Unfinished Business

WHEN YOUNGSTERS start playing basketball, they are told they need to play with a chip on their shoulder, prove to people that they are better than others think. The players at Ohio State seem to get that. At Kansas? Not quite sure. The Buckeyes' top two players, stung by Friday's 62-60 loss to Kentucky, said they will not enter the NBA draft and will return to Columbus. The six Jayhawks who have a decision to make? They're not sure. Ohio State's Jared Sullinger made it clear to the Columbus Dispatch that the loss is the reason he won't put himself in the draft.

Everyone said it was going to be easy. And that's exactly the way the Penn Quakers have made it look. They beat Brown last night at the Palestra, 85-55, to clinch their third straight Ivy League championship. With two minutes remaining, they started passing out the obligatory "Threepeat" T-shirts. They eventually cut down the nets. But by the time they got back to the locker room, the talk was mostly about unfinished business. So much for celebrations. "We'll probably enjoy it more after we're done," said Matt Maloney, one of five senior starters.

This is Terry Mulholland's September song. He pitched a three-hit shutout yesterday afternoon in the Astrodome as the Phillies beat Houston, 5-0. It was his second victory of the month. He has won 14 games. Only four pitchers in the National League have won more. He has pitched 198 2/3 innings. Only six pitchers have put in longer hours. And now, he says, it's time for the big socko finish. He'll have five more starts this season and is reminding himself to make the best of each and every one. "It's important for me to go out there and win ballgames, especially this month," he said.

Each day, all across America, a budding athlete allows imagination to be an inspiration. He tucks a football under his arm, and dreams about becoming the next O.J. Simpson. Or he engages in some one-on-one hoops, and pretends he's Magic going up against Bird. Perhaps she stands over a 15-foot putt, and in her mind it's for the U.S. women's Open title. Yet it's safe to assume that not too many shout "stroke" over and over again through a megaphone, while visions of one day being a coxswain on an Olympic-bound boat dance in their heads.

Jerome Hayes could have said goodbye to Penn State football, and no one could blame him if he had. Two grueling rehabilitations over the last two years from torn anterior cruciate knee ligaments, first in his right knee, then his left, would have been enough for anyone to say, "Thanks. It's been fun. " But Hayes did not want the last memory of his college career to be writhing in pain and uncertainty as he was carried off the lush green grass of Beaver Stadium in the second game of the 2008 season.

With Congress into its monthlong summer recess, lawmakers in each house can look back on some major legislative accomplishments. But they can also look ahead to a ton of unfinished business when they return Sept. 9. The number of major bills that cleared both houses - and in some cases a veto from President Reagan - to find their way into the law books since the 100th Congress convened in January is small. Final action on most major legislative goals set by congressional leaders will have to wait until fall.

Ronald Santiago had planned to fly to Puerto Rico with his parents earlier this month to buy a vacation house. The trip was canceled after Santiago, a 35-year-old father of three from Northeast Philadelphia, was beaten to death Dec. 8 inside a Kensington house he was rehabbing. His father, Carmelo Santiago, 62, now plans to leave - not for a vacation, but for good. "Pretty soon this going to look like a ghost town," he said outside the house at F and Clearfield Streets that his son was fixing for resale.

There are no catchphrases this time. No motivational T-shirts. The Phillies are past that. They know they have been a major disappointment the last two seasons, and they know fans are skeptical of their chances to make the playoffs this season. Now is the time? Now or never. "This season is our most important season, because we want to win now," general manager Ed Wade said. "We just have to go out and do it. Grasp the opportunity. " Few in Philadelphia think they can. Fans feel cheated.

Some players give their heart and soul to their game, sweat themselves drunk in the training camp torture chamber, then simply find that they have nothing more to give. They hit a wall, discover their mortality and give up. Linebacker Ron Moten has rammed painfully up against the wall two or three times already, and he is still charging on. He says he never will give up. Moten's left knee blew out in the 1987 preseason, his rookie season with the Eagles. He went through a long rehabilitation and limped around on the injured-reserve list for two seasons.

"We see all the great names on the wall [at school], every day. They've got Penn Relay champions, and national champions. It's kind of funny to have one without the other...It would be great to put our names right up there in Villanova history. " — Wildcats' fifth-year senior Sheila Reid, before the 2011 Penn Relays   SO WHEN DOES a void become a burden? Because 12 months later, nothing has changed. And at this point, fun probably has little to do with that quest.

