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2C Tuesday, July 6, 2010 charlotteobserver.com The Charlotte Observer Sports Today Today Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Charlotte Knights: 704-357-8071 Durham 7:15 Durham 7:15 Gwinnett 7:05 Gwinnett 7:05 Gwinnett 7:05 Gwinnett 2:05 Charlotte Eagles: 704-841-8644 Richmond 7 Home games in gray at Charlotte Christian TV All times p.m. unless noted. Schedules subject to change. MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL at New York FSCR 7 at Philadelphia PTV 7 Boston at Tampa Bay MLB 7 NBA SUMMER LEAGUE Utah vs. Orlando NBATV 1 Charlotte vs.

Oklahoma City NBATV 3 Philadelphia vs. Boston NBATV 5 New Jersey vs. Indiana NBATV 7 WNBA Connecticut at San Antonio ESPN2 8 Phoenix at Los Angeles ESPN2 10 CYCLING Tour de France VS 8:30 a.m. WORLD CUP SOCCER Uruguay vs. Netherlands ESPN, UNI 2:30 NOTES: Peachtree TV available on Time Warner Cable and Comporium digital systems; Available in the N.C.

counties of Ashe, Avery, Buncombe, Burke, Cabarrus, Caldwell, Catawba, Cleveland, Davidson, Davie, Forsyth, Gaston, Haywood, Henderson, Iredell, Lincoln, McDowell, Mecklenburg, Moore, Polk, Rowan, Rutherford, Watauga, Wilkes. Radio highlights MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL Atlanta at Philadelphia 7 WBLO-AM (790, High Point), WCAB-AM (590, Rutherfordton), WSTP-AM (1490, Salisbury), WOHS-AM (1390, Shelby), WSPG-AM (1400, Spartanburg), WSPG-FM (97.1, Spartanburg), WBCU- AM (1460, Union, S.C.), WBCU-FM (103.5, Union, S.C.) MINOR-LEAGUE BASEBALL Hickory at Delmarva 7:05 WMNC-FM (92.1, Morganton) Durham at Charlotte 7:15 WRHI-AM (1340, Rock Hill); WRHI-FM (94.3, Rock Hill) TOP SPORTS STORIES AT CHARLOTTEOBSERVER.COM Based on page views from midnight to 5 p.m. Monday: 1. N.C. bodybuilding champ charged with killing husband 2.

Former Miss California Prejean marries Raiders QB 3. 1 man dead in Harrells Raceway shooting 4. Minter still wants Charlotte 49ers job 5. Derrick Brown more than willing to put in the work YOUR GUIDE TO GOING ON TOP STORIES AT THATSRACIN.COM 1. Race rewind: Daytona 2.

Dale Wrangler No. 3 the stuff of legends 3. Allmendinger, Petty mix it up in garage area BECOME OUR FAN ON FACEBOOK Follow the biggest sports news in the Carolinas Panthers, Bobcats, NASCAR, college sports and more on Facebook. Search for Observer SPORTS Lane was his son was and they were extremely close. and talked almost every day by phone, and the father always told the son he loved him at the end of each conversation.

When Big Fred entered a football stadium where Little Fred was playing, he would let out a high-pitched whistle so his son knew he had arrived. His son would find the source of that whistle, then smile and wave. try to only remember the good said Fred Lane Sr. every day with him was a good time. Fred loved life.

He was a joy to be Fred and Mary Lane still see their granddaughter Fred Jr. and child a little more than once a year, Fred Lane Sr. said. Do they also have a relationship with Deidra Lane? Fred Lane said, rather not get into that part of Deidra Lane, 35, has been out of prison for 16 months. She be reached for com- ment for this story.

Her father, Charles Gary, has for many years owned a successful real- estate agent business in Co- lumbia. He said neither he nor any other member of his family would make any comments for the story and asked the Ob- server to consider not publish- ing this story because it would reopen old wounds. Fred Lane however, ex- pressed no reservations about this story when I called. And my editors and I thought it was important to write this col- umn. I want to remind people of the sort of man Fred Lane Jr.

was, and what that time 10 years ago in Charlotte felt like. on the Panthers never forgotten the day Lane was shot or Lane him- self. He was one of the Pan- true originals a success story during his finest moments here. In 1997, Lane was an undraft- ed rookie free agent from tiny Lane College in Tennessee. Lane was no relation to the founder, but it made for a memorable detail.

His fa- vorite food was spinach. He said he read his tattered Bible each night. Lane attended a big- ger college mostly because of grade problems. He drafted because he was rela- tively slow for a running back and a knee injury had ham- pered his senior season. But man, the guy could play.

