2001 at a glance

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March

 March 2 -- Green Bay quarterback Brett Favre, the only NFL player to win the MVP award three times, agreed to a lifetime contract extension with the Packers. The extension will be for 10 years, making Favre, 31, the NFL's first $100 million player.

 March 2 -- Stacy Dragila cleared 14 feet, 11 1/2 inches to win her sixth consecutive women's pole vault title at the USA Indoor Track and Field Championships.

 March 2 -- Claudia Pechstein of Germany became the first woman to skate 3,000 meters in less than for minutes, setting a world record of 3:59.27 at a World Cup speedskating event in Calgary. Pechstein shaved almost a full second of the previous world record of 4:00.26, set by fellow German Gunda Neimann Stirnemann.

 March 3 -- Maurice Greene equalled his world record in the 60-meter dash, running 6.39 seconds in a semifinal heat at the USA Indoor Championships in Atlanta. Greene matched the time he set Feb. 9, 1998 at Madrid, Spain.

 March 3 -- A bloodied John Ruiz became the first Hispanic heavyweight champion by knocking Evander Holyfield down with a huge right hand in the 11th round to win a unanimous 12-round decision. It was an ugly but interesting fight with Ruiz winning the WBA heavyweight title.

 March 3 -- American Chris Witty and Canadian Mike Ireland set 1,000-meter world records in a World Cup speedskating event at Calgary's Olympic Oval. Ireland broke the world men's record, posting a time of 1 minute, 08.34 seconds to break the mark of 1:08.35 that Canadian Jeremy Wotherspoon set last year. Witty posted a time of 1:14.58 seconds in the women's event, eclipsing the mark of 1:14.61 set by Germany's Monique Garbrecht-Enfeldt in 1999.

 March 4 -- Anni Friesinger of Germany set a world record in the women's 1,500-meter speedskating event at Calgary's Olympic oval. Friesinger posted a time of 1 minute, 54.38 seconds, well under the previous mark of 1:55.50 set here in 1999 by Annamarie Thomas of the Netherlands.

 March 5 -- George Mason beat North Carolina-Wilmington 35-33 in the second-lowest scoring game in the shot-clock era of NCAA basketball. The game came within one point of matching the fewest since the inception of the shot clock in 1986. The record was set in SMU's 36-31 victory against Texas-Arlington in 1989.

 March 6 -- Bill Mazeroski, who hit one of baseball's most famous home runs, was elected to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee, along with former Negro leagues player Hilton Smith. Mazeroski's homer at Forbes Field won Game 7 of the 1960 World Series for the Pittsburgh Pirates against the New York Yankees. Mazeroski, a .260 hitter, was a seven-time All-Star and won eight Gold Gloves for the Pirates.

 March 7 -- Drew Bledsoe of the New England Patriots signed the biggest contract in NFL history, agreeing to a 10-year, $103 million deal.

 March 7 -- Lamar Odom of the Los Angeles Clippers and Isaiah Rider of the Los Angeles Lakers were suspended for five games each by the NBA for violating the league's anti-drug program.

 March 7 -- Sacramento outscored Phoenix 60-25 in the second half to overcame a 28-point deficit and beat the Suns 100-89.

 March 9 -- Jesper Parnevik maintained the lead and Ty Tryon stayed in the spotlight. Parnevik shot a 5-under-par 67 in the second round of the Honda Classic for a three-stroke lead. Tryon, a 16-year-old high school sophomore, made the cut in his first PGA Tour event. He was 1-over, but it was good enough to make him the second-youngest player to make the cut in a PGA Tour event. Bob Panasik was 15 years, 8 months old when he made the cut at the 1957 Canadian Open. At 16 years, 9 months, Tryon finished the first two rounds at 140. The cut was 142.

 March 9 -- Shortly after her German teammate set a world record in the women's 1,000 meters, speedskater Monique Garbrecht-Enfeldt lowered the mark by one-hundreth of a second at the world single-distance speedskating championships in Kearns, Utah. Garbrecht-Enfeldt won the event in 1 minute, 14.13 seconds, about five minutes after Sabine Voelker had lowered the world record to 1:14.14. The previous record of 1:14.58 was set one week ago in Calgary, Alberta, by Chris Witty of the United States. Catriona LeMay-Doan of Canada lowered her own world record to 37.29 seconds while wining the women's 500 meters. LeMay-Doan set the previous record of 37.40 Jan. 6 at the Olympic Oval in Calgary, Alberta.

