Judah: Prefight pacifier

June 09, 2007|THE INQUIRER STAFF

Zab Judah tried to dampen animosity during a news conference yesterday at New York's Madison Square Garden to promote tonight's World Boxing Association welterweight title fight.

Fans have split along ethnic lines between champion Miguel Cotto, who is from Puerto Rico, and Judah, the challenger from Brooklyn.

"I have plenty of good Latino friends and a lot of Puerto Rican fans, too," Judah said. "I was on [a local radio program] and the people were kind of trying to take it to a Latino/African American thing. I don't want to get into that. I don't want to let anyone start something it shouldn't be. It's just boxing."

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Tommy Morrison's former agent, Randy Lang, said the fighter tested positive for HIV in mandatory blood tests for a boxing license, the Arizona Republic reported.

Auto racing

Scott Sharp, a nine-time IndyCar Series winner in his first season with Rahal Letterman Racing, won the pole for the Bombardier Learjet 550 at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth with a qualifying lap of 215.260 m.p.h. It was his sixth career pole, but first since 2001.

Elsewhere: Justin Wilson took the provisional pole for the Champ Car Grand Prix of Portland, turning a fast lap of 58 seconds at Portland International Raceway in Oregon.

Colleges

Andy Landers, the former coach at Georgia, headed six inductees into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in Knoxville, Tenn.

He was joined by Texas player Andrea Lloyd Curry, Louisiana Tech player Pamela Kelly-Flowers, Tennessee teammates Daedra Charles-Furlow and Bridgette Gordon, and Inquirer staff writer Mel Greenberg, originator of the women's basketball weekly poll in 1976.

Florida State's Walter Dix won the 100 meters in the NCAA Division I track and field championships in 9.93 seconds, barely missing the college mark of 9.92 set by Ato Bolden of UCLA in the 1996 NCAAs.

La Salle senior Sean Quigley finished fourth in the men's 10,000-meter run in the meet in Sacramento, Calif., clocking a time of 28 minutes, 59.29 seconds.

Akilah Vargas of Villanova qualified for today's final in the women's 1,500 meters in 4:20.57. Kyle Calvo of Penn was 16th in the decathlon with 7,134 points.

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