Manchester College

There are no movie theaters here. No malls. No fancy sit-down restaurants. No traffic. No crime sprees, unless you count a murder every five years or so. The closest thing to graffiti is probably the heart and initials carved into the bark of a tree near Highway 114, the main drag through this two-lane, two-stoplight town of 6,300. In North Manchester, they gently pat their car horns to wave hello. Farmers, of which there are many in these parts, putter down the road on their tractors.

Steve Alford, basketball coach at Manchester College, has signed a long-term contract to continue coaching at the school in North Manchester, Ind. Alford took over the 0-8 program in mid-December and finished with a 4-16 record. As a player, Alford led Indiana University to the NCAA championship in 1987 and played guard for four years in the NBA.

Steve Alford, basketball coach at Manchester College, has signed a long-term contract to continue coaching at the school in North Manchester, Ind. Alford took over the 0-8 program in mid-December and finished with a 4-16 record. As a player, Alford led Indiana University to the NCAA championship in 1987 and played guard for four years in the NBA.

There are no movie theaters here. No malls. No fancy sit-down restaurants. No traffic. No crime sprees, unless you count a murder every five years or so. The closest thing to graffiti is probably the heart and initials carved into the bark of a tree near Highway 114, the main drag through this two-lane, two-stoplight town of 6,300. In North Manchester, they gently pat their car horns to wave hello. Farmers, of which there are many in these parts, putter down the road on their tractors.

Richard Lewis, the noted English tenor who appeared regularly in Los Angeles in the 1950s and '60s with the San Francisco Opera and who specialized in the operas of Monteverdi, Mozart, Schoenberg and Britten, has died at his home in Eastbourne, England. He was 76 and died Tuesday of complications of a recent stroke.

Roy J. Plunkett, a DuPont Co. chemist who discovered Teflon, which became a wide-ranging part of American life from frying pans to artificial blood vessels, has died. A DuPont Co. spokesman said Friday from company headquarters that Plunkett had died Thursday at his home in Corpus Christi, Tex. The DuPont spokesman said Plunkett was 83 and died after a brief illness. Plunkett was working as a research chemist for DuPont in 1938 when he discovered the material.

A group of TIAA-CREF shareholders has resumed a protest campaign after a yearlong hiatus, saying the manager of the largest U.S. retirement fund reneged on promises to support a wider array of "socially conscious" investments.

Steve Alford might not seem to have many ties to UCLA basketball. He played at Indiana for Coach Bob Knight, who seemed to go out of his way to praise Pete Newell at the expense of John Wooden, who like Alford was an all-state high school player in Indiana who became an All-American in college and led his team to an NCAA title. But here's a nugget I found from an extensive 1997 story I did on Alford when he was coaching at Southwest Missouri State. After Alford was released by the Sacramento Kings in 1992, he was offered a job to coach Division III Manchester College in Indiana. The school was looking for a home-state hero to rescue a struggling basketball program.

Re "Now he tells us," March 8 The last paragraph says, "Utter failure -- characterized by a dismemberment of the nation into warring sectarian regions -- would be disastrous for U.S. interests." Certainly one would not want to see three warring regions, but apart from Turkey's reservations about an independent Kurdistan and another Shiite state with Sunni neighbors, what is so bad about Iraq being split? It does not have a long history of being a nation, as it was constructed in 1922.

Paul J. Flory, a Nobel Prize-winning chemist and a lifelong human rights activist, has died of a massive heart attack at age 75. Flory, a pioneer in polymer chemistry who won the Nobel Prize in 1974, was found dead Monday in his car in Big Sur, his wife, Emily, said.

Paul J. Flory, a Nobel Prize-winning chemist and a lifelong human rights activist, has died of a massive heart attack at age 75. Flory, a pioneer in polymer chemistry who won the Nobel Prize in 1974, was found dead Monday in his car in Big Sur, his wife, Emily, said.