 March 10 -- Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann of Germany took almost three seconds off her speedskating world record in the women's 5,000 meters, lowering the mark to 6 minutes, 52.44 seconds at the world single-distance speedskating championships in Kearns, Utah. Niemann-Stirnemann established the previous mark of 6:55.34 on Nov. 25, 2000, at Heerenveen, The Netherlands. Hiroyasu Shimizu of Japan set a world record of 34.32 seconds to win the men's 500 meters. The previous mark of 34.63 was set on Jan. 29, 2000, at the Olympic oval in Calgary, Alberta, by Canadian Jeremy Wotherspoon.

 March 10 -- With Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark looking on, Hermann Maier won the giant slalom for his 13th victory this season, equaling one of skiing's mightiest records. Maier, who has captured the overall World Cup title three of the last four years, tied the record Stenmark set in 1979.

 March 11 -- Jana Kostelic, Croatia's 19-year-old skiing sensation, became the second youngest woman to win the overall World Cup title. She skied cautiously and finished 21st. But she captured the title when Renate Goetschl of Austria skied off the course in the first run in Are, Sweden. Until Kostelic, the youngest woman to win the overall title was 17-year-old Austrian Annemarie Moser-Proell in 1971.

 March 11 -- Duke routed North Carolina 79-53 to win its third straight Atlantic Coast Conference tournament and give Coach Mike Krzyzewski his 600th career win.

 March 12 -- Duke was No. 1 in the final Associated Press college basketball poll, the third straight season the Blue Devils finished on top of the rankings entering the NCAA tournament. The only other school to finish No. 1 in three straight final polls was UCLA, which did it from 1971-73.

 March 13 -- Philadelphia's Mark Recchi picked up his 1,000th career point during 5-2 win over St. Louis. He is the 60th player in NHL history to reach the mark.

 March 14 -- Doug Swingley won the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race for the third straight year. The musher arrived at the finish in Nome, Alaska, ending his trek in 9 days, 19 hours, 55 minutes and beating a field that featured six previous champions.

 March 14 -- Milwaukee coach George Karl, fired by Seattle after the 1997-98 season, was fined $50,000 by the NBA for his criticism of the SuperSonics and general manager Wally Walker.

 March 15 -- The NCAA men's basketball tournament opened with a series of close calls and upsets, with 15th-seeded Hampton beating second-seeded Iowa State 58-57 in the biggest surprise of the day.

 March 16 -- Annika Sorenstam shot the first 59 in LPGA Tour history, shooting 13 under in the second round of the Standard Register Ping. She had 13 birdies, no bogeys and 25 putts. Her 59 was two shots better than the record of 61 she shared with Karrie Webb and Se Ri Pak. Her 20-under 124 total at the midpoint was three strokes better than the 17-under Webb shot last year in East Lansing, Mich.

 March 16 -- The NCAA men's basketball tournament saw a record number of low-seeded teams advance. Indiana State, Butler, Temple, Charlotte and Fresno State joined 12th-seeded Gonzaga in advancing, meaning 13 of the tournament's 32 first-round games were won by underdogs. The six upsets in the South and Midwest Regionals added to the seven from yesterday's games in the West and East. In Dayton, Ohio, Syracuse downed Hawaii 79-69 for coach Jim Boeheim's 600th victory.

 March 17 -- Connecticut cruised to a 101-29 win over Long Island University in the first round of the East Regional, the best defensive effort in the history of the women's NCAA Tournament. The 29 points allowed eclipsed Colorado's 78-34 win over Southwest Missouri State in 1995. Connecticut's 72-point victory also tied the second-biggest margin in tournament history. Tennessee beat North Carolina A&T 111-37 in 1994.

 March 17 -- Sweden's Magdalena Forsberg, the greatest female competitor in biathlon history, won the 10-kilometer pursuit Saturday for her 14th World Cup victory this season. Forsberg, who already has won the overall title, overcame a record starting handicap of 1 minute, 46 seconds at Holmenkollen.

 March 18 -- Hale Irwin became the Senior PGA Tour's career victory leader, winning the Siebel Classic for his 30th title on the 50-and-over circuit.

 March 18 -- Indiana's Reggie Miller became the first player in NBA history to accumulate 2,000 3-pointers after hitting four in a 101-95 win over Sacramento.

 March 19 -- Mark Messier scored a short-handed goal to move into third place on the NHL career points list as the New York Rangers beat the Washington Capitals 6-3. Messier, with 1,772 points, trails only Wayne Gretzky (2,857) and Gordie Howe (1,850).