DEAR ABBY: I'm a 45-year-old married woman with four kids. I fell in love with a longtime friend, "Hugh," two years ago. He's single and has never been married. I told him I want a relationship, but he says that since I'm married we can't have one. We have been spending a lot of time together and have started to get intimate. I told Hugh I don't want to just fool around - I want a commitment. He worries about my kids, and that if I leave their father they won't understand.

Question: Father is elderly and in poor health. Has been verbally abusive to me my entire life and a control freak. After getting into yet another argument on the phone, we're not speaking. I'm getting married and seriously not feeling him at my wedding since he will inevitably turn it into his day; he has a perverse need for attention that has disrupted major milestones and events, including my mother's funeral. Am I being too rigid? He's so negative about everything I can't take it - especially on my wedding day. Answer: Then don't.

At the end of a pair of unfortunate weekends in October, Wisconsin's plan of returning to the Rose Bowl had plunged into a ditch, with the Badgers' psyches perhaps scarred badly enough to keep them from reaching their goal. Playing the first of two straight road contests, the Badgers lost to Michigan State on the final play of the game, a 44-yard Hail Mary pass that was ruled a touchdown on official review. The next week, Ohio State connected on a similar 40-yard heave into the end zone with 20 seconds to play to upset Wisconsin.

WHEN YOUNGSTERS start playing basketball, they are told they need to play with a chip on their shoulder, prove to people that they are better than others think. The players at Ohio State seem to get that. At Kansas? Not quite sure. The Buckeyes' top two players, stung by Friday's 62-60 loss to Kentucky, said they will not enter the NBA draft and will return to Columbus. The six Jayhawks who have a decision to make? They're not sure. Ohio State's Jared Sullinger made it clear to the Columbus Dispatch that the loss is the reason he won't put himself in the draft.

THE AMAZING RACE: UNFINISHED BUSINESS. 8 p.m. Sunday, Channel 3. WHEN CBS' "The Amazing Race" returns for its 18th edition Sunday, a season it's calling "Unfinished Business," the second-chance contestants won't be the only ones trying to improve on past performances. For the first time since its 2001 debut, the globe-trotting competition will be airing in HD. And, yes, "Race" host Phil Keoghan knows fans have been waiting. "A lot of people have said to me, 'I just don't understand.

The image of the PIAA Class AAAA state runner-up trophy alone in the center of the Penn Wood locker room last spring at Penn State still sits uneasy in the minds of the returning Patriots seniors. They didn't want to look at it or touch it, and no one went near it. The Pats - especially the senior frontcourt of 6-6 Aaron Brown, 6-9 Shawn Oakman and 6-8 Darian Barnes - have some unfinished business this season and that's to win Penn Wood's second state championship in the last 3 years.

It has become sort of a trend around Bishop Shanahan: The girls' volleyball team, simply put, wins. Since 2004, the team, under coach Greg Ashman, has won six consecutive Ches-Mont League titles, taken three district crowns and, last year, earned the PIAA Class AAA state championship. But this year, repeating might be more difficult than in years past. The Eagles graduated five senior starters from 2009, including Emily Carlin, who was the most valuable player of the state tournament a year ago. Now, Shanahan must retool a squad in ways they are not accustomed to. But Ashman planned ahead.

Unfinished business is not a term usually associated with a season that is by far one of the most successful of any program in recent area history. The frustration in the voices of the Father Judge players and coaches is not the kind usually heard from a team that made it to a state final the year before - and didn't lose. But the effects of the epic and historic scoreless tie against Central Dauphin, the PIAA Class AAA state cochampion, are lingering. The bad taste - the awkward feeling of that final game on Nov. 21, 2009 - is still there.

Conestoga dispensed of some unfinished business on Friday and, as a result of it, collected a PIAA District 1 lacrosse title. The unfinished business was caused by Thursday's inclement weather, causing a 24-hour suspension before the Pioneers beat Springfield (Delaware County), 8-4, in the championship game at Harriton. Half the game was played on Thursday and the other half on Friday, with Peter Bowers scoring his two goals on the first day of the two-day match. Conestoga finished up with a third-period goal by Tyler Brooke and one in the fourth quarter by Matt Smith to close out the scoring.