McNown Shows What He Can Do as MVP in Senior Bowl

UCLA quarterback Cade McNown was selected as the most valuable player in the 50th Senior Bowl on Saturday after leading the South to a 31-21 victory over the North at Mobile, Ala.

McNown, who left school after the Rose Bowl to focus on selling himself to NFL scouts, completed 10 of 12 passes for 114 yards and two touchdowns, with an interception. He completed all six of his passes for 69 yards during a second-quarter scoring drive that ended with a four-yard touchdown pass to Florida’s Terry Jackson.

Since Jan. 4, three days after UCLA’s 38-31 loss to Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl, McNown has been based in Bradenton, Fla., and engaged in full-time training sessions at the International Performance Institute on the grounds of the Bollettieri Sports Academy.

His agent, Tom Condon of International Management Group, hired veteran NFL assistant Larry Kennan to serve as McNown’s private quarterback coach in Florida as McNown prepares for the NFL combine Feb. 18-22 in Indianapolis and the NFL draft April 17-18.

“I’m not big on awards and individual things and I don’t want to take anything away from anyone else here,” McNown said. “I played well and I feel like I helped this team win, but only the scouts know what they think of me.”

Brian Shay, the best player in Division II, showed he can hold his own against the best players in Division I.

Shay, a running back from tiny Emporia State in Kansas, rushed for 75 yards, went 27 yards on a fake punt, returned two kicks 21 yards and recovered a fumble for the South.

“We get chosen to be here for a reason,” Shay said. “I knew I belonged here and I just had to wait for my chance to show it.”

It was his play on fourth-and-three at the North’s 36 that did the most for the South. Leading 17-13 in the fourth quarter, the South sent its punting team onto the field. Shay took the snap and ran through the middle for 27 yards and a first down.

Syracuse quarterback Donovan McNabb was seven of 15 for 100 yards and led the North on two scoring drives that ended in field goals of 23 and 28 yards by Martin Gramatica of Kansas State. But McNabb excelled all week with the scouts and NFL coaches in attendance, proving he could do more than run the option.

“Hopefully I answered all the questions that were surrounding me as a drop-back quarterback,” McNabb said. “I think I did but some people will still feel like I’m not the prototype quarterback.”

Boston College’s Mike Cloud was the North’s MVP, rushing for 117 yards in 12 carries.

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Running back Ricky Williams of Texas, the Heisman Trophy winner, and quarterback Michael Bishop of Kansas State will lead the South against the North today in the Hula Bowl at Kahului, Hawaii. . . . Brigham Young wide receiver and kick returner Mike Rigell has been given a conditional release from his scholarship and will leave BYU.

Winter Sports

Former Olympic and world downhill champion Patrick Ortlieb of Austria announced his retirement from his hospital bed in Innsbruck, Austria, two days after a spill in practice left him with a compound fracture of his right thigh and a dislocated right hip.

Ortlieb, 31, said he would not resume World Cup competition no matter how well his recovery went. The 10-year veteran of the Austrian team was the Olympic downhill champion in 1992.

Hans Knauss led an Austrian sweep of the podium at Kitzbuehel, Austria, on their very own Streif--the most dangerous and prestigious course in the world--for his first World Cup downhill victory.

In a spectacular display of aggression, Knauss tamed the Streif, the same course that ended Ortlieb’s career Thursday, in 1 minute, 54.18 seconds.

It was Knauss’s first World Cup victory this season and fifth of his career.

“My knees were shaking at the start, I was so nervous,” Knauss admitted. “But I guess that’s what I need in order to perform well.”

Peter Rzehak was second and Werner Franz third.

Regine Cavagnoud of France, the new sensation on the women’s World Cup tour, mastered a bumpy and icy super-G course in winning by more than a second at Cortina D’Ampezzo, Italy.

Cavagnoud, 28, burst onto the ski scene Thursday when she won a downhill at Cortina D’Ampezzo--her first triumph after eight years on the World Cup circuit.

Olympic moguls skier Alex Wilson of Buffalo, N.Y., given a boost by a teammate’s first World Cup victory the night before, battled through a snowstorm at South Lake Tahoe, Calif., for his first World Cup moguls victory.

Noting acro-skier Steve Roxberg of Lakeville, Minn., collected his first World Cup win Friday night, Wilson said, “Roxy definitely inspired me. I’m glad, though, I didn’t have to wait 11 years, like he did.”

Martin Schmitt of Germany clinched his seventh victory of the season as he came from behind to win the first of this weekend’s two ski jumping World Cup events at Sapporo, Japan.

Olympic champion Adne Soendral of Norway broke the course record as he won the 1,500-meter men’s speedskating World Cup race at Innsbruck, Austria.

Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann of Germany won her third consecutive 3,000-meter race, also in course-record time.

Christoph Langen of Germany set a course record and raced to his eighth World Cup victory of the season in a two-man bobsled at Igls, Austria.

Austrian brothers Andi and Helmut Ruetz sped to victory in a two-man luge World Cup event at Canale D’Agordo, Italy, strengthening their grip on the lead in the overall season standings.

Miscellany

Argentina appears to have lost out on its final chance of getting on this year’s Formula One auto racing racing calendar.

Argentine organizers had hoped to lure the race back after lack of financial support forced Formula One officials to leave the Argentine Grand Prix off the 1999 provisional schedule.

China replaced Argentina but was later dropped as the second race of the season because of its own organizational problems.

Brian Himmler defeated Chris Barnes, 228-161, to win the Professional Bowlers Assn. Tour’s Albuquerque Open.

Claire Donahoe, among the original members of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, died Jan. 17 in Bethesda, Md. She was 77.

Playing under her maiden name, Claire Schillace, Donahoe was a center fielder for the Racine (Wis.) Belles, playing from 1943-46. The league was created by Philip K. Wrigley, owner of the Chicago Cubs, at a time when World War II was thinning the ranks of professional baseball. The league had teams mainly in small Midwestern towns.

Donahoe was a consultant to the 1992 film, “A League of Their Own,” about the women’s baseball league.

Top-ranked USC, the defending national champion, will play its annual alumni baseball game today at 1 p.m. at Dedeaux Field. The alumni team will include Aaron Boone of the Cincinnati Reds and Gabe Alvarez of the Detroit Tigers. USC opens its season Feb. 2 against Cal State Dominguez Hills.