostburg State University, where she is a senior in the music department. Fehle will be accompanied by pianist Judith Brown, and will present Vivaldi's "Si, si, luci adorate" featuring Dr. Ellen Grolman on violincello, as well as Aaron Copland's "Laurie's Song" and Ricky Ian Gordon's "Once I Was. " She will also perform other works as well.

By the time Berend Weijs was done last March with a frustrating junior season at Maryland, he knew something had to change before he took the court this season for new coach Mark Turgeon. At 6 feet 10 and 200 pounds last season, Weijs was the kind of skinny dude that gets knocked around and beat up in the Atlantic Coast Conference. He simply didn't have the girth to hang in the low post. He spent the offseason getting cozy with a few of his favorite fatty, high-calorie munchies — and still managed to put on just 10 pounds of muscle.

A Baltimore coalition of advocates for the homeless has been working for five years to raise money to provide a safe and stable place where the city's homeless youth can live. Today, construction officially begins on Restoration Gardens, a $6 million, 43-unit building in southern Park Heights that will give youth between the ages of 18 and 24 not only a place to live, but a broad range of services designed to aid them in getting an education, training and jobs so that they can build a life on their own. On any given day, an estimated 400 to 500 youths are without stable housing, said Nancy M. Strohminger, executive vice president of Empire Homes of Maryland, Inc., a nonprofit property development and management firm that is building the project, which is the first of its kind in the city.

Morgan State linebacker Reno Lucas is a glutton for punishment, but ever the optimist.How else can you explain the enthusiasm and sense of humor of a college junior who can count his football victories -- high school and college -- on the fingers of one hand?During Lucas' three-year career at Northwestern High School, the Wildcats' only victory was a forfeit by Forest Park his senior year because of an ineligible player. Still, he made honorable-mention All-Metro as a receiver.Six games into his senior year, Northwestern had scored three touchdowns, with Lucas passing for one and getting the other two on pass receptions.

When we first spent some time visiting and looking at various retirement communities, I remember being advised by one wise resident (who knew what he was talking about), "Don't wait too long!" Having read both Ann Egerton's op-ed ("Leaving home and heading for 'the home,'" July 5) plus the response from Linda Rains Allman ("Retirement living is what you make of it," July 16) and having moved to our new "home" (Fairhaven) four years ago while we were both in good health, both viewpoints resonated with me. Although we had many friends who reacted with, "You're moving where?"