Careful, He Could Get Called for Holding

Stephen Neal, who won two NCAA titles in wrestling at Cal State Bakersfield, has been making a name for himself with the New England Patriots despite not playing football in college.

Neal, who was the center of attention last year when he was invited to the Patriots’ training camp because he had the same agent as Coach Bill Belichick, has worked his way into the lineup and started at right guard Saturday night when the defending Super Bowl champions played the New York Giants in an exhibition.

“I loved football in high school, but I was about 210 pounds and really uncoordinated,” said Neal, who earned the Dan Hodge Award--the Heisman Trophy of college wrestling--as a senior. “Through college, I still wanted to play football and I told my wrestling coaches that I was going to play in the NFL.”

Thanks to injuries to Joe Andruzzi and Damien Woody, the 6-foot-4, 305-pound Neal has made the most of his opportunity.

“Steve doesn’t even look like the same player this year,” Belichick said. “It would even be a stretch to call him a player last year. He’s easily the most improved player on the team this year, and I don’t know anybody who would be even close to him.”

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Trivia time: Who first ran the mile in under 3 minutes 50 seconds?

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Bike change: Michelle Dumaresq, formerly Michael before undergoing a sex change six years ago, won a spot on the Canadian women’s downhill mountain biking team, bringing protests from some of her new teammates, who say she should not be allowed to compete against women at the World Mountain Biking Championships this month in Kaprun, Austria.

“Something there just doesn’t seem right to me,” Sylvie Allen, the Canadian champion, told the National Post. Dumaresq is facing a formal protest led by Allen and Cassandra Boon, another national team member, who have called on the International Cycling Union to ban Dumaresq from competition.

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No ticket, no party: Notre Dame fans who plan to tailgate before home football games no longer will be allowed to remain in the parking lot once the game begins. At some games in recent years, thousands have spent the game drinking in university parking lots, which led to several alcohol-related incidents.

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Nice uniforms: Florida State got a kick from watching former Florida Coach Steve Spurrier’s first game with the Washington Redskins, who featured new Seminole-like throwback uniforms, complete with a spear on the side of the helmet.

Some believed Spurrier still hadn’t put aside hard feelings toward the Seminoles.

Said cornerback Stanford Samuels: “The uniforms are nice, but did you notice [Spurrier] wasn’t wearing the team colors?”

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Trivia answer: New Zealand’s John Walker, who ran 3:49.4 on Aug. 12, 1975, at Goteborg, Sweden.

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And finally: Detroit Red Wing center Pavel Datsyuk brought the Stanley Cup to the Ural Mountain city of Yekaterinburg, his hometown, as the first stop on the trophy’s tour of Russia.

“Russian hockey should be helped, and as many children as possible should go in for sports so that they do not roam about in the streets,” Datsyuk said.

The Cup made a symbolic visit to the Europe-Asia border, the first time it has been displayed in Asia.