Locker Room

KOHLER, Wis. - Two months ago, Dustin Johnson took a three-shot lead into the last round of the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach and shot a closing 82. Yesterday at Whistling Straits, the 26-year-old South Carolina native stood over a 6-foot par putt on the 72nd hole of the 92nd PGA Championship that would have given him his first major title. He didn't hit it quite hard enough, and the ball slid off to the right of the cup at the very end. That should still have left him in a three-way, three-hole playoff with Bubba Watson and Martin Kaymer.

IF ASKED now to name his favorite television show, Mike Capriotti goes with "NCIS. " That won't be the case some Friday night this winter. Capriotti, who has earned a certain amount of acclaim as the football coach at Frankford High, has now gone all Hollywood on us. Along with his players. "Friday Night Lights," the popular TV series based on the best-selling book, yesterday came to Frankford's legendary stadium to film a two-pronged practice session - early evening in the sun; later at night under very powerful portable lights - that will wind up as part of a 2010-11 episode.

10 tonight CHANNEL 3 When a beautiful star quarterback in the Lingerie Football League is murdered in a locker room with traces of lidocaine in her system, Mac (Gary Sinise, right) and the CSIs are summoned.

It is March 5 of last year, and the Phillies are playing an exhibition game against the World Baseball Classic?s Team USA at Bright House Field in Clearwater, Fla. As it always does in spring training, the Phils? clubhouse opens in the middle innings of the game, and I wander down from the press box. Their locker room is in deep left field, and writers are permitted to stand outside of it, in foul territory, during games. After strolling through the room and saying hello to Scott Eyre and his son, who are leaning on a tall laundry basket and talking pitching, I exit onto the field, stand a few feet from the white line, and watch one grounder after another elude Derek Jeter at shortstop.

You've seen it in the movies a hundred times. The downtrodden, dead-in-the-water, underdog football team lumbers into the locker room trailing at halftime. The players are dirty, tired and, most of all, they know they have no shot. Suddenly, a coach or player springs to his feet and, with a profound revelation or a few inspirational words of wisdom, wills the team to victory. But does that really happen? Can the outcome of a game really be altered just by one coach or player inspiring his team before the third quarter?

You've seen it in the movies a hundred times. The downtrodden, dead-in-the-water, underdog football team lumbers into the locker room trailing at halftime. They players are dirty, they're tired, and they know they have no shot. Suddenly, a coach or player springs to his feet and, with a profound revelation or a few inspirational words of wisdom, wills the team to victory. But does that really happen? Can the outcome of a game really be altered just by one coach or player inspiring his team before the third quarter?

George Washington does not hand out game balls; the Eagles hand out game brooms. Or at least it looked that way yesterday afternoon, when Washington senior quarterback Aaron Wilmer was caught sweeping the locker room floor just minutes after scoring three touchdowns to vault the Eagles of the Public League Red Division past Harry S. Truman of the Suburban One National Conference, 36-15. "I've got locker-room duty today," Wilmer said, laughing. "No, you know, I'm just helping my team out. " Washington (1-1)

"My parents were immigrants, and my father worked in a factory. That's why I appreciate Temple's populist mission so much," George Edberg-Olson said in 2000. "I'm not a wealthy man, but clearly Temple University enabled me to progress in my life. " The occasion was the 2000 opening of Edberg-Olson Hall, Temple's football training headquarters at 11th and Diamond Streets, for which he contributed $1 million of the estimated $7 million construction cost. On Monday, Dr. Edberg-Olson, 84, a former professor of Spanish at Temple, died of complications from Alzheimer's disease at the Artman Lutheran Home in Ambler, where he had resided for the last five years.

For Villanova seniors Dante Cunningham, Shane Clark and Dwayne Anderson, the memories of their first trip to the Elite Eight of the NCAA basketball tournament three years ago remain clear. They played supporting roles on a veteran team that lost. But the lessons learned by the three freshmen on that squad have been valuable to the current Wildcats. "It's just that we played so hard," Cunningham said yesterday. "We gave everything we possibly had. We obviously lost to a better team, and I give them much respect for that.

It was freezing in South Philadelphia last night - but Eagles fans were generating plenty of heat, upset about the departure of hard-hitting safety Brian Dawkins. "I'm very disappointed, and kind of angry," said 16-year-old Sean Savage of Lansdale. Savage, wearing an Eagles sweatshirt, the familiar white-and-black wings on the hood, was among thousands streaming into the Wachovia Center to see the 76ers play the Orlando Magic. It seemed everyone had an opinion about the loss of Philadelphia's longest-tenured pro athlete.