Taller

Size beat quickness at the Newton White Athletc Center last night, as the University of Rochester, with three starters as tall or taller than any opposing starter, defeated Johns Hopkins. 81-73.It was the opening University Athletic Association game for both teams.Rochester (4-1), with three starters from last year's Division III national champions, bolted to a 7-0 lead and never trailed.Johns HopkIns (3-2) rallied from a first-half, 13-point deficit to get Within 50-48, but Rochester quickly restored a 10-point cushion.

The Ravens' aerial attack gets a different type of challenge this Sunday in the Seattle Seahawks' height in the secondary. Starting cornerbacks Brandon Browner and Richard Sherman are 6-foot-4 and 6-3, respectively, and starting strong safety Kam Chancellor is 6-3. Meanwhile, the Ravens' starting wide receivers of Anquan Boldin and Torrey Smith are 6-1 and 6-0, respectively, and LaQuan Williams and Lee Evans (if he's healthy enough to...

The National Institutes of Health has resumed recruiting healthy children for a controversial experiment in which researchers hope to make short children taller by injecting them with genetically engineered human growth hormone.Some medical experts say they are troubled by the research because it treats a child's height -- so often a matter of emotional bias, peer pressure or parental vanity -- as a medical disability, while those who support it say that making someone a few inches taller with hormone injections is no more harmful than breast implants, liposuction or other conventional cosmetic surgery.

When Maryland's first slots casino opened a year ago, it faced some tough odds. Even with a strategic location just off Interstate 95, motorists who didn't know it was there were unlikely to discover it. Hollywood Casino Perryville, located in the northeastern corner of the state, isn't visible from the tree-lined highway. That might be about to change in a really, really big way. This week, Perryville's commissioners will try to resolve a pesky issue that has split their town of 3,670 residents: whether to allow the casino to erect an illuminated sign on its property so tall that it would be visible from the interstate.

In a radical departure from tradition, historic preservationists in Annapolis agreed yesterday that a taller Circuit Courthouse would fit in better with the city's Colonial downtown.Worried that a planned expansion would overwhelm the narrow historic streets, the preservationists proposed dropping the height limits on the courthouse and building a much taller structure.County officials, assuming the height limits were inflexible, had spread out the expansion over almost an entire city block.

EMMITSBURG -- Loyola had the height advantage, but Mount St. Mary's had the experience, which it used to defeat the Greyhounds, 75-67, last night in a women's basketball game at Knott Arena.The Greyhounds (0-4) started four players 6 feet or taller, but had trouble scoring inside. The smaller Mountaineers (4-1), who start three seniors, were content to shoot from farther out or on fast breaks.The Mount shot 56 percent and took advantage of 28 Loyola turnovers, two things that left Greyhounds coach Pat Coyle especially frustrated.

Vote for the mayoral candidate who will make the most rain.The winner of Iowa's straw poll won a Bush-el of hay, corny as that sounds.Republicans won't learn George the Second's defects until they are stuck with him as their nominee.Gary Bauer is running as Ronald Reagan, but he won't fool many people. Ron was taller.

Now here's another way that Dennis J. Kucinich stands out. If the former boy mayor of Cleveland is elected next year, we don't just get a staunchly anti-war congressman as president. We get the first first lady in American history to arrive at the White House with a pierced tongue. Probably, no one should mention this to Laura Bush. She'd be falling face down in the Rose Garden canapes at the thought. But for a 30-year-old hipster Brit like Elizabeth Kucinich, a full head taller than her height-challenged man, a little tongue stud is hardly worth a mention.

ANOTHER thing to worry about is that we are growing taller.Because of better nutrition, most of us stand taller than our parents and grandparents. But with human growth hormone and genetic engineering, our children and grandchildren can reach higher yet. "We can easily foresee bigger and bigger humans," Thomas T. Samaras writes in the current issue of The Futurist magazine. "Early in the 21st century [that's the one that starts in five years], basketball players may need to be 8 to 10 feet tall to have any hope of success."

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- On a recent sunny afternoon, several hundred South African celebrities, business leaders and other guests raised flutes of champagne to celebrate the unveiling of a 20-foot-high bronze statue of Nelson Mandela at one of Johannesburg's upscale shopping malls. The newest honor to their former president, mall officials boasted, weighs as much as a rhino, is as wide as a luxury sedan and stands taller than a giraffe. "A statue as grand as the man himself," says Gary Vipond, the manager of Sandton Square, now renamed Nelson Mandela Square.

