By Staff
Star Tracking …
June 19, 2001
TULSA, Okla. For Retief Goosen, the tortuous ordeal lasted just one day. When given a chance to atone for one of golf's most embarrassing moments, the soft-spoken South African made sure he wouldn't have to go through life as the guy who missed a 2-foot putt to lose the U.S. Open. No, he'll be remembered as a U.S. Open champion. "I felt like I needed to win this because of what happened," Goosen said Monday, savoring a 2-stroke victory over Mark Brooks in the first Open playoff since 1994. "When the putt went in, it was great relief. In a way, I was a little bit shocked that I had won it."
BALTIMORE The decision gnawed at Cal Ripken for weeks until he decided there was no reason to avoid the inevitable. Ripken, who played in more consecutive games than anyone in baseball history, said Monday night that he will retire after this season. Ripken, who turns 41 in August, revealed his decision earlier in the day in an interview with The Washington Post.
June 19, 1997
Clarkdale High School baseball coach Donny Sylvester has been moved into a private room in a Mobile, Ala., hospital after an automobile accident last week nearly killed him. Lynn Roberson, a teacher at Clarkdale and the wife of athletic director Rick Roberson said Sylvester was traveling from a visit with his mother in Beaumont late last Thursday afternoon when his car was hit head-on by another driver just outside of Waynesboro. Sylvester, who recently completed his first year with the Bulldogs after several at Perry Central, was left with multiple injuries, including a broken ankle, arm, jaw, numerous facial injuries and a brusied liver, Roberson said.
June 19, 1992
RALEIGH, N.C. Jim Valvano, the colorful former North Carolina State basketball coach and television analyst, has cancer, Valvano's agent and a television network said. ESPN, the sports network Valvano went to work for after leaving the Wolfpack in 1990, said Thursday night that Valvano had been diagnosed with the disease. In a brief report, sportscaster Bob Ley said Valvano, 46, is at his Cary, N.C., home "in excellent spirits" but did not elaborate on the type of cancer nor the extent of Valvano's illness.
Ryan Satcher
Sports Faces …
Ralph Boston
Former Olympic gold medalist Ralph Boston was an honored guest at last week's opening ceremonies for the State Games of Mississippi.
Boston was thrilled to get to talk many of the 1,200 youth athletes who attended the ceremonies.
He won the gold medal in the long jump at the 1960 Rome Games. He won silver at the Toyko Games in 1964.
In 1968, he was an eye witness to perhaps the greatest single feat in Olympic history, Bob Beamon shattering the world long jump record by more than two feet.
Jeff Byrd