Football

Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie married Philadelphia resident Tina Lai in a private ceremony this weekend. Lurie, 61, announced last July that he and Christina Weiss Lurie were getting divorced after 20 years of marriage. Lai will have no official role in the Eagles organization. The wedding was attended by family and close friends. "I am happy and excited as Tina and I begin our lives together," Lurie said in a statement. Lai, 39, is from a family that owns restaurants in Philadelphia, including the Vietnam Restaurant in Chinatown and the Vietnam Cafe in University City.

RON JAWORSKI treats opportunity like a Doberman treats prime rib. So when Tim Tebow was released by the New York Jets on April 29, Jaworski took a shot by reaching out to the unemployed quarterback and offered him a roster spot with the Soul. He's still waiting for a reply. "I haven't heard back from him and I'm not going to push it," said Jaworski, one of the Soul's owners. "If he decides he wants to play Arena Football, we'll make a spot for him. " Jaworski and Soul coach Clint Dolezel sent Tebow a list of plays they had in mind for him, most were around the goal line.

PENN STATE COMMITMENTS Name Pos. Hgt. Wgt. High School/Location Brandon Bell LB 6-1 224 Oakcrest/Mays Landing, N.J. Adam Breneman TE 6-5 228 Cedar Cliff/Camp Hill, Pa. Curtis Cothran DE 6-5 225 Council Rock North/Newtown, Pa. Ross Douglas DB 5-10 180 Avon (Ohio) William Fuller WR 6-1 160 Roman Catholic/Philadelphia Christian Hackenberg QB 6-4 215 Fork Union (Va.) Military Academy Dorian Johnson OL 6-6 280 Belle Vernon (Pa.) Area Brendan Mahon OL 6-5 315 Randolph (N.J.)

Mastbaum's Tomar Taylor stopped West Catholic's Kimani Patterson on a two- point conversion attempt with 1 minute, 5 seconds left to secure a 13-12 Public League victory in the city all-star football game last night at Northeast High. The Non-Public team scored twice in the last 4 1/2 minutes after facing a 13-0 deficit. An interception by Lincoln's Mannie Adens set up the first touchdown of the night. On the Public League's first offensive play, quarterback Dave MacDonald of Lincoln threw a 33-yard scoring pass to Ben Franklin's Tyrone West.

Player   School   Rush.   Yds.    Jahmiere Van Kline   Bordentown   12   259    Jody Ellis   Deptford   10   256    Frank Zeigler   Lower Cape May   31   215    Tyler Nicolo   Maple Shade   34   195    Rashar Gray   Woodstown   11   190    Josh Woods   Triton   24   187    Ray Lawry   Kingsway   25   171    Dylan Cummings   Pennsville   35   169    ...

Michael Vick walked down a corridor at the Eagles' training facility after Wednesday's practice clutching a ball in his arm. He carried the ball earlier in the day and later in the day. He took it to breakfast, to team meetings and to lunch. One week after Vick lost two fumbles against the Pittsburgh Steelers and amid a season in which he has fumbled eight times, the quarterback is trying to get a grip on his problem entering Sunday's game against the Detroit Lions by literally gripping his problem.

STATE COLLEGE — If it's August, then it must be time to start playing football again. Even at Penn State. Or perhaps particularly at Penn State. At long last. After enduring the most turbulent offseason ever, it's time to re-embrace a sport. And a way of coming together. Whatever you think about all that happened here, has any program or community ever really needed it more? "This is what we all came here to do," said senior quarterback Matt McGloin. "We've had all this thrown at us. It was tough to deal with.

Penn State athletic director Dave Joyner announced Monday that Virginia will not play a football game on Sept. 14 at Beaver Stadium in order to play its own home game on that date. "We are working with Virginia to reschedule the game for Beaver Stadium in a future season," Joyner said in a statement. "We have begun discussions to find an opponent for the Sept. 14. "  

Adapted from an online discussion. Question: I'm in love with a wonderful guy and thinking long-term with him. But, he is an extreme football fanatic and I'm not interested, despite efforts by both of us to get me excited about the game. I feel like the current football season has really put a strain on our relationship, sapping all the time we would normally spend together. I'm also still nursing wounds because he got offered last-minute tickets to a playoff game and canceled plans we had made months earlier in order to go. I am very, very self-conscious about coming across as a nag or a shrew.

LAS VEGAS - The lawyer who defended O.J. Simpson on armed robbery charges delivered a potentially heavy blow to the former football star's bid for a new trial Friday, testifying that Simpson knew his buddies had guns when they went to a hotel room together to reclaim some sports memorabilia. Miami lawyer Yale Galanter took the stand at an often combative hearing on Simpson's claim that he was so badly represented by his attorney that his conviction should be thrown out. Point by point, Galanter contradicted much of his former client's testimony and strongly defended himself.

