Growth Spurt

GREAT NEWS! Philadelphia has continued to grow since the 2010 census count, according to new data being released Thursday. The Census Bureau estimates that the city's population on July 1 was 1,536,471, an increase of 10,465 or a 0.7 percent jump from the official census count taken two years ago. The new estimates show that the city's growth spurt from April 2010 to July 2011 was mainly due to an increase in births. "This is very good news for the city of Philadelphia," Mayor Nutter said Wednesday by email.

NO MATTER how much a coach yells, everybody who has been around college players knows the truth is that you don't tell them. Rather, they tell themselves. They do things in their own time. They make the decisions that matter in their own heads. You beat on them because that's what you do, but the only real progress is progress that begins from within. Take Corey Fisher. "It just really came down to what I wanted to do," he was saying the other day. As Villanova prepares for another NCAA Tournament, the sophomore guard is its X-factor of a sixth man - two parts energy and one part unpredictability.

Britney Spears says her breasts are looking bigger these days because of a growth spurt - not breast surgery. "I don't see anything wrong with it," the pop singer says in next week's TV Guide. "But I would never do that. If (other people) want to do that, that's fine. But it does scare me in a way, because (people who) think I did that view me as a bad person, or they want to go out and do it. It bothers me, but that's not my fault. " Maybe a good person to ask would be Robbie Carrico of Boyz n' Girlz Unlimited.

As Douglas Zee tells it, Harrison Township has always dug in its heels when confronted with change. For the 54-year-old peach farmer, a tale he heard almost 40 years ago from an elderly gentleman sums it up: When electricity came to Gloucester County, so the story goes, it came first to Woodbury and Harrison. When the county was deciding where to place its government, the two municipalities were considered. Harrison declined. "They chose not to be, and they've been choosing not to be ever since," Zee said.

Bethel, Concord and Upper Chichester, the communities along the Route 322 corridor between Route 1 and Interstate 95, have the potential for a tenfold growth in jobs and nearly threefold increase in population in the next 25 years, preliminary results from a new zoning study have shown. The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission study, led by research analyst Patricia L. Elkis, looked at how much could be built on available land under current zoning regulations in the three townships.

Matthew Kisielewski can't explain his good fortune, and he doesn't need to. He's living it. "It's a miracle, I guess," says Kisielewski, whose potentially fatal illness was diagnosed thanks to a chance encounter with his best friend's mother and a Cooper University Hospital neurosurgeon. Talk about right place, right time. The 20-year-old Runnemede resident, who played football for Triton Regional High School, was unaware of the benign tumor growing on his pituitary gland.

HEARD THIS ONE? Add this to your list of urban legends: A story has gone around for years about a town (or neighborhood or college married-student complex) with a particularly high birth rate that's the result of couples' being awakened by a predawn freight train. It's too early to get out of bed but too late to go back to sleep, so. . . . But the story is just that - a story, American Demographics magazine reports. A PITCH FOR CAUTION Youth baseball coaches take note: The growth spurt that typically arrives at 11 or 12 creates a bone-muscle-tendon imbalance that causes tightness in throwing muscles.

In the last 10 years, the township and the school district here have had a growth spurt. This school year, Holly Hills Elementary School had a growth spurt, too, expanding the building with an additional wing, a bigger media center and a new all-purpose room. Construction on the project, which began last summer, should be finished by the end of the school year, said Holly Hills Principal Tommie Stringer. In December 1998, voters approved borrowing $4.25 million for the project and for a new roof on the middle school.

Alex Polanco was trying too hard to hit a home run. "Every time, I'm trying to hit a home run," Polanco said the other day, after Pennsauken's surprising baseball team stunned perennial power Shawnee by a 7-4 score and seized first place in the Olympic Conference Patriot Division. "That's not good. I need to try to hit a line drive. " Polanco can be excused for swinging for the fences. It's that extra effort that has transformed him as an athlete, student, and young man. A strapping senior and South Jersey's leader in home runs, he barely resembles the skinny, scared, and heart-sick freshman who came to Pennsauken from the Dominican Republic in 2008, after the death of his mother.

