Venus Has Skyrocketing Self-Confidence

Venus Williams, the teen-age tennis prodigy from Compton, and her family are not lacking in confidence for her future.

After her father, Richard, predicted that “she’ll become the No. 1 player in the world at 18,” the 15-year-old agreed.

“I feel it’s very true,” Venus said when asked about a No. 1 ranking in the next few years, although she has played in only one professional tournament.

“She wants to play more, [but] she goes along,” Williams said of his daughter. “She has no other choice. She was taught to obey her parents.”

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Add Venus: Apparently others are equally confident. Reebok announced a couple of months ago that it had signed Williams--then 14--to a multimillion-dollar, multiyear endorsement contract and that she will have a clothing line by next spring.

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Trivia time: When and where was the first organized automobile race in the United States?

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Culture shock: Randy Hill of the Pasadena Star-News finds it ironic that Hideo Nomo, who grew up using chopsticks back home in Japan, has as his best pitch a forkball .

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College cheer: First baseman Mo Vaughn and shortstop John Valentin of the Boston Red Sox are hoping that the team acquires second baseman Craig Biggio from the Houston Astros next season. It would give the Red Sox three-quarters of an all-Seton Hall infield.

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Sound reason: Most professional athletes hate training camp, but not Rich Karlis, the former Denver Bronco kicker.

“I liked it because I’m not married, and I didn’t have anybody to cook for me,” he explained.

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Cutting corners: It paid off for golfer Shaun Lynch when he took a shortcut over a dogleg and wound up with a 496-yard hole in one.

Lynch, 33, hit a three-iron off the tee at the par-five dogleg 17th hole at the Teign Valley Golf Club near Exeter in southwest England. He cut the dogleg by hitting over a 20-foot hedge. The shot bounced down the steep fairway and rolled all the way into the cup.

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Wrong sport: At his first news conference as coach of the Buffalo Sabres, Ted Nolan said he “likes a team that gets its underwear wet.”

Which prompted columnist Bud Geracie of the San Jose Mercury News to comment: “Maybe he should coach swimming.”

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The standard: Arnold Palmer will be 66 on Sept. 10, and people keep asking him when he plans to quit playing tournament golf.

“There’s a stream that crosses the 12th hole at Latrobe Country Club [in Pennsylvania],” he answers. “I have to drive it 240 yards to carry it. When I can’t do that, I’ll quit.”

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Trivia answer: On Nov. 28, 1895, when the Chicago Times-Herald sponsored a race from Chicago to Waukegan, Ill., and back. J. Frank Duryea won the 55-mile race with an average speed of 6.66 m.p.h.

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Quotebook: Running back Emmitt Smith of the Dallas Cowboys on life in training camp in Austin, Tex.: “It’s crazy out here. Adults are acting like 2- and 3-year-old children trying to get autographs.”