Football Players

Allen Pitts made up his mind to give professional football one more try. It was April 1990, and Pitts decided to go to an open tryout camp at UC Irvine despite being away from football for more than three years. Roy Shivers, director of player personnel for the Canadian Football League's Calgary Stampeders, recognized Pitts' name on the camp's roster from the days when Shivers coached running backs at Nevada Las Vegas and Pitts was a wide receiver for Cal State Fullerton.

The 17-year-old football star's skin was black and his backpack red. Were it not for those colors, a prosecutor told jurors Tuesday, Jamiel Shaw II might never have been murdered by an 18th Street gang member eager to earn his stripes. Deputy Dist. Atty. Allyson Ostrowski said Pedro Espinoza, now 23, shot Shaw execution-style in 2008 thinking he was a Bloods gang member because he was African American and was carrying a red Spider-Man backpack. Shaw, who played for Los Angeles High School, was killed in March of that year just a few houses away from his Arlington Heights home.

Tom Harmon, Old 98, died Thursday of a heart attack shortly after playing 18 holes of golf at the Bel-Air Country Club. Harmon, 70, won a tournament with Dr. David Boska as his partner earlier in the day. From the country club, Harmon drove to the Amelia Travel Agency in West Los Angeles, where he became ill. He told employees there to call Dr. Boska at his office on San Vicente Boulevard because he was feeling ill, but he soon passed out and paramedics were called to the scene.

USC is entering the final weeks of the spring semester, so a group of USC football players got together and went to class -- in full uniform. Quarterback Matt Barkley, safety T.J. McDonald, receivers Robert Woods and Marqise Lee, running back Curtis McNeal and center Khaled Holmes took part. The athletic department's video department documented their tour of campus. Barkley and about a dozen other players are scheduled to travel to Haiti in May to help build houses and help with relief efforts in the aftermath of the devastating 2010 earthquake.

Thousand Oaks High is conducting an investigation into charges that assistant football coach Bob Shoup, who coached at Cal Lutheran for 28 years, made improper contact with a member of the Moorpark High team. George Paul, whose son Bryan was a backup quarterback last fall at Moorpark, said he contacted Shoup and had lunch with the coach last week. Bryan also attended the meeting. Shoup, 61, was a first-year walk-on coach at Thousand Oaks last fall.

SITE -- Sun Devil Stadium, Tempe, Ariz. This is the first game to be played in Arizona. SEATING CAPACITY -- 74,000. KICKOFF -- 3:18 p.m. PST NETWORK COVERAGE--By NBC-TV (Channel 4) to approximately 215 stations and throughout the United States plus Puerto Rico, Bermuda, Bahamas, and Antigua. By CBS Radio (1070 AM) to more than 375 stations within in the United States. The Armed Forces Televison and Radio Network will also provide broadcast through out the world.

The list of outstanding offensive players produced at Edison High School in the last 25 years reads like a who's who of Orange County high school football. Former running backs include Kerwin Bell (Kansas), Mike Dotterer (Stanford), Dave Geroux (USC) and Kaleaph Carter (UCLA). Former quarterbacks include Rick Bashore (UCLA), Steve Rakhashani (Hawaii), Frank Seurer (Kansas), Ken Major (Rice) and Edison's current coach, Dave White (Oregon State).

The risk of heat-related illnesses for high-school football players is higher than ever due to record high temperatures around the country and the fact that football players these days are bigger than ever. The combination is leading to a rise in the number of heat-related illnesses and deaths, said experts from the Union of Concerned Scientists in a news conference Thursday. The death rate during football practice was about one death per year from 1980 to 1994 but has risen to 2.8 deaths per year since then, according to climatologist Andrew Grundstein of the University of Georgia.

Christian Tupou is a student-athlete. He plays football, and more specifically he plays defensive tackle. The combination of these simple traits traps USC's Tupou in a series of stereotypes that thrust him to the bottom of the intellectual scale at a top-tier university. But listening to Tupou talk and watching him show his football skills muddies the water. The starting redshirt senior has boatloads of athletic intelligence in addition to school smarts. With fall camp fast approaching, he's studying Pacific 12 Conference centers and guards to see which hand they use to snap the ball, and to see how far apart their feet are. In games he'll use his off-season studying to help him shoot his gaps.

Rhabdomyolysis triggered by too much exercise is thought to be rare. But the diagnosis of 13 cases of rhabdomyolysis among University of Iowa football players in January has shaken the world of sports training and taught coaches and trainers that the illness can arise out of "normal" high-intensity workouts. In a report released Wednesday, independent experts who reviewed the Iowa case confirmed that the 13 players, all of whom recovered after several days of hospital care, became ill due to overexertion.

