Young America

Firery Ensign, firing past front-runner Batty at the top of the Meadowlands Racetrack's homestretch, held off a late challenge by Cherokee Colony to win last night's $500,000 Young America Stakes by 1 1/4 lengths. The 2-year-old colt, who had finished a dull fifth in Belmont Park's Champagne Stakes in his previous start, carried Jorge Velasquez to his fourth Young America victory and his biggest win since returning to the United States this summer after riding for a year in Europe.

The only two men to skipper a challenger to victory in the America's Cup had an impromptu meeting yesterday morning. As they parted, Dennis Conner turned to Australian John Bertrand and said: "Today we'll find out who will win this America's Cup. " If Conner's assessment was correct, it won't be Conner. Overcoming a miserable start, Team New Zealand sailed to a decisive 4- minute, 14-second victory over Conner's borrowed Young America to take a 2-0 lead in the best-of-nine series for the oldest international trophy in sports.

Helmsman Paul Cayard of Young America could only watch in despair as the challengers, Team New Zealand, sailed away again yesterday to a third straight victory in the best-of-nine series for the America's Cup, sailing's premier trophy. "Our testing days are getting fewer and fewer," Cayard said without irony. If Dennis Conner's crew can't get their borrowed Young America moving better, the 29th defense of the America's Cup - and San Diego Yacht Club's hold on the world's oldest international sports trophy - could end Saturday.

After 18.55 miles of sailing, Dennis Conner pushed Stars & Stripes across the finish line three seconds ahead of Young America yesterday, the closest finish in the 1995 America's Cup trials in the waters off San Diego. Three seconds translates to less than half the length of a 75-foot racing sloop. The previous closest margins in the 1995 trials were a 12-second win by Team New Zealand over Nippon on Jan. 31, and a a 14-second victory by America3 over Young America on Jan. 29. The closest finish ever in an America's Cup trial was Italy's one-second win over New Zealand in 1992.

Team Dennis Conner will shelve Stars & Stripes in the America's Cup finals, opting instead to borrow a speedier boat from losing U.S. syndicate Pact 95, officials of the teams confirmed yesterday. Pact 95, whose Young America had the best overall record of the defender boats in the last four months, will help Conner's crew train with the new boat for the finals, which begin Saturday against New Zealand in a rematch of the 1988 series. Team Dennis Conner's crew will remain unchanged.

Seeking a pass rusher to complement Bruce Smith, the Buffalo Bills yesterday signed Jim Jeffcoat, who will be 34 when he plays his first game for the Bills. Jeffcoat played 12 seasons with Dallas and won two Super Bowl rings in the Cowboys' two victories over the Bills. He is the Cowboys' all-time sack leader with 94.5. He had eight sacks last season, but only one in the final eight games. The Bills signed Jeffcoat to a three-year deal that will pay him a little less than $1 million a season.

The only solemn moment on the schooner Yankee's 2 1/2-hour sightseeing sail happens a few minutes after the tall ship casts off from Atlantic City's Farley State Marina. Casting off is a dramatic moment. Captain Dave Franchetta and his two-man crew scurry over the broad deck, throwing off ropes as diesel engines gently move the 80-foot sailboat away from the dock. Passengers, sitting on wooden benches, stare up at the Yankee's twin masts and snap pictures of the receding tower of Trump's Castle, the sagging boat houses and the bright white Coast Guard station along the Snug Harbor Inlet.

The only solemn moment on the schooner Yankee's 2 1/2-hour sightseeing sail happens a few minutes after the tall ship casts off from Atlantic City's Farley State Marina. Casting off is a dramatic moment. Captain Dave Franchetta and his two-man crew scurry over the broad deck, throwing off ropes as diesel engines gently move the 80-foot sailboat away from the dock. Passengers, sitting on wooden benches, stare up at the Yankee's twin masts and snap pictures of the receding tower of Trump's Castle, the sagging boat houses and the bright white Coast Guard station along the Snug Harbor Inlet.

Denver Nuggets center Dikembe Mutombo, who complained bitterly last week after being passed over for the NBA all-star team, was named to the Western Conference squad yesterday to replace injured Lakers forward Cedric Ceballos. Ceballos, who had been chosen by coaches as a reserve, tore a ligament in his right thumb Friday in an 88-74 loss to the Nuggets. Mutombo was the next-highest vote-getter among coaches. The 7-foot-2 Nuggets center is the league leader in rebounding, with an average of 12.9 per game, and has an NBA-best average of 3.66 blocks.

Heavyweight champion George Foreman, ignoring the World Boxing Association's threat to strip him of his title, will defend against German Axel Schulz in April, Foreman's promoter, Bob Arum, announced yesterday. "It is full speed ahead with the Schulz fight. You have my absolute insurance that he won't change his mind," Arum told Reuters in a telephone interview. The WBA's world championship committee last week voted unanimously against Foreman's request for an exemption to fight the lightly regarded Schulz instead of its highest-ranked available contender, Tony Tucker.

