February 28, 2005 | Volume 102, Issue 9

JUNE 3, 1974

Brain Man

LETTERS

Years ago, at a cystic fibrosis fund-raiser, Mike Ditka thanked Gene Keady for behaving like a lunatic. "My wife saw you on TV," said the gum-throwing former Bears coach, "and told me, 'You're...

Hopes soared when NHL players and owners reconvened soon after the season was canceled. But the commissioner was not in a conciliatory mood

Whaddya mean there's no hockey? Up in Plaster Rock, 96 four-man teams did battle on a frozen lake

The outlaw journalist loved and wrote about sports for 50 years

83 Consecutive games lost by Division III Schreiner's women's basketball team, an NCAA record, before the Mountaineers beat Sul Ross State last Saturday.

Resigned Abruptly last week, U.S. women's soccer coach, April Heinrichs (inset). Her departure comes as the women's game has reached a crossroads. After sending off retirees Mia Hamm, Julie Foudy...

Not satisfied with six Tour de France titles, Lance Armstrong will return

See that German shorthaired pointer who won the Westminster? Pretty impressive. After the dog show he pointed out three judges using steroids.

The star of Reservoir Dogs and Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 plays poker pro Don (The Matador) Everest on ESPN's Tilt

When she tees off in her first LPGA tournament of the season, on March 4 in Mexico City, the world's top women's golfer will be swinging single. Annika Sorenstam, 34, announced that she has filed...

English snooker player Jimmy White legally changed his name to James Brown so he could call himself "The Godfather of Snooker."

CHARLES BARKLEY

What to watch and watch for

Sixteen guys enter the accommodations in which they'll eat, sleep and eye one another with suspicion for the next six weeks, knowing only one can emerge victorious. This time it's not the...

MOTOR SPORTS

Jordan Snipes

ON BEING TRADED TO ATLANTA AFTER SIX YEARS WITH THE A'S My wife, Kim, and I loved Oakland so much: the relationships we built with teammates, with fans. I had a pretty hard time with the trade the...

[Based on a survey of 227 NBA players]

WHO'S Hot

Wait a minute! Who really has the football that made Dwight Clark famous?

Since 22-year-old Mavericks point guard Devin Harris wrote about adjusting to life in Dallas in his Jan. 31 diary entry, he has averaged 7.0 points and 2.0 assists in 15.1 minutes for the 35-16 Mavs.

What was your welcome-to-the-NBA moment? Shaking David Stern's hand [on draft night in 1997]. Hearing my name called was awesome. The culmination of it was shaking this man's hand.

JUAN DIXON WIZARDS GUARD

It's heating up in the land of the Giants and 11 other clubs--but it's a dry heat

Local spots where sports stars have left their mark

[This article consists of photographs--see below.]

Jeff Gordon fought off a hard-charging Dale Earnhardt Jr. to win his third Daytona 500 and end a long, dark off-season for his Hendrick Motorsports team

Ace lefty Randy Johnson, a pitcher the Yankees coveted for nearly a decade, hit the ground running--and chatting--at his first spring training in pinstripes

As camps opened in Florida and Arizona, pressing questions inevitably began springing up all over

MRSA, a strain of antibiotic-resistant staphylococcus once confined to hospitals, is striking athletes at an alarming rate and with dire consequences

All-seeing, All-America sophomore court general Chris Paul of Wake Forest has become the college game's best point guard--and one of its leading citizens

With a plethora of first-rate point guards in college this season, Seth Davis picks the top 10 and evaluates their pro potential on a 1-to-5 scale: 1=CBA candidate, 2=NBA roster shot;...

After fleeing civil war in Sudan and settling in Indiana, Wal and Julia Duany sent all five of their children to college on Division I hoops scholarships

The Week In Sports

The stellar play of oft-injured center Zydrunas Ilgauskas will be a key part of the Cavs' success--if they can keep him

At the break the Mavericks ranked an uncharacteristically high fourth in the West in field-goal-percentage defense (43.7), and Dirk Nowitzki credits that to the improved play of center Erick...

For decades teams chose not to draft European point guards, believing that they didn't have a feel for the NBA game. The Spurs considered choosing one in the second round of the 1999 draft, says...

AROUND THE RIM

Using an international lineup, Pacific has improbably cracked the Top 25 and become the best team in California

An NBA scout evaluates the potential of N.C. State swingman Julius Hodge, a 6'7", 205-pound senior. At week's end Hodge, the 2003--04 ACC player of the year, was averaging 17.8 points, 7.2...

COWBOYS' CURRY

CHINS UP

If you run a hotel in this country, there are a few groups that make you go gulp when they check in. The American Litigants Union. The National Kleptomaniacs Society. 60 Minutes.

SPECIAL REPORT

Fellow Afrikaner Ernie Els is the only Tour pro who's close with Retief Goosen

Life and Times on the PGA Tour

My wife's second fight with cancer has made golf no less important to our family

The LPGA has a problem when the biggest name at its opening event is a 15-year-old amateur.

PLUS

A soggy PGA Tour official talks about rain, fairway fishing and the Big Coat

In 2000 Donna Orender, then the PGA Tour's senior VP of strategic development, topped SPORTS ILLUSTRATED's ranking of the most powerful women in golf, but last week she left the game to become...

7.95

• EASY MONEY Adam Scott won the Nissan Open after 37 holes and 137 strokes. If you're scoring at home, that's about $6,300 a swing.

WHO: Mark James

"If Greg Norman and Tim Finchem don't resolve their differences, the Champions tour will be the big loser, because Norman will play only a limited schedule."

Now that Annika Sorenstam, a 56-time winner, has split up with husband David Esch, is she more or less likely to break Kathy Whitworth's LPGA record of 88 victories?

What does a quiet man like U.S. Open champ Retief Goosen have to do to get people talking about him? How about getting DQ'd before taking a shot

A dream opportunity--chronicling a triumphant 2004 season by the Cubs--turned into a North Side nightmare

As the Cubs stumbled through a 13-2 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates in their home opener last year, preseason hopes met with stark reality on Chicago's North Side. The following is excerpted from...

Having dominated the skeleton season, Utah's Noelle Pikus-Pace has slid into prime position for next year's Olympics

Look for these likely first-time U.S. Olympians to contend for medals when the Games arrive in Italy next winter