Sports Deaths

For the second time in two years, tragedy struck the racing family of Arthur Hendrick of Chino. Hendrick's daughter, Kara, 22, was killed in a crash during a U.S. Auto Club midget car race Saturday night at the Cajon Speedway. She was pronounced dead at 11:17 p.m. at Sharp Memorial Hospital in nearby San Diego. An autopsy Sunday found head injuries to be the cause of death.

Kevin Copeland, a 17-year old football player at Dorsey High School in Los Angeles, collapsed on the playing field during a game against San Pedro High Friday night and died of cardiac arrest at San Pedro Peninsula Hospital. Copeland's father, Ron, an NCAA hurdles champion and a football star at UCLA, died in 1975 at the age of 28. He suffered a heart attack only one week after his father, Kevin's grandfather, had died of heart disease.

Carmen Garcia couldn't take her eyes off Gabriel Ruelas' hands. As he spoke and gestured, she kept her eyes glued to his fists. It was last Monday, the first formal meeting between the two. Ten days earlier, Ruelas had fought her son, Jimmy, the Colombian junior-lightweight champion. Ruelas had won the bout when it was stopped in the 11th round.

Robert Wangila spent six years futilely attempting to relive his one, golden flash. Sunday, long after most people had written him off, he died trying. The body of Wangila, who came to America fresh from his scintillating triumph in the 1988 Olympic Games--the first boxing gold medal won by an African--will be flown home Saturday to Kenya. There will be a burial without professional riches, without accolades, without anything he came to the United States six years ago to acquire.

A maker of capsules designed for driver safety in boat racing apparently drowned in his Sunday when his top-fuel craft became airborne slightly past the starting line and plunged to the bottom of Puddingstone Lake in San Dimas during an International Hot Boat Assn. drag racing event. Denver Mullins, 48, was the owner of Capsules by Denver Inc., which designed compartments for boat racers similar to those used in in jet fighters.

In what was believed to be the first fatality in an official U.S. taekwondo tournament, a budding 25-year-old Danish rock star collapsed and died after being kicked in the head by his opponent during a match Saturday evening at the Anaheim Convention Center.

The day had long since given way to darkness at the Raymond Rosen project, causing the rows of two-story brick houses to appear even more gloomy and the high-rise flats even more scary. But there is an even greater darkness that lives in this project, one that has nothing to do with time but the stifling of spirit. In an upstairs bedroom of one of these houses, Aaron Kevin Crump was peacefully asleep when his father, Hank Gathers, collapsed while playing basketball last Sunday.

When Carl Lewis charged last year in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. that world-class athletes have died from the use of performance-enhancing drugs, such as anabolic steroids, skeptics told him to name one. He could have named Birgit Dressel. Dressel, a West German heptathlete, finished fourth in the European Championships and was ranked No. 6 in the world in 1986. On April 10, 1987, she died after three days of agonizing pain in a Mainz, West Germany, hospital. She was 26.

Drag boat racer Tim Capaldi, 31, of West Hills was killed Sunday when his boat crashed during the International Hot Boat Assn. Springnationals at Puddingstone Lake in San Dimas. Capaldi, a three-time IHBA blown alcohol hydro world champion, was going nearly 200 m.p.h. when his boat, Mission Possible, crashed after he had finished a first-round elimination race.

Tragedy again struck the powerful Austrian ski team Saturday when the World Cup's only skiing mother, Ulrike Maier, was killed in a downhill race after crashing two-thirds down the course at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. Austrian and German officials said Maier--a two time world champion in super-giant slalom and one of Austria's top medal hopes at the upcoming Lillehammer Olympics--suffered a broken neck when her right ski apparently hit a patch of soft snow, causing her to lose balance.