YOUNG AMERICANS have a lot at stake in Tuesday's presidential election, but nothing is more important than ensuring enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Mentioned repeatedly during the first two presidential debates, "Obamacare" is now the subject of intense, and annoying, campaign advertisements. But lost amid all this ominous talk of mandates, fines and government takeovers is a clear understanding of the ACA's many benefits to those of us under 40. I hope the possibility of a potential Romney administration repealing the ACA elicits serious concern, because the ACA is vital to the health of our country.

HE WAS VOTED "Most likely to sell the Brooklyn Bridge" by his high-school classmates. But Dick Clark did much more than that. He sold America on a kit bag of rowdy trouble and seductive pleasures. And he did so fordecades —from those lurid "Great Balls of Fire" goosed by Jerry Lee Lewis and the hip, grinding come-ons to do "The Twist" evoked by Chubby Checker, to the coded drug-'n'-revolution messages he let fly on national TV from the Jefferson Airplane, and the totally tarty aura of Madonna that became America's obsession.

A mentor can lift a struggling youngster toward a better life. That's why leaders in the field vowed two years ago to double the number of mentors in the United States by 2010. The bad news from the Census Bureau is that mentoring is not on track to double by then - not even close. In 2006, about two million adults mentored a young person for an hour or more per week and for at least the duration of a school year. Today, there are only about 160,000 more such mentors, and the Census Bureau projects slower growth from now until 2010.

The Smithsonian Institution's American Art Museum in Washington, formerly the National Museum of American Art, closed last year so its historic building could undergo extensive renovations. Rather than put all of its collection in storage, the museum has organized eight thematic exhibitions that will travel to 70 cities through 2003, when the building is scheduled to reopen. One of these shows, "Young America," has come to the Delaware Art Museum in Wilmington. It consists of 54 paintings and sculptures dating from the mid-18th century to just after the Civil War, by some of this country's most famous artists.

No one has ever put a U.S. defender in as big a hole as Team New Zealand has Dennis Conner three races into the America's Cup. Black Magic 1 continued to cast its awesome spell over the world's best- known sailor, beating Conner's borrowed Young America by one minute, 51 seconds yesterday. For the first time in 144 years, a foreign yacht is up, 3-0, against America's best. The America's Cup is a best-of-nine series. Conner is two losses away from losing the Cup for the first time since 1983, when he lost a 3-1 lead to Australia II in the race, then best-of-seven.

Helmsman Paul Cayard of Young America could only watch in despair as the challengers, Team New Zealand, sailed away again yesterday to a third straight victory in the best-of-nine series for the America's Cup, sailing's premier trophy. "Our testing days are getting fewer and fewer," Cayard said without irony. If Dennis Conner's crew can't get their borrowed Young America moving better, the 29th defense of the America's Cup - and San Diego Yacht Club's hold on the world's oldest international sports trophy - could end Saturday.

The only two men to skipper a challenger to victory in the America's Cup had an impromptu meeting yesterday morning. As they parted, Dennis Conner turned to Australian John Bertrand and said: "Today we'll find out who will win this America's Cup. " If Conner's assessment was correct, it won't be Conner. Overcoming a miserable start, Team New Zealand sailed to a decisive 4- minute, 14-second victory over Conner's borrowed Young America to take a 2-0 lead in the best-of-nine series for the oldest international trophy in sports.

Dennis Conner has received permission to switch boats for the upcoming America's Cup final against Team New Zealand. Conner, who sailed Stars & Stripes during the defender series, has been granted use of PACT 95's Young America, which had the best overall record of the three U.S. syndicates. The America's Cup Trustees' Committee yesterday ruled in favor of Conner in response to a protest from Team New Zealand. The committee cited the mutual- consent clause that allows a team to enter two new boats in the competition.

Team Dennis Conner will shelve Stars & Stripes in the America's Cup finals, opting instead to borrow a speedier boat from losing U.S. syndicate Pact 95, officials of the teams confirmed yesterday. Pact 95, whose Young America had the best overall record of the defender boats in the last four months, will help Conner's crew train with the new boat for the finals, which begin Saturday against New Zealand in a rematch of the 1988 series. Team Dennis Conner's crew will remain unchanged.

Dennis Conner's Stars & Stripes handed PACT 95's faltering Young America its second straight loss yesterday in the America's Cup defender finals off San Diego. Stars & Stripes protected the favored right side of the race course at the start and took a lead it never relinquished, winning by 1 minute, 15 seconds. Conner, a three-time America's Cup winner, finished the semifinals with three straight losses and survived only because of a compromise among the three defense syndicates.