Pele

Joao Havelange won't invite Pele to this summer's World Cup, but he's willing to let him come as someone else's guest. Havelange, the Brazilian president of FIFA, soccer's world governing body, personally banned Pele from any part in the World Cup draw festivities in Las Vegas last December. The reason: Pele was involved in a lawsuit against the Brazilian soccer federation and its president, Ricardo Teixeira, who is Havelange's son-in-law. Havelange insisted, unconvincingly, that it was a decision made by FIFA executives.

Pele, still the world's most recognized soccer personality 15 years after he played his last game, now admits that he always has had an identity crisis. "I was 7 years old and we were playing in the streets and the other kids started calling me 'Pele, Pele,' " he said during a press conference last week to kick off a credit-card company's 1994 World Cup promotion. "I didn't know what it meant, so I'd get in fights with the other kids. I remember when I went to school I got suspended for two days for fighting.

Edson Cholbi Nascimento, the son of soccer legend Pele, was arrested Monday in an operation to dismantle a drug gang in southeastern Brazil, police said. Nascimento, 35, was arrested along with some 50 other people after an 8-month investigation into a cocaine-trafficking operation in the port city of Santos, some 44 miles southeast of Sao Paulo, said Antonio Carlos Silveira, a spokesman for Sao Paulo's state police. No charges have been filed against Nascimento, but he was detained in Sao Paulo on suspicion of drug trafficking.

If actor Ronald Reagan can be president of the United States, and playwright Vaclav Havel can become president of Czechoslovakia, and basketball star Bill Bradley can become a senator from New Jersey, what's to stop the world's greatest soccer player? So Pele said Saturday that he would run for president of his country, Brazil, in 1995. "To be a candidate after President Fernando Collor de Mello is a challenge that I'm itching to accept," Pele, 49, told the newspaper Jornal do Brasil.

Pele and FIFA president Joao Havelange put aside their personal dispute yesterday and pledged to help bring the Olympics to Rio de Janeiro by 2008. Pele - now Special Secretary of Sports Edson Arantes do Nascimento - and Havelange met at the Planalto Palace to brief President Fernando Henrique Cardoso on their plans to prepare the seaside city for an Olympic bid. They said Rio lacked the facilities to make a serious bid for the 2004 Games but that four additional years would provide time.

Faye Dunaway and Barry Manilow and Mario Andretti and Evander Holyfield were up on the stage at yesterday's World Cup draw. Pele was not. The one and only face of soccer in this country for many people had been banished by the sport's world governing body. Actually, he was banished by one man. Over the summer, Pele had publicly accused FIFA president Joao Havelange's son-in-law of corruption. Pele had said the son-in-law, the head of the Brazilian soccer federation, tried to get him to pay a kickback to televise soccer games in Brazil.

If soccer is truly a game in which style can be as pleasing as substance, the best moment for the U.S. team in its win over Colombia came when defender Marcelo Balboa launched a spectacular bicycle kick shot at the goal. Balboa, part of the lanky central defense unit, redirected a long crossing pass just wide of the right post, missing soccer immortality by the width of a ball. "I love Pele, but Marcelo would have replaced Pele as far as bicycle kicks go," said goalkeeper Tony Meola.

Pele stood on the podium, holding the Mousquetaires Cup that is awarded to the French Open men's champion, and bounced a soccer ball off his head and toward Carlos Moya. Moya, with sweat flying from his tousled, curly, shoulder-length hair, headed the ball back, Pele knocked it back to Moya, and Moya back to Pele. The 16,000 fans at Stade Roland Garros were laughing and cheering. This was by far the best action they saw yesterday. Twelfth-seeded Moya, a charismatic 21-year-old with a sweet smile and a killer forehand, had thoroughly dismantled his friend and Spanish countryman, No. 14 seed Alex Corretja, 6-3, 7-5, 6-3. It was Moya's first Grand Slam title, and maybe not his last.

Former Ohio State track star Chris Nelloms was sentenced yesterday to life in prison for raping a young girl and will not be eligible for parole for 40 years. "It's a bitter pill to swallow when one of the chosen such as you falls so low," Judge John Kessler of Montgomery County (Ohio) Common Pleas Court said. Kessler sentenced Nelloms to life on each of seven counts of rape of a child younger than 13 and one count of felonious sexual penetration of a child less than 13. The judge ordered that four of the sentences be served consecutively, making Nelloms ineligible for parole for 40 years.

IF MAJOR League Soccer is counting on English superstar David Beckham to be the savior of American soccer, the sport is in for a rude awakening. The former captain of the English national team and a veteran of three World Cups, Beckham, at 32, is an exceptional though injury-plagued midfielder with remarkable passing ability and an unparalleled talent to score on free kicks, a quality that inspired the title of a recent movie, "Bend It Like Beckham. " While the English phenom will undoubtedly increase the worldwide attention to U.S. soccer, he is no Pele, the mythic hero who came to the United States more than 30 years ago to promote the sport.

