Football Suits

A federal judge gave preliminary approval Friday to the out-of-court settlement that opens the way for NFL free agency on Monday. David Doty, who presided over the lawsuits that led to the NFL labor settlement, said the agreement settles the cases pending in federal and state courts, including the class-action suit filed by Reggie White of the Philadelphia Eagles. Doty gave all sides until April 2 to file objections.

A federal judge gave preliminary approval Friday to the out-of-court settlement that opens the way for NFL free agency on Monday. David Doty, who presided over the lawsuits that led to the NFL labor settlement, said the agreement settles the cases pending in federal and state courts, including the class-action suit filed by Reggie White of the Philadelphia Eagles. Doty gave all sides until April 2 to file objections.

The 24-day-old National Football League strike ended Thursday when the NFL Players Union ordered the players back to work without agreement on a new contract and filed an antitrust suit against the league. "It was unfair to the players to continue to sacrifice anymore," union leader Gene Upshaw told reporters in New York as he called off the strike. Upshaw said that player representatives from all 28 teams had voted to return to work.

Tony Palamara knew full well his chances of playing professional football were slim. But secretly, during his two seasons at Cal State Northridge, he hoped that he might get just half a chance to bang some heads around in the NFL. He never got that half-chance. He did, however, get a full chance to play the game on half of a football field.

A woman who wants to coach high school football filed a $151,450 sex discrimination suit against the District of Columbia Thursday for giving her the job last year and then taking it away. Wanda A. Oates, who has collected a dozen city championships in 20 years of coaching girls' and boys' sports at Ballou High School, filed the suit in U.S. District Court, claiming she was given the job last June.

Tony Palamara knew full well his chances of playing professional football were slim. But secretly, during his two seasons at Cal State Northridge, he hoped that he might get just half a chance to bang some heads around in the NFL. He never got that half-chance. He did, however, get a full chance to play the game on half of a football field.

Arriving at the reunion, the old Compton College players did not seem that far removed from the past. Everybody recognized everybody else, even though the 40 years since they formed a great football team have turned their hair gray and expanded their waistlines. The largest of them, Sim Iness, entered a banquet room at the Golden Sails Hotel in Long Beach, where much reliving of Compton's 1948 Little Rose Bowl championship was going on, and was spotted by his former coach.

The San Francisco 49ers are not so much a team as a state of mind. You get the feeling they're slightly embarrassed to find themselves involved in something as crass as a Super Bowl. It's like dropping in at a servants' wedding or showing up at the opera in brown shoes. They feel as if they're slumming. Super Bowls are for Pittsburgh Steelers, Green Bay Packers, Minnesota Vikings. It's for people who show up in hats with horns, or their faces painted blue, not for people from San Francisco.

The goals that were tangible for USC in three previous Rose Bowl games under Coach Pete Carroll -- national championships, a chance for redemption -- will be absent today when the sixth-ranked Trojans play 13th-ranked Illinois. But USC players maintain that motivation will not be a problem against a three-loss Fighting Illini team hoping to upset the Trojans. "I don't think anyone's taking it for granted and looking past it," senior quarterback John David Booty said of the 94th Rose Bowl game.

In conversation, Matt Ishler uses words like "gnarly" and "hard-core" He is a classically trained viola player ... and an extreme mountain biker who hopes to become a stuntman. He is soft-spoken, intelligent ... and jumps a unicycle over ramps for fun. He is a young man of seemingly endless contradictions, yet this much is clear: As a wrestler, the 215-pound Santa Monica High senior has dominated almost every Southern Section opponent he has faced this year. A Renaissance man in a singlet.

The 24-day-old National Football League strike ended Thursday when the NFL Players Union ordered the players back to work without agreement on a new contract and filed an antitrust suit against the league. "It was unfair to the players to continue to sacrifice anymore," union leader Gene Upshaw told reporters in New York as he called off the strike. Upshaw said that player representatives from all 28 teams had voted to return to work.

A woman who wants to coach high school football filed a $151,450 sex discrimination suit against the District of Columbia Thursday for giving her the job last year and then taking it away. Wanda A. Oates, who has collected a dozen city championships in 20 years of coaching girls' and boys' sports at Ballou High School, filed the suit in U.S. District Court, claiming she was given the job last June.

Tustin High's junior varsity football team suits up in a locker room where wires protrude from lights. Plaster has collapsed into piles of dust and the red painted floor is so mottled, a district official said the place resembles a slaughterhouse. Students at Orange Coast College study at picnic tables in the shadow of a vacant, weed-encircled library, its books transplanted to 24 trailers in the parking lot after it was ruled seismically unfit three years ago.