Race Car Designer Is Dead

John Cooper, a car designer who developed the rear-engine Formula One racer and the lovable Mini Cooper, died Sunday in Worthing, England. He was 77.

Cooper had been battling cancer, according to Doug Nye, a family friend and racing writer.

Cooper “made a great contribution to the sport of motor racing,” veteran race driver Stirling Moss said. “He put England back on top.”

He got an early start in the racing business as the son of designer and driver Charles Cooper. The two founded the Cooper Car Co. in 1946 and established themselves as racing specialists out of a small British Motor Corp. garage.

The duo found success in Formula Three racing in the early 1950s by building a car with the engine placed behind the driver, an unorthodox concept at the time.

Doubts that the layout could work with larger cars were put to rest in 1958, when Moss piloted a Cooper to victory in the Grand Prix of Argentina--the first world championship victory for a rear-engine car.

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Paul Greve, an area football and track coach who taught in the Los Angeles Unified School District for over 30 years, died Thursday at 82.

Funeral services will be held Thursday at Forest Lawn beginning at 11 a.m.

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Hall of Fame horse trainer Allen Jerkens, 71, is in the intensive care unit of a Miami area hospital after collapsing from severe stomach pain.

Jerkens is in Aventura Hospital near Miami and is conscious and writing notes to his family, according to his wife, Elizabeth Jerkens.

Soccer

Chilean international striker Ivan Zamorano quit Inter Milan for Mexico City’s America team after four years with the Italian club out of frustration over a lack of playing time, Inter’s official Web site reported.

The 33-year-old Zamorano rejected offers from Serie A’s Brescia, Napoli and Fiorentina before joining Chile winger Fabian Estay in Mexico.

Zamorano, whose contract was due to run until the end of June, hasn’t started a game for Inter this season, with coach Marco Tardelli preferring Italy’s Christian Vieri of Italy, Turkey’s Hakan Sukur and Uruguay’s Alvaro Recoba.

“I was suffering and I didn’t feel a part of the team, so I asked the (Inter) president to let me go,” Zamorano told the Web site.

French soccer star Bixente Lizarazu was hospitalized after a ski accident in the French Alps, but his condition is not considered serious.

The World Cup player temporarily lost consciousness after falling on a ski slope near Chamonix and was transported to a hospital with facial injuries. He was kept overnight for observation.

Basketball

Cleveland Cavalier center Zydrunas Ilgauskas has broken the same bone in his left foot that caused him to miss most of the two previous seasons.

He will not play the next two weeks while the team decides on a course of treatment.

The 7-foot-3 Ilgauskas removed himself from Friday night’s game at Miami because of sudden foot pain.

He started each of the Cavaliers’ first 24 games this season, averaging 11.7 points, 6.7 rebounds and 1.5 blocks a game.