WACO, Texas (AP) — Former Alabama and Texas A&M coach Gene Stallings has been selected head coach of the United States team that will compete in the first World Cup of American Football next summer.
“I’m excited about the opportunity,” said Stallings, who retired from Alabama after the 1996 season. “Football is truly an American sport, and I’m looking forward to assembling a team that will represent our country and our game on a world stage for the first time.”
The U.S. team will be made up of college players from all divisions who complete their football eligibility this season. Players will be picked beginning in December.
The eight-team tournament will be held June 21-July 4, 1999, in Palermo, Italy. The other countries in the field will be Australia, Canada, Finland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Sweden.
Too much, too soon
JACKSON, Mich. (AP) — Keith Long described his hole-in-one this way:
“I hit the ball and it hit the green and went and rolled over to the flag. My dad, he went to his knees and flipped over like a bird.”
Keith Long is 5 years old.
His hole-in-one came on the par-3, 140-yard fourth hole, using a driver. Keith’s father, Bob, and a family friend were with the boy.
Keith has been a golfer since he was 2, using makeshift clubs his dad created by cutting down his old shafts, but he recently got his first set of junior clubs. Keith said he likes the sport.
“I can hit the ball good,” he said.
That’s some wish
TORONTO (AP) — Sprinter Ben Johnson has agreed to race two horses and a car to raise money for the Children’s Wish Foundation.
The race, which will be run over 80 to 100 meters, will be run Oct. 15.
“The main reason Ben is doing this is to give something back to the kids,” Johnson’s agent, Morris Chrobotek, said Tuesday.
But even Chrobotek, who has been leading Johnson’s attempt to overturn his lifetime ban from track for using banned drugs, couldn’t help cracking jokes about the charity event.
“We want the horses tested for drugs (after the race),” he said. “We want someone to look at the engine of the car too.”
Tribute
RENO, Nev. (AP) — Nevada football players plan to wear stickers on their helmets the rest of the season to pay tribute to a cheerleader killed in a car crash on the way to last weekend’s UNR-UNLV game.
The stickers carry the initials “M.L.,” for Melissa Link of Reno, who died in an accident Friday.
Running back Chris Lemon, a friend of the 18-year-old freshman cheerleader, heard about the accident before he rushed for 190 yards in the 31-20 win over UNLV, and he dedicated his performance to her by writing her initials on his wrist band.