Hopefuls

One of America's outstanding male swimmers is an archaeology-anthropology major at Harvard University. Not Pepperdine or Santa Clara or one of those other major Aquaman-producing universities. Harvard. Ivy League. Location: Cambridge, Mass. Not Mission Viejo, Calif., or Boca Raton, Fla. "I didn't want to go to college to be an athlete," said David Berkoff, of Huntingdon Valley. "I wanted to go learn. " That also explains why Berkoff, as a senior at Penn Charter in 1984, turned down full scholarship offers from some of America's most prestigious swimming powers to pay his own way to Harvard.

If you spot a flock of orange-haired women and bizarrely attired young men around town today, don't mark it off to Halloween festivities. Instead, the credit (or blame) belongs to the Philadelphia Music Conference at the Doubletree Hotel, which is expected to lure more than 3,500 music hopefuls and scouts through Saturday. Now the nation's third-biggest music-industry shmooze (after Austin's South by Southwest and New York's CMJ), PMC will feature dozens of how-to-do-it panels (delving into management and publicity, starting your own label and getting a publishing deal)

FORMER COACH Bill Parcells, running back Jerome Bettis and NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue are among 26 modern-era semifinalists for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The list was announced yesterday by the Hall of Fame following a vote by its selection committee. There were 105 preliminary nominees. Among other semifinalists for the Class of 2012 are wide receivers Tim Brown, Cris Carter and Andre Reed, along with former 49ers owner Edward DeBartolo Jr. Former Chiefs guard Will Shields is the only first-year eligible player to make the list.

S ABRIYA BILAL, a bus driver for the school district, wants to improve the city's representation in Harrisburg but admits that she is still getting the hang of politics. Commonwealth Senior Judge James Gardner Colins yesterday ordered her removed from the April 24 Democratic primary-election ballot for not having enough valid signatures on her nominating petitions. Bilal, who had hoped to challenge state Rep. Dwight Evans in the 203rd Legislative District, was removed from the ballot last year for the same reason, when she tried to run against City Councilwoman Marian Tasco.

With the 76ers set to begin training camp today at St. Joseph's University, four free agents were officially added to the team's roster to bring it to 17 players. That does not mean any of the newcomers will make the team, however. But they were there yesterday when the Sixers held their annual media day at the Wachovia Center. "We have 13 guaranteed contracts, and we may keep 14 [players on the roster]," said Sixers president and general manager Ed Stefanski. "If someone shows in camp, we may keep 14. " Among the hopefuls are shooting guard Dionte Christmas and point guard Sean Singletary, native Philadelphians who played in college at Temple and Virginia, respectively.

U.S. medal hopefuls continued to falter yesterday in track and field. Having already failed to advance anyone to the finals of the long jump and discus throw, the U.S. men's team in Beijing was shut out in the 1,500 meters and the high jump. The failures in the 1,500 stung particularly hard since one of the runners, Sudanese refugee Lopez Lomong, was the team's flag-bearer at the opening ceremonies, and another, Bernard Lagat, was the 2007 world champion. Along with former NCAA champion Leonel Manzano, all three were naturalized U.S. citizens with compelling personal stories.

With the Democratic race in a near deadlock going into the final series of presidential-preference contests, the candidates are debating the prospects of a brokered convention. Party chairman Paul Kirk, dreading the spectre of a political battle being played out on national television, already is making plans to head off any such development. He has called for the survivors of the state contests to huddle for a summit immediately after the California and New Jersey primaries on June 7. Summit topics: deciding on a nominee, a vice president and a platform.

Politicians know a winning trend when they see one. Think Minnesota Gov.-elect Jesse "The Body" Ventura is the only elected official with his own action figure toy? Think again. Clout, with the help of cartoonist Signe Wilkinson, has developed action figures for our mayoral candidates. Let's face it, wouldn't they look a lot better in tights, trunks, sequined jackets, bleached hair and feather boas? And wouldn't it save a lot of money and be a lot more fun if we could settle this inside the ring?

Too many one-liners and too few issues. That's the way it was Saturday at an hour-long forum featuring the four candidates for mayor, sponsored by the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists. The PABJ somehow persuaded all four to share the same stage - a feat, since the candidates' schedulers usually take care that their speaking times don't overlap. Occasionally, they may be seen pausing to shake hands - if TV cameras are nearby - before sprinting out the nearest exit. This is what happens when they're corralled in the same room: A wound-up Frank L. Rizzo took aim at everybody, calling Edward G. Rendell "a mediocre DA," declaring that Rendell and Mayor Goode "have a tough time telling the truth," and contending that John J. Egan Jr. "couldn't attract a crowd if he stood out there naked.