Two characteristics of this Terrapins team that are going to give plenty of teams trouble this season are their size and their depth. On Friday night at Comcast Center, the No.22 Maryland women exploited both of those advantages against UMBC. The Terrapins dominated the Retrievers, winning 71-45 for their eighth victory in a row. The 26-point win was their third straight double-digit margin. Tianna Hawkins made the most of her first start of the season with 16 points on 7-of-10 shooting, scoring in double figures for her second game in a row. Anjale Barrett, the lone guard on the court to start the game, had 12 points and six assists, and Alyssa Thomas came back from a cut knee that needed 10 stitches to chip in 10 points.

If I hear the hyphenated adjective "must-win" attached to another Ravens game this year, I'm going to sever my other Achilles tendon and spend the rest of the NFL season watching another 100 "Gunsmoke" reruns on TV Land. When the Ravens play the Cleveland Browns on national television Monday night, it's going to be about a lot more than just winning. It's going to be about self-esteem. It has to be the night they get their groove back. Forget about the proverbial must-win situation - especially since they've already lost the last couple of times that term has been applied.

THE PROBLEM : Tree branches obscure a maximum-vehicle-height sign at a bridge in a Baltimore park. THE BACKSTORY: St. Lo Drive curves through Clifton Park from Harford Road, past the golf course and the Lake Clifton high school campus. Unfortunately, more than one truck driver beguiled by the scenery - or perhaps watching for errant golf balls - has distractedly driven a tall vehicle into a railroad bridge while traveling south toward St. Lo's intersection with Sinclair Lane. "I've seen two different drivers in misery for not knowing that bridge was too low for their truck," said Albert Blakeney, who called Watchdog in July.

The president of France and his gorgeous bride, Carla Bruni, who speaks many languages and is a fixture of the International Glamour Set, have solved their problems. He is now wearing 2-inch lifts to make him taller and she is sticking to flat shoes. The London Telegraph reports that there is a new biography of the brand-new Madame Sarkozy by authors Christine Richard and Edouard Boulon-Cluzel. They report that Carla is determined not to be called "Sarko's Control Tower," which was what the press dubbed the last Mrs. Sarkozy because she was so much taller than her husband.

Now here's another way that Dennis J. Kucinich stands out. If the former boy mayor of Cleveland is elected next year, we don't just get a staunchly anti-war congressman as president. We get the first first lady in American history to arrive at the White House with a pierced tongue. Probably, no one should mention this to Laura Bush. She'd be falling face down in the Rose Garden canapes at the thought. But for a 30-year-old hipster Brit like Elizabeth Kucinich, a full head taller than her height-challenged man, a little tongue stud is hardly worth a mention.

Plans to replace a luxury condo project planned for the city's Charles Village neighborhood with a taller building containing smaller rental units, double the retail space and offices won approval from the city's design panel yesterday despite objections from neighboring Johns Hopkins University to the added height. The Urban Design and Architecture Review Panel signed off on developer Struever Bros. Eccles and Rouse's request to build a 13-story building, an addition of 24 feet that still requires City Council approval.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- They're four inches taller and 40 pounds heavier at center. Three inches taller at power forward. Two inches taller at small forward. And their three main reserves are a whopping nine inches taller combined.Size isn't everything, but the Maryland Terrapins are just as quick and way, way bigger than Utah State, their opponent in today's first-round NCAA tournament game at the Arco Arena.Taking advantage of that size is the issue, and that's why the heat is on junior point guard Terrell Stokes in particular as the Terps try to avoid a third straight first-round upset.

I'M UP HERE," my son said quietly, interrupting my stock lecture on the inappropriateness of displacing his frustration with the Nintendo 64 onto his younger sibling.Mid-tirade, I realized I was addressing the nine hairs on his chin. My son was taller than I am. I had to look up -- and remove his sunglasses -- to meet his eyes.Quickly, I grabbed the youngest child, who by now had stopped whining and was concentrating his efforts on finishing off the box of Cocoa Krispies I had bought for myself and hidden in the laundry room.

INDIANAPOLIS -- As his coach was addressing a room full of media yesterday at RCA Dome, George Mason senior guard Lamar Butler playfully poked his head between two curtains to see what was going on, a wide smile spread across his face. "I was looking at how big the room was, how many media people were here," he said. "I've never seen this many people here just to ask questions and write a story." At the Final Four - an event the unheralded George Mason program had never come close to until earning its first NCAA tournament victory last month - the Patriots are the story, and it's one that hasn't been told in decades.

More than 100 people packed a hearing last night on a plan that would dictate how one of Baltimore's most historic neighborhoods will evolve. Dozens of people lined up to testify before the city Planning Commission on the renewal plan for Mount Vernon in a debate that has largely come down to how high future buildings will push the neighborhood's skyline. The hearing, which began at 7 p.m., ran for hours. The goal behind the city's plan is to get more people on Mount Vernon's streets by encouraging denser development.