Neil Travis Film editor earned Oscar for 'Dances With Wolves' Film editor Neil Travis, 75, who received an Academy Award for his work on the 1990 film "Dances With Wolves" and an Emmy for the 1977 miniseries "Roots," died March 28 at his home in Arroyo Grande, Calif. The cause was not disclosed. His death was confirmed by United Talent Agency, which represented him. When an early version of "Dances With Wolves" came in at more than five hours, Travis worked with director-producer-star Kevin Costner to slice two hours from the epic western.

USC safety T.J. McDonald remembers the scrapbook. He saw it at quarterback Matt Barkley's home, a collection of photographs from the Barkley family's trip to Nigeria a few years ago, a journey that included humanitarian work. "I told him I would be interested in going on the next trip when they did something like that," McDonald said Tuesday. McDonald will get his wish next month. Barkley, McDonald and 13 other Trojans are scheduled to travel to Haiti, which continues to rebuild from the devastating 2010 earthquake.

George Anderson, the longtime athletic trainer for the Oakland and Los Angeles Raiders who devised an innovative knee brace that became standard for football players, died Thursday in Santa Fe, N.M., his daughter Kristi Anderson Ornstein said. He was 82 and had Parkinson's disease and diabetes. FOR THE RECORD: George Anderson: The obituary of former Raiders athletic trainer George Anderson in the April 1 California section gave his age as 82. Anderson was born Jan. 23, 1929, and was 83 when he died March 29. The obituary also omitted his wife, Gailey Vollmer, from the list of survivors.

Training camps regularly prepare football players for their roles on the field, so why not one to help them prepare for their post-gridiron roles — in this case, a career in Hollywood? That's the idea behind the inaugural NFL Hollywood Boot Camp that kicks off (so to speak) Monday on the back lots of Universal Studios. Born out of a meeting between Film Life Chief Executive Jeff Friday and Baltimore Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs, the new program is funded by the Player Engagement division of the NFL, an educational arm that also offers programs in broadcasting, business and music for current and former NFL players.

USC receiver Marqise Lee and running back D.J. Morgan are accustomed to catching passes. Trojans defensive backs Nickell Robey and Tony Burnett have been trained to knock them down. On Saturday, the quartet will make passes — by handing off a baton — when they compete together in the 400-meter relay in the USC track team's season-opening outdoor competition at the Claremont Relays. It's the first time since the early 2000s that USC football players have migrated en masse to the track, restoring a tradition that once helped the Trojans win multiple conference championships in the spring sport.

So, if a pass is dropped in the forest and nobody sees it … UCLA has tightened security, closing its "Pro Day" to the public and media. Unlike in previous years, only NFL scouts will be allowed to see Bruins players work out. This could explain the Bruins' woeful 4-8 season in 2011 -- too many fans and media at games. As to when this event takes place, that is being handled as need-to-know information. UCLA has had nine players picked in the last three NFL drafts. USC had nine players drafted in 2011 alone.

On Dorsey High's wall of honor hangs his picture, along with those of Karim Abdul-Jabbar, Keyshawn Johnson and Lamont Warren. But Michael Black never played a down of football for Dorsey. He was going to, had even participated in spring ball and was running step for step with Abdul-Jabbar, who was then Sharmon Shah. They were to report for fall practice in 1991, and there was to be more competition, with the winner playing tailback and the loser playing fullback for the Dons.

Chase Blackburn can work through all sorts of mathematical equations, but his own NFL career dilemma just didn't add up. Although he was the leading tackler on special teams in his first six seasons with the Giants and a team captain last season, his phone never rang when the lockout ended in the summer. The reserve linebacker had figured that if the Giants didn't re-sign him, another team would. So he waited. And waited. Days turned to weeks, weeks became months, and eventually reality sank in. Blackburn, a married father of two young boys, had to get on with his life.

The California Supreme Court on Monday reinstated the murder conviction of a former La Jolla High School football player for the 2007 killing of a well-known professional San Diego surfer. The court said Seth Cravens, a graduate of La Jolla High, knowingly committed a life-threatening act when he punched surfer Emery Kauanui in the head and knocked him to the ground. Kauanui suffered severe head injuries and died a few days later. A lower court had reduced Cravens' conviction to manslaughter on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence he meant to kill Kauanui, 24. But Justice Marvin Baxter, writing for the high court, said the nature of the blow, a sucker punch, and Cravens' behavior before and after the fight showed he acted with "implied malice," knowingly committing an act that could kill.