At the start of a Bensalem candidates' forum, mayoral hopeful James McMaster said he and his opponent, Edward F. Burns Jr., had decided to deliver their opening statements sitting down. "It's the one thing we agree on," he said. But during the nearly two-hour program Tuesday, which also featured candidates for council, treasurer and auditor, it was hard to find anything that the two men disagreed on. A trash-to-steam plant in Bensalem? Both are firmly against it. How to increase the township's tax base?

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. - Saving the Big East Conference is the highest priority here at the conference's spring meetings. Quite an agenda item. But in reality, the decisions that will determine the league's fate will be made by other conferences. "Somebody in the Big 12 decides, 'This is what we're going to do,' " Connecticut women's basketball coach Geno Auriemma said. "Everybody in the Big East is going, 'Holy [shoot]. What happens to us?' It's just the craziest thing.

CAMP DAVID, Md. - President Obama and leaders of other major industrial powers stepped outside discussions of European economic woes and Afghanistan that will dominate a long weekend of summitry for a look Friday at options to solidify world resolve against development of an Iranian nuclear bomb and encourage a more forceful response to worsening violence in Syria. Obama will have the ear of key players on both issues during back-to-back G-8 and NATO summits. Discussion will be aimed directly and indirectly at Russia, a sometime protector of both Iran and Syria and the chief blockade to such U.S. goals as an arms embargo on Syria.

THE ETERNAL optimism that wells inside of Charlie Manuel and Jimmy Rollins is either a spiritual gift or a coping mechanism. Either way, the Phillies have no choice but to buy into the belief that, at some point, a victory like the one they posted against the Padres Sunday will jump-start the winning streak that will take them over .500 for the first time since Opening Day. "This is a team that can go on a run and put things together," Rollins...

It's a Sunday in March, and Rich Thompson is a major-leaguer again. He's swinging in batting practice and Charlie Manuel's eyes follow every ball Thompson hits deep to right field. Hitting coach Greg Gross mimics the Phillies manager. No one says a word, and the 6-foot-3 outfielder who last season led the International League in runs scored keeps hacking. In the Phillies clubhouse, Thompson eats lunch at a table with Jimmy Rollins and John Mayberry Jr. He waits an entire game and finally his name is called.

BRUSSELS - The European Union says that a recession brought on by a crippling debt crisis could give way to a modest recovery later this year - provided governments persevere on the tough austerity track. It suggested that more growth-enhancing measures can be pursued alongside strict budgetary controls, but only as long as they do not detract from acheiving deficit reduction targets. In its half-yearly economic projections, the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, said Friday that the economy of the 17 countries that use the euro will shrink by 0.3 percent this year.

At the risk of sounding callous, my first reaction at hearing that Philadelphia's Sunoco refinery might close was excitement. Yes, it would mean job losses, as many as 900 good blue-collar positions, which are all too rare in this city in the first place. Yet all I could think about was the potential. Imagine 1,400 riverfront acres - now given over to hideous distillation towers and storage tanks - cleaned up and converted into something spectacular. Parkland. A second Navy Yard.

ATHENS, Greece - Hopes rose slightly Thursday that Greece could end its post-electoral deadlock without having to hold new elections, as international partners warned that Athens must stick to its hugely unpopular austerity program or abandon the euro. Socialist leader Evangelos Venizelos, who received the presidential mandate to try and form a government after two other party chiefs failed, said a meeting Thursday with a left-wing potential kingmaker had proved encouraging. If this third mandate fails, President Karolos Papoulias will convene party leaders in a last-ditch effort to get a deal - otherwise new elections will be held in a month.

IT'S PRETTY CLEAR that President Obama's re-election effort, a/k/a the endless campaign, is intent on burying Mitt Romney even before Republicans officially offer him up as their nominee. A $25 million, nine-state (including Pennsylvania) TV-ad blitz, after a weekend of campaign kickoff rallies in Ohio and Virginia, suggests an all-out effort to define the race in ways that seek to end it early. It is, after all, six months to Election Day. And you're spending $25 million?

CHICAGO - The 76ers had talked about taking care of business in Chicago, about not allowing the top-seeded Bulls to get off the canvas and get back into a series that according to history should be theirs. That possibility is still there - the Sixers can put this thing away Thursday at the Wells Fargo Center with a win over the Bulls - but there's also the possibility now, remote as it seems, that the Sixers, after losing Game 5, could lose this thing. The Sixers lead the series, three games to two. Rather than come out and kick the beaten up Bulls when they had the opportunity, the Sixers delivered their worst offensive performance of the playoffs.

VIENNA, Austria - Hopes dimmed Tuesday for staging major nuclear talks later this year between Israel and its Muslim rivals, as Iran and Arab countries at a 189-nation conference accused Israel of being the greatest threat to peace in the region and Egypt warned that Arab states might rethink their opposition to atomic arms. Because Israel has not signed the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, it was not present at Tuesday's gathering of treaty members. But the United States defended its ally, warning that singling out Israel for criticism diminished chances of a planned meeting between it and its Muslim neighbors to explore the prospect of a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction.