Northwestern University

Randy Walker, the Northwestern University football coach whose training methods were scrutinized after the practice-field death of defensive back Rashidi Wheeler nearly five years ago, has died. He was 52. The cause was an apparent heart attack. Walker experienced chest pains before dying Thursday night at his suburban Chicago home, a university spokesman said. Walker's death stunned a program that under his leadership shed its pre-1995 reputation as a college football laughingstock.

Leo Branton Jr., a civil rights and entertainment lawyer whose stirring defense of '60s radical Angela Davis brought him his most celebrated victory in a six-decade career often spent championing unpopular cases, died of natural causes Friday in Los Angeles. He was 91. His death was confirmed by his son Tony Nicholas. Branton, the only African American graduate of Northwestern University's law school in 1948, helped singer Nat King Cole integrate an exclusive Los Angeles neighborhood, defended Communists in McCarthy-era Los Angeles and won misconduct cases against the Los Angeles Police Department decades before Rodney King became a household name.

Normally this time of year, the Westin South Coast Plaza hotel is a fairly tranquil place. Families visiting the grandparents. Die-hard shoppers seeking post-holiday bargains at the mall next door. But come this afternoon, a pack of about 600 Wildcats will roar into town and transform the Costa Mesa hotel into the Orange County headquarters for Northwestern University fans attending the Rose Bowl. The visitors are scheduled to take about 300 of the Westin's 390 rooms.

Everyone knows that Herman Melville was a great poet. When gripped by what he called "the blasts resistless," Melville's prose rose quickly and powerfully to the status of music. Even when readers feel lost in the symbolic labyrinth of "Moby-Dick" or the mad psychological oscillations of "Pierre, or the Ambiguities," rhythms worthy of concertos, symphonies and grand opera bear them along.

Minutes after watching Michigan beat Ohio State last month, Joseph Small lifted his telephone and set in motion a marketing blitz that will reap millions of dollars for Orange County's hotels, shops and tourist spots during the traditionally slow week between Christmas and New Year's. The University of Michigan's victory propelled Northwestern University into the Rose Bowl.

Northwestern University has been awarded grants totaling more than $20 million from a foundation established by former Ambassador Walter H. Annenberg, university President Arnold R. Weber said Tuesday. Weber said the grants from the St. Davids, Pa.-based Annenberg Foundation include more than $15 million in support of the Annenberg Washington Program in Communication Policy Studies of Northwestern University, based in Washington, D.C.

Jennifer Kroll of Alemany High has signed a national letter of intent to Northwestern University. A 5-10 forward, Kroll averaged 19 points and 12 rebounds a game last season and was selected to the Times All-Valley first team.

Northwestern University women's basketball team took advantage of 21 turnovers by the University of San Diego to pull out a 60-56 nonconference victory Sunday night in the USD Sports Center. Carrie Lawless led Northwestern (4-3) with 13 points. Candida Echeverria led USD (2-7) with 16 points.

ILAN STAVANS, scholar, historian, polyglot, theoretician of two diasporas, is one of those rare intellectuals who seems willing to try his hand at anything. One of the most vital voices of Latino scholarship, Stavans has, in the last 15 years, pursued an astonishingly diverse set of interests.

The sun was still easing into the eastern sky, the haze of early morning glimmering Wednesday off wet grass and waving cornstalks, as the first figures in pads and cleats ambled down a gravel path and onto the football field, suddenly a place of solace and sweat-soaked relief. Practice wasn't supposed to start until 8. But offense in white jerseys, defense in black, purple helmets aloft, Northwestern's football team assembled early.

Randy Walker, the Northwestern University football coach whose training methods were scrutinized after the practice-field death of defensive back Rashidi Wheeler nearly five years ago, has died. He was 52. The cause was an apparent heart attack. Walker experienced chest pains before dying Thursday night at his suburban Chicago home, a university spokesman said. Walker's death stunned a program that under his leadership shed its pre-1995 reputation as a college football laughingstock.

Northwestern University football coach Randy Walker, 52, died of an apparent heart attack. No other details of his death were immediately available. Two months ago, Northwestern gave Walker a four-year extension through the 2011 season. Walker was coach in 2001 when player Rashidi Wheeler, a graduate of La Verne Damien High, collapsed and died during practice of what was ruled exercise-induced bronchial asthma.

Northwestern University has punished its men's swim team and students who perform as the school's mascot for hazing, a school spokesman said Wednesday, only days after the school suspended its women's soccer team amid similar allegations. The swim team's hazing occurred in September and involved underage drinking, swimming in Lake Michigan when the beaches were closed and "additional inappropriate behavior," said Mike Wolf, Northwestern's assistant athletic director for media services.

This paperback guide may be titillating for trivia and history hounds, whether they're fans of Wright, or even of architecture in general. Styled like an old-fashioned travel Baedeker, it's a compilation of every residential, commercial or civic structure designed by the inimitable architect (about 500 of them), including those that never were built, and those designed for Iraq, India and Japan.

Northwestern University football coach Randy Walker, 52, died of an apparent heart attack. No other details of his death were immediately available. Two months ago, Northwestern gave Walker a four-year extension through the 2011 season. Walker was coach in 2001 when player Rashidi Wheeler, a graduate of La Verne Damien High, collapsed and died during practice of what was ruled exercise-induced bronchial asthma.

Two universities rebuffed Theodore J. Kaczynski's efforts to publish an anti-technology manuscript before the first Unabomber explosion went off--in the parking lot of one of the universities, ABC's "World News Tonight" reported. "He was going to get even is what he said," Northwestern University math professor Don Saari told ABC. Saari said he had referred Kaczynski to engineering professors at both Northwestern and the Chicago campus of the University of Illinois.

Linda Will, the mother of late Northwestern football player Rashidi Wheeler, was awarded an estimated $10.7 million Friday, 70% of the $16-million settlement the university agreed to pay last year to end a wrongful-death lawsuit filed by Wheeler's family after his 2001 practice-field death. Wheeler's brothers, George III and Hershel Jr., received 5% each in the allocation order by Cook County (Ill.

Fifth-year senior Brett Basanez has had a remarkable college football career at Northwestern. He's the Wildcats' winningest quarterback, with 22 victories, and owns 28 school records, including career records for passing yardage, completions and total offense. "I can't put into words what Baz means to [Northwestern]," freshman running back Tyrell Sutton said. "He brings so much to the table. Whether it is leadership on and off the field, his poise in a game or how he conducts himself in public.