Situation

There's a point Ervin Mears Jr. wants people to understand, and it's the reason he filed a federal lawsuit when his son was ousted from the high school track team: "Children have rights," Mears, 68, said, "just like any adult. " In this case, he said, it's the right to run. On May 6, Mawusimensah Mears, a sophomore at Sterling Regional High School in Camden County, was kicked off the team, the suit says. Eleven days later, his father sued in Camden, naming the coach, athletic director, principal, superintendent, and school board.

The long-running Lance Parrish saga will reach some sort of conclusion, not through contract negotiations but through an arbitration hearing, tomorrow in Tampa. That was confirmed late yesterday by Phillies president Bill Giles and other sources close to the situation. "I've talked to my lawyers, and at this point, we will go to the arbitration hearing Thursday in Tampa," Giles said. "Nothing should develop now until the hearing on Thursday. Don Fehr (executive director of the Players Association)

Former Phillies general manager Pat Gillick said yesterday that he would consider returning to another team to oversee baseball operations, according to a report by Buster Olney, of ESPN The Magazine. Gillick, 72, who served as an adviser for the Phillies this year, left his GM post after the team won the World Series. Before his time in Philadelphia, Gillick served as general manager of the Toronto Blue Jays from 1977 to '94, and the team won championships in 1992 and 1993.

With all the playoff hype building to a crescendo, I thought some of our Philadelphia fan readers might enjoy the acrostic poem I wrote for the team. If you find it worthy, I would be flattered if you printed it. Thanks - and Go E-A-G-L-E-S! E-A-G-L-E-S ELEVEN warriors on the field of battle, ALL as brothers with a cause, GIVING all of their minds, bodies and souls, without the slightest pause. LIFTING the spirits of each other, if one should happen to fall, EVERY ounce of their being, focused on the football.

A particular meteorologist delivering the morning weather forecast on Israeli radio always ends with wishes for a good day. Now, almost as an afterthought, he's begun to add, "Just let it be a quiet one. " Every listener in Israel knows it isn't the wind he's referring to. From conferences to school outings, from family picnics to job-related travel, what Israelis universally refer to as "the situation" has become a variable always to be factored...

Marty Biron, who signed with the goaltender-heavy New York Islanders on Wednesday, sees his situation as an opportunity, not a hindrance. The Flyers did not re-sign the free agent, who was their starting goalie the past two-plus seasons. Biron is the third NHL goalie under contract to the Islanders. Rick DiPietro is signed through the 2020-21 season and Dwayne Roloson signed a 2-year deal earlier this month. DiPietro only played five games last season because of a knee injury. "We were thinking outside the box and tried to make it work with the Islanders," Biron told Newsday, a Long Island-based newspaper.

Bobby Seale, the co-founder of the Black Panther Party, says he's been financially lean since a bad barbecue rib deal in Ohio two years ago. The still-unresolved episode, which resulted in a grand jury indictment in Ohio on charges of passing bad checks, led to Seale being arrested and jailed Thursday after his car rear-ended a fire truck in Germantown. For the first time yesterday, Seale agreed to discuss his legal and financial problems. His lawyers have advised him to keep silent about his troubles, but Seale said he's in such straits that he's calling friends across the country to help him out financially.

During his brief, but very necessary respite from coaching the 76ers, Larry Brown found himself in a bustling bookstore in the suburbs, watching in fascination as a clerk ever so carefully wrapped his purchases for Christmas. "They were being so nice, so careful, taking so much time," Brown recalled, "I looked at my wife Shelly and said, 'Pat Croce put you up to this.' " Whether giving the 60-year-old coach two full days off before the 25th game of an 82-game schedule was the team president's, general manager Billy King's or Brown's, it appears to have served its purpose.

Mo Reilly has known where she wanted to go to college for some time. Yesterday, the first day of the early signing period, the 6-foot senior forward from Paul VI made it official, signing a letter of intent to play basketball at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Conn. "I'm so excited. I've really anticipated this day," Reilly said. "When I went up there, I really liked the coaches and the players. The whole situation just fit me. " The Pioneers, who lost to eventual national champion Maryland in the first round of the NCAA tournament last March, won their first Northeast Conference championship last season and are picked to repeat this season.

After a breakthrough season last year, Webb Simpson finally appears to be comfortable playing on the PGA Tour. And that's not necessarily a good thing. The way the 26-year-old North Carolina native figures it, sharper golf comes from not being comfortable, from having to overcome nerves in a tough situation. "I think as an athlete, you're so used to feeling nerves and performing under pressure," Simpson said this week in advance of his trip Monday to Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square for an outing with Chase Sapphire card members.