He burst into Charlotte as a rookie, leading the Panthers with 809 rushing yards in 1997. (The guy handing him the ball, quarterback Kerry Collins, got a $7 million signing bonus from the Panthers. Lane got I thought I was going to be sent home on the first Lane told me in 1997. thought they just had me in to be a practice One teammate joked when hearing name that the Panthers must have signed Lois cousin. That year during an exhibi- tion, Lane threw up on the 10-yard line after one play, came out, checked back into the game a couple of plays later and scored on fourth-and-goal.

During the regular season, he surpassed 100 yards rushing four times. Only months before his death, Lane had been traded to the Indianapolis Colts. But he never played for the Colts, and so everyone remembers him only as a Panther. The day he got shot, Lane was the Pan- all-time leading rusher with 2,001 yards. still fifth on that list.

Lane a choirboy in three seasons here. He was held out of one Panthers game because he missed the team plane. He was suspended for another after celebrating a touchdown with a crotch grab. He caught heat once for not standing during the national anthem. But after being around Lane regularly for three years, I wrote most of those mistakes off to his immaturity a quality he certainly had but one I thought usually was trumped by heart being in the right place.

A community nightmare On the day Lane died, it felt to me like the world of pro sports in Charlotte was falling apart. I spent the first part of July 6, 2000, covering David trial in connection with a wreck six months before that had killed his fellow Charlotte Hornet and close friend Bobby Phills. Shortly after 3 p.m., the judge was about to rule. At the same time, at his home, Lane was dying. I get into the newspa- per building to discuss the Wesley trial before someone told me in the parking lot that Lane had been shot.

Those two events followed on the heels of the death of Cherica Adams. Former Pan- thers wide receiver Rae Car- ruth a one-time teammate of would eventually be sentenced to at least 18 years of jail time for hiring a hit man to kill Adams, who was pregnant with child, in No- vember 1999. It seemed like Charlotte was having a community night- mare, that it had turned into the place where all the worst stories about pro athletics came true. Guns. Porsches be- ing driven way too fast how Phills died).

Court hear- ings. And deaths. In fact, though, death signified the end of that awful period of pro sports life. had our share of negative sports stories dur- ing the 10 years since the Pan- steroids scandal, the move to New Or- leans, Steve Smith beating up two teammates but none of them has approached the shock of what happened to Ad- ams, Phills and Lane during a heartbreaking eight-month pe- riod. Prosecutors portrayed Dei- dra Lane as a money-hungry woman who ambushed her husband just inside the front door, intent on collecting a $5 million life policy.

Her attor- neys said she was a battered wife who feared for her life when she shot her husband. (In a separate issue, Deidra Lane pleaded guilty in federal court in 2002 to conspiring to commit bank larceny in con- nection with the 1998 theft of $41,200 from a Charlotte bank. She was sentenced to four months in prison for that crime). ever get over Deidra only substan- tive comments about the shooting came during her 2003 sentencing hearing. Moments before the judge sentenced her for her death, Dei- dra Lane faced her late hus- parents in court and said: am sorry for the loss of Fred.

I loved Fred dearly. He was a good man. At times, he scared me, and I under- stand him then. sorry for the pain That pain still resonates in Nashville, where the Lanes keep pictures of their son all over the house. Big Fred hand- ed out football cards of his son at Little funeral, trying to make people remember his son at his best.

Fred Lane Sr. said he keeps busy by going fishing and play- ing with his grandchildren, but that it feels like it has been far less than 10 years since his son was killed. Fresher. More pain- ful. a Lane said.

ever get over it. not something I would wish on anyone, even my worst ene- Only parents who have lost a child can probably understand the depth of that hole. For me, I always think of those keys hanging in the door lock when police got there. We always think of a key as a happy symbol, one that begins a journey. For Fred Lane, though, his house key unlocked a door he could never close again.

Like so many people, I wish he had never gone home that day, that none of this happened, that life had simply gone on. But a key went into a lock 10 years ago today in southeast Charlotte. And a few minutes after that, everything changed. Scott Fowler: 704-358-5140; FOWLER from 1C 1997 CHARLOTTE OBSERVER FILE PHOTO Fred Lane dives into the end zone for the first of his three touchdowns against the Oakland Raiders on Nov. 3, 1997.

Lane, a rookie, stepped in for the injured Tshimanga Biakabutuka and set Carolina Panthers single-game records for scoring (three touchdowns) and rushing (147 yards) in the 38-14 victory. 1997 CHARLOTTE OBSERVER FILE PHOTO Deidra Lane, right, with attorney Henderson Hill, leaves the courtroom in 2003. She pleaded guilty in the death of her estranged husband, Fred Lane. The phone rang at the Gua- dagnino household in Boca Ra- ton, recently and when Kathy answered, the voice on the other end of the line said, What anni- she said. 25th The caller was Scotty Thompson, who caddied for Guadagnino then known as Kathy Baker when she won the U.S.