Ed Malone has been named the football coach at Gloucester. Malone, 30, replaces longtime coach Leon Harris, who is still the school's athletic director. Malone was appointed by the Gloucester Board of Education on Tuesday night. Malone, a 2000 Gloucester graduate, played under Harris and served as an assistant coach with the program for the last 10 years. "We have so much tradition," Malone said of Gloucester football. "We've had so much success under Coach Harris. Things are working.

The empty chip bags, a comb, and a pacifier that littered the shoddy grass of the Camden High School football field Monday will be gone in coming weeks - scooped up by a bulldozer. A year-and-a-half after receiving a $200,000 NFL Grassroots Grant for new synthetic turf, the Camden High School Athletic Field Ad Hoc Committee has gathered enough money to start working on a new field, including a $250,000 grant from the U.S. Soccer Foundation. Shovels went into the ground Monday in a ceremonial start to the renovation.

State-championship football is on the 1-yard line. But the dream team backed by NJSIAA director Jack DuBois, who oversees the sport for the state organization, as well as dozens of highly successful and highly influential coaches in South Jersey and North Jersey, is no lock to score. "Our time has come," DuBois said after the NJSIAA's monthly meeting Wednesday at its headquarters in Robbinsville. DuBois and others who have been hankering for state-title games in public-school football sense that momentum, public sentiment, and the imperatives of fair play are on their side.

The Temple football team has been participating in the annual Komen Philadelphia Race for the Cure since 2006. The Owls, however, will have added roles in Sunday's fund-raiser for breast cancer research at the Eakins Oval/Philadelphia Museum of Art. Fifteen members of Temple's football family - including head coach Matt Rhule and his wife, Julie - will participate in the 5K race, 5K walk, or 1-mile walk. More than 50 others associated with the Big East program have volunteered to hand out water.

ROBBINSVILLE, N.J. - A proposal to create state championships in public-school football moved into the red zone on Wednesday. By an overwhelming majority, the NJSIAA's executive committee approved a motion by the organization's advisory committee to put the issue of state-championship football on the ballot before the general membership in December. By a vote of 27-1 with one abstention, the executive committee backed the advisory committee's recommendation to ask the general membership if it wants to approve a constitutional change that would result in state-championship games in public-school football for the first time in New Jersey history.

It's too early to judge new Temple football coach Matt Rhule as an in-game tactician. But as a recruiter, Rhule is stocking the Owls with Big Ten- and Atlantic Coast Conference-caliber talent. Case in point: Rhule scored a major recruiting coup last month when Imhotep Charter offensive tackle Aaron Ruff committed to the Owls. Ruff is perhaps the biggest commitment thus far to Temple's Class of 2014. The chiseled 6-foot-4, 290-pound junior has received scholarship offers from Wisconsin, Virginia Tech, and Georgia Tech after committing to the Owls on April 25. Stanford recently requested the A student's transcripts.

WHEN WAYNE Hardin was a sophomore halfback/quarterback at Pacific in 1946 he played for Amos Alonzo Stagg, who went into the College Football Hall of Fame as both a player and coach in the charter class of 1951. Now, the man who became the winningest football coach in Temple history will soon join him. "How many people ever get to say that?" the 86-years-young Hardin asked yesterday from Florida, where he spends his time with his wife Jane when they're not at home in Oreland.

Nick Elmer figures his best days as a wrestler are ahead of him. He knows his best days as a football player are behind him. Elmer, who led Penns Grove to a record-setting football season this past fall, on Wednesday signed a national letter of intent to attend Drexel University on a wrestling scholarship. "I thought I was going to go to school for football because of the year I had," said Elmer, a senior at Penns Grove. "But it didn't pan out. " Elmer was The Inquirer's South Jersey Offensive Player of the Year after he led Penns Grove to a 12-0 record and the program's first South Jersey Group 1 title - as well as a state-record 621 points.

The Chip Kelly era will be off and running when the Eagles travel to Washington on Monday, Sept. 9 - one day after the bulk of NFL games are played in Week 1 - to face the Redskins in prime time. It doesn't slow down from there. The Eagles host the San Diego Chargers on Sept. 15 and then the Kansas City Chiefs on Thursday night, Sept. 19, at Lincoln Financial Field, when Andy Reid makes his return to Philadelphia nine months after being fired. The opener and the Thursday night game are the only prime-time games on the schedule.