LYMPIC SKIER Jeret "Speedy" Peterson committed suicide in Utah, days after his arrest on suspicion of drunken driving, the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association said yesterday. Peterson, 29, a silver medalist in the men's freestyle aerials competition at the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, shot himself near Salt Lake City, the association said in a statement. Peterson's death on Monday came 3 days after the Olympic athlete was arrested in Idaho on suspicion of misdemeanor drunken driving.

Another chapter of the Antti Niemi saga will be written Monday when Chicago Blackhawks general manager Stan Bowman decides what to do with his starting goaltender. After Niemi was awarded $2.75 million for next season by an arbitrator Saturday, Bowman had 48 hours to either keep him at that salary or let him walk as an unrestricted free agent and go after a veteran goalie such as Marty Turco . Niemi, 26, went 26-7-4 with a 2.25 goals-against average for the Stanley Cup champions last season.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Standing next to his goalkeeper during Thursday's national anthem, Lionel Messi, 22, looked more like the team's ball boy than Argentina's - and the world's - best player. But that's how Messi always looks - until his speed and ballhandling reveal him as a sort of football genius, a young man carrying the adoration of a soccer-crazed nation. A few feet away, wearing a suit instead of cleats, stood Diego Maradona, Argentina's head coach, now two decades removed from being Argentina's best player.

Lance Armstrong says racing in the Giro d'Italia in May is still "very doable" even though his broken collarbone is a bit more serious than first thought. He says new tests show "multiple pieces" of broken bone. Armstrong will have surgery today in Austin, Texas, and a metal plate will be inserted to stabilize his collarbone. He crashed Monday in the first stage of the Vuelta of Castilla and Leon race in Spain. Armstrong said in a conference call yesterday that he must rest for at least 72 hours before he can return to a training bike.

Alex Simonka, the women's basketball coach at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy who committed suicide this month, had been put on paid leave three days before his death during an investigation by federal prosecutors, a school official said yesterday. Simonka, 51, a graduate of Florence High in Burlington County, was found dead in his car March 14 at the school in New London, Conn. The state medical examiner ruled Simonka had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Rear Adm. J. Scott Burhoe, the academy's superintendent, said in a statement that the Connecticut U.S. Attorney's Office has been investigating the Coast Guard Academy Athletic Association for several months.

AFTER READING your 10 most memorable moments in Spectrum history I wanted to share my list of memorable moments spent at the soon-to-be-gone Spectrum and recently gone Vet. Plus a few from Connie Mack and JFK. Starting with the Spectrum: It was pre-cup days for the Flyers as they battled the rugged St. Louis Blues. I was only eight or 10, but I remember a big fight after a period ended and some fans got into it with some angry Blues when their coach got a beer shower. This was before the Broad Street Bullies era - and the Blues and Boston Bruins were in the habit of roughing up the Flyers.

IF MAJOR League Soccer is counting on English superstar David Beckham to be the savior of American soccer, the sport is in for a rude awakening. The former captain of the English national team and a veteran of three World Cups, Beckham, at 32, is an exceptional though injury-plagued midfielder with remarkable passing ability and an unparalleled talent to score on free kicks, a quality that inspired the title of a recent movie, "Bend It Like Beckham. " While the English phenom will undoubtedly increase the worldwide attention to U.S. soccer, he is no Pele, the mythic hero who came to the United States more than 30 years ago to promote the sport.

Jared Jeffries, counted on to shore up the New York Knicks' defense, will miss 6 to 8 weeks because of a broken left wrist. Jeffries was hurt Friday against New Jersey in his New York debut and had an MRI exam Sunday. Coach Isiah Thomas originally said Jeffries would miss 3 to 6 weeks, but the longer prognosis was given after Jeffries saw a hand specialist Monday. Thomas signed the former Washington swingman over the summer to strengthen a team that allowed 102 points per game last season, 27th in the NBA. Jeffries was expected to be the starting small forward.

Edson Cholbi Nascimento, the son of soccer legend Pele, was arrested Monday in an operation to dismantle a drug gang in southeastern Brazil, police said. Nascimento, 35, was arrested along with some 50 other people after an 8-month investigation into a cocaine-trafficking operation in the port city of Santos, some 44 miles southeast of Sao Paulo, said Antonio Carlos Silveira, a spokesman for Sao Paulo's state police. No charges have been filed against Nascimento, but he was detained in Sao Paulo on suspicion of drug trafficking.

It's not hard to guess where Selma and Edgar Davis vacation: The parrot and hula-girl motif of their living room is a dead giveaway. "We went to Hawaii for the first time in December of 1990, and we just fell in love with it," Selma Davis said. "We must have gone back there 20 or 21 times now," her husband said. Not only do they travel to Hawaii twice a year now, staying for five weeks at a time, but Selma Davis also has just published Surf Kapu, her second crime novel set in Hawaii.