Open 25 years ago at Baltusrol in New Jersey. She beat the best to claim the biggest title in wom- golf. When I reached her by phone recently to talk about that, she said, seems like 100 years ago. It seems like a different In many ways, it was. Kathy Baker spent part of her youth living at River Hills Plantation in Lake Wylie, and attending Charlotte Latin.

Even then, her golf talent was far above most her age. She had an outstanding ama- teur career, including the 1982 individual NCAA champion- ship playing for the team champion, Tulsa. She was winless during her first two years on the LPGA Tour, but she was having a good season in 1985, and then, for one memorable week, she put it all together and won the Open. She etched her name on a trophy that includes those of legends like Patty Berg, Babe Zaharias, Betsy Rawls, Mickey Wright, Betsy King and Annika Sorenstam. Twenty-five years have passed, and the championship is a cherished but distant mem- ory.

Her life is jam-packed with matters of family and religious faith. She and her husband Joe, an ordained minister, have three children Nikki, 20, Megan, 18, and Joey, 14. All three have en- joyed playing sports, but none has taken a lot of interest in golf. Guadagnino also is a minis- ter at the nondenominational Solid Rock Christian Church, where she plays the keyboard and does needs to be She also teaches golf at The Club at Boca Pointe. wear five or six she said.

Another Open will begin Thursday at Oak- mont (Pa.) Country Club. Kathy never goes to tourna- ments and rarely watches golf on television, but watch some this week. And as a kind of celebration, the family will watch a tape of her Open win. see Kathy Baker when she was 24, already with five top-10 finishes that year, battling Judy Clark in what turned out to be a two-person shootout after favorite Lopez fell behind early. Baker shot a closing 70 for a 72-hole score of 280, the second-lowest total in Open history at the time.

Clark shot 72 for a 283 total. After the Open, Guadagnino won one more tour title, the San Jose Classic in 1988. She played until the late her schedule diminishing as her faith and her family took on more importance. She said she decided maybe she should spend more time at home, thanks to a reality check from Sorenstam. Because of her pared golf schedule and her responsibili- ties at home, Guadagnino had played little leading up to the 1999 Sara Lee Classic in Nash- ville, Tenn.

During the opening round, she made 18 pars. was pretty happy with she said, Annika posted a 61. That was my reality Today, she rarely plays golf. miss the people I played golf she said, I miss the Any regrets? I feel had the best of both worlds. I got to do a lot of traveling but it felt so good to get my feet planted on the ground.

all about priorities. My priorities changed, and the kids needed Ron Green Sr. is a retired Charlotte Observer sports columnist. Reach him at Since 1985 Open, she has new priorities GUEST COLUMN RON GREEN SR. STEPHEN DUNN GETTY Kathy Guadagnino is shown at the Dinah Shore Classic in March 1994.

She won the 1985 U.S. Open at Baltusrol. Retired NHL enforcer Probert dies DETROIT Retired hockey enforcer Bob Probert, as adept with his fists as with a stick in a 16-season career with the Detroit Red Wings and Chi- cago Blackhawks, died Mon- day after suffering chest pains while boating with his family. He was 45. lost the fight of his life this said father-in-law, Dan Parkinson, a police officer who performed CPR before Probert was rushed to Windsor Regional Medical Center.

Probert was on a boat in Lake St. Clair with his wife, children and in-laws when he severe chest Monday, family friend Rich Rogow told a Monday evening news conference at the medical center. Probert, who struggled to overcome drinking problems during his time in the NHL, played for the Red Wings in 1985-1994 and for the Black- hawks in 1995-2002. ASSOCIATED PRESS COLLEGES Damon Evans offered anoth- er apology on the day his resignation as ath- letic director was announced by the president. The announcement by Michael Adams came after a conference call with the executive committee of the athletic board of directors Monday.

Adams said Evans resigned Sunday, less than a week after Evans was arrested on a DUI charge. Evans released a statement Monday in which he offered sincerest to Adams, Georgia officials, coaches, fans and student- athletes. Evans was 34 when he was chosen athletic director in 2004. Adams read a statement and said he will have no other comment until today. Evans was arrested late Wednesday in Atlanta.

He was charged with DUI and failure to maintain a lane. Also arrested with him was Courtney Fuhrmann, who was charged with disorderly con- duct. NFL Former Oakland Raiders quarterback JaMarcus Russell has been charged with pos- session of a controlled sub- stance codeine syrup after being arrested at his Mobile, home. Russell, a 24-year-old former Louisi- ana State star and the No. 1 draft choice in 2007 was ar- rested as part of an undercover narcotics investigation, said a Mobile County spokeswom- an.

She would not say what led to his arrest. Russell was booked into the city jail and released soon afterward on $2,500 bond, online records show. OBSERVER NEWS SERVICES Briefs Probert Russell.