DON'T BE surprised if in about 9 months there is a baby boom in the 76ers organization, because it appears they are in a blackout. Nary a word on the coaching search has been unearthed. The team is bringing in potential draft picks - with Temple's Khalif Wyatt scheduled for Saturday - but they are not alerting the media as to who is coming in and not making players or evaluators available for interviews. Names continued to get thrown around for head coaching positions throughout the league, most notably Brian Shaw and Byron Scott and recently retired Jason Kidd.

T HE 15-DAY disabled list for Chase Utley and his "very mild" oblique strain doesn't sound so bad - if the Phillies are telling the whole story. But let's be honest, when was the last time you felt as though the Phillies told you the whole story about an injury or a player going on the DL? Not that they are that different from any other professional sports franchise when it comes to full disclosure concerning injuries, but the Phillies and Utley have left an especially lingering taste of cynicism in our mouths concerning their abilities to tell the truth about the aging second baseman.

THE TRUTH is that Landon Donovan simply picked the wrong time to take 4-month hiatus from soccer to re-energize. At a time when United States Senior National Team coach Jurgen Klinsmann emphasized the fact that players in America don't play enough high-level soccer, Donovan, the USA's all-time leading scorer, took a break from the game from January to late March. Donovan's sabbatical cost him the first three games of the 2013 Major League Soccer season with the Los Angeles Galaxy and made him unavailable for three World Cup qualifying matches for the national team.

DEAR HARRY: I was married for five years before I finally got a divorce in January 2012. The divorce agreement provided that he was to support our two boys until they reached 18. It also provided that I was to have full custody, but that he would be able to claim the boys as dependents. He is now almost a year behind in his child support and alimony. Fortunately, my parents are able to help us. My income is only $37,000 a year. Last week, I got a notice from his CPA requesting that I sign a Form 8332 granting him the right to claim the children as dependents on his 2012 tax return.

Q: I am a worried dad. My 16-year-old son is a good kid. Very much into sports and an honor student. My wife has gotten sick of telling him to clean up his bedroom. He ignored my wife's pleas as well as mine. Several days ago, I decided to clean it myself and put all his soiled clothes in a trash bag. As I was working, I discovered over 40 pairs of socks under his bed that were obviously used to clean himself up after masturbating. I think my son has some type of fetish and do not know how to approach him. I have not told my wife.

NEW YORK - Manti Te'o tried to put one of the strangest sports stories in memory behind him in an off-camera interview with ESPN, insisting he was the target of an elaborate online hoax in which he fell for a fake woman created by pranksters, then admitting his own lies made the bizarre ordeal worse. Whether his words are enough to demonstrate that the Notre Dame star linebacker was a victim in the scheme instead of a participant is still in question. The 21-year-old all-American and Heisman Trophy finalist has finished his coursework at Notre Dame and is preparing for the NFL draft at an elite training facility in Florida, where the 21/2-hour interview was conducted late Friday night.

Q: I find it to be a pain in the butt when I am on the highway and the person in the left lane is driving 40-50 mph. It is called the passing lane, buddy. At what point can I hit the horn or flash my lights? - In a Hurry but not a Rush from Ridley A: Slow down,'bro. It's not worth getting worked up with road rage over some slow driver, because these days you've got a lot of crazy people out there, and there's no telling what they'd do if confronted. Keeping a safe distance and flashing the brights once is cool, but if you keep doing it and the driver still doesn't move to the right, then it could turn into a game of wills.

WASHINGTON - It's the same debate, the same numbers and practically the same plan, but the White House is working harder to keep troops in Afghanistan than it did in similar but failed discussions in Iraq in 2011. Security remains shaky in both war zones, but current and former U.S. officials say the Obama administration cannot afford to lose in Afghanistan after a dozen years of fighting and a continuing threat by al-Qaeda and its extremist Taliban allies. Defeating al-Qaeda and bolstering Afghan forces to prevent the terror network's return there has been a top priority for President Obama since he took office, while ending the war in Iraq was the fulfillment of a campaign promise.

RAMALLAH, West Bank - The Palestinian self-rule government is close to being "completely incapacitated," largely because Arab countries have not delivered hundreds of millions of dollars in promised aid, the Palestinian prime minister said in an interview Sunday. If allowed to continue, the Palestinian Authority's unprecedented financial crisis will quickly double the number of Palestinian poor to 50 percent of a population of roughly four million, Salam Fayyad told the Associated Press.

HOUSTON - The Houston Texans were looking forward to enjoying a bye this week before beginning their work in the playoffs as the AFC's top seed. Instead, a terrible month in which they lost three of four games dropped the Texans to the third seed. It has them in the exact same spot as a year ago, hosting the Cincinnati Bengals in a wild-card playoff game Saturday. The Texans wasted little time this week lamenting their missed opportunities, though, instead focusing on their next task.