Alex Polanco was trying too hard to hit a home run. "Every time, I'm trying to hit a home run," Polanco said the other day, after Pennsauken's surprising baseball team stunned perennial power Shawnee by a 7-4 score and seized first place in the Olympic Conference Patriot Division. "That's not good. I need to try to hit a line drive. " Polanco can be excused for swinging for the fences. It's that extra effort that has transformed him as an athlete, student, and young man. A strapping senior and South Jersey's leader in home runs, he barely resembles the skinny, scared, and heart-sick freshman who came to Pennsauken from the Dominican Republic in 2008, after the death of his mother.

GREAT NEWS! Philadelphia has continued to grow since the 2010 census count, according to new data being released Thursday. The Census Bureau estimates that the city's population on July 1 was 1,536,471, an increase of 10,465 or a 0.7 percent jump from the official census count taken two years ago. The new estimates show that the city's growth spurt from April 2010 to July 2011 was mainly due to an increase in births. "This is very good news for the city of Philadelphia," Mayor Nutter said Wednesday by email.

Bill Cosby has let it be known that he started out as a child. Similarly, the less-than-full-size pickups on our roads started out being called compacts. "But they kept getting bigger and bigger until they became midsize," recalled Tom Wilkinson, a spokesman for Chevrolet trucks. He said they got their growth spurt primarily through the burgeoning popularity of crew cabs. The convenient four-door cabs appeal to buyers who use their truck for work during the week and as family transit on weekends.

LOVE AT FIRST sight is innately irrational, an unreasoned leap of faith. Still, it's not hard to explain why Philadelphia has so quickly embraced Hunter Pence with open arms. And wallets. Already, Pence No. 3 jerseys dot the stands at Citizens Bank Park. Philly fans like players who care as much as they do. That's a requirement that, if met, almost trumps all other considerations. When Lee Thomas was the Phillies' general manager, he'd always advise newcomers (who just may have heard how demanding the paying customers could be)

Matthew Kisielewski can't explain his good fortune, and he doesn't need to. He's living it. "It's a miracle, I guess," says Kisielewski, whose potentially fatal illness was diagnosed thanks to a chance encounter with his best friend's mother and a Cooper University Hospital neurosurgeon. Talk about right place, right time. The 20-year-old Runnemede resident, who played football for Triton Regional High School, was unaware of the benign tumor growing on his pituitary gland.

There's a reason why guard formerly resembled a four-letter word in DC Gaitley's basketball world. Throughout his childhood, he played one-on-one against his brother, Dutch, and participated in the same kinds of drills, and he figured someday he would also be sniffing the rarified air available to those within a whisker of 6 foot, 10 inches. "I always wished I'd have a growth spurt and get up there close to my brother at, say, 6-8," Gaitley noted. "And, hopefully, I'm not finished yet. "On my [youth teams]

Kevin Butler stands 6-1 and his family includes lots of taller members. "My doctor told me I'm probably going to have one more growth spurt," he said. In the meantime, swelling up from pride will do. The 200-pound Butler is the senior quarterback for Murrell Dobbins Tech and Saturday, at Northeast, he helped to corral the Public AAA championship in dramatic fashion. Though they entered the fourth quarter facing a 12-0 deficit, the Mustangs wound up shocking Roxborough, 13-12, as Butler passed for one touchdown and burrowed for the other, a 1-yarder, with 30.4 seconds remaining.

NO MATTER how much a coach yells, everybody who has been around college players knows the truth is that you don't tell them. Rather, they tell themselves. They do things in their own time. They make the decisions that matter in their own heads. You beat on them because that's what you do, but the only real progress is progress that begins from within. Take Corey Fisher. "It just really came down to what I wanted to do," he was saying the other day. As Villanova prepares for another NCAA Tournament, the sophomore guard is its X-factor of a sixth man - two parts energy and one part unpredictability.

In her middle-school basketball playing days, Oxford's Meghan Tait played in the paint because she was one of the taller girls. But as she got older, and didn't keep pace with the other post players - at least height-wise - Tait was moved farther away from the basket. "I had my growth spurt in middle school, not in high school," she said with a laugh. With big guns Ashley Palmer and Allison Hostetter graduating, and taking more than 40 points a game with them, Oxford coach Brian Urig knew he would be counting on Tait this season, no matter where she played.