 March 20 -- The XFL hit a new low for prime-time programming. The national rating for the league's Week 7 broadcast on joint owner NBC was a 1.6, believed to be the lowest prime-time night among the big three networks in Nielsen Media Research history. It's also well below the worst-previous evening sports broadcast on NBC, ABC or CBS. That dubious distinction had been held by Game 3 of last season's Stanley Cup finals, which drew a 2.3 on ABC on June 3.

 March 21 -- Paris Saint-Germain was dealt a record fine of nearly $600,000 by European soccer's governing body because of fighting in the stands during a Champions League game. The previous highest penalty, according to UEFA, was about $100,000 that Italy's Internazionale had to pay earlier this season.

 March 22 -- Yevgeny Plushchenko captured the World Figure Skating Championships crown. Three-time defending champion Alexei Yagudin, skating with a foot injury that required pain-killing injections all week, finished second.

 March 23 -- Keon Clark had 12 of Toronto's NBA record 23 blocked shots as the Raptors beat the Atlanta Hawks 112-86.

 March 24 -- Michelle Kwan won her fourth World Figure Skating title. The last four women to win the final before an Olympics went on to capture gold. Kwan also tied the U.S. record for world medals with her sixth -- she also has two silvers. Irina Slutskaya was second, and American Sarah Hughes earned the bronze.

 March 24 -- Karl Malone broke the NBA record for career free throws made in Utah's 119-93 victory over Washington. Malone, who has made 8,534 of 11,576 free throws in his 16-year career, passed Moses Malone, who made 8,531 of 11,090.

 March 25 -- Annika Sorenstam won the Nabisco Championship for her third straight victory and first in a major title since the 1996 U.S. Open. Sorenstam had a 7-under 281 total for a three-stroke victory over five players.

 March 26 -- In Hobart, Australia's Ian Thorpe was timed in 7 minutes, 41.59 seconds to better the 800 freestyle world mark of 7:46.00 set by compatriot Keiren Perkins at the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Victoria, Canada, en route to the 1,500-meter gold medal.

 March 27 -- Ian Thorpe notched swimming world record No. 13 reclaiming the world record for the 200 freestyle -- his fifth world record over the distance -- when he clocked one minute, 44.69 seconds in Hobart, Australia to shave 0.66 seconds off Pieter van den Hoogenband's mark.

 March 27 -- All-Star center Alonzo Mourning returned to play with the Miami Heat, coming back from a kidney ailment that had sidelined him this season and once threatened his career.

 March 28 -- After flirting with .400 last season, Colorado Rockies first baseman Todd Helton agreed to a new contract worth $151 million over 11 years, the fourth-largest deal in sports history.

 March 28 -- George Karl became the highest-paid coach in professional sports and a part-owner of the Milwaukee Bucks. Karl's two-year extension was worth $14 million and included a small slice -- believed to be 1 to 2 percent -- of the franchise that is valued at $125 million.

 March 28 -- Ed Moses clipped .07 seconds off the world record in the 100-meter breaststroke at the USA Swimming National Championships in Austin, Texas. Moses' time of 1 minute, 0.29 seconds erased Roman Sloudnov's old mark, set last June at the Russian Olympic trials.

 March 29 -- Marcus Hill scored 24 points as Tulsa won the NIT championship beating Alabama 79-60.

 March 29 -- Tie Domi, Toronto's penalty-minutes leader, wrestled with a spectator who tumbled into the penalty box during the Maple Leafs' 2-1 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers. The rugged forward had just been penalized early in the third period. He was being taunted by fans, and twice sprayed water on a few who were sitting in the front row before Chris Falcone, a 36-year-old concrete worker from Havertown, Pa., lunged toward Domi. He landed on the glass partition separating fans from the box. The glass gave way, and Falcone and Domi scuffled before linesman Kevin Collins stepped in.

 March 30 -- Purdue shut down Southwest Missouri State's Jackie Stiles and Notre Dame rallied from a 16-point halftime deficit to defeat Connecticut in the women's Final Four.

 March 30 -- Michael Phelps became the youngest American swimmer to set a world record, winning the 200-meter butterfly in the USA Swimming Championships in 1 minute, 54.92 seconds. Phelps, 15, broke the record of 1:55.18 set by Olympic gold medalist Tom Malchow in June.

 March 31 -- Arizona used a big second half and a fierce zone defense to shut down defending national champion Michigan State 80-61 in the first semifinal of the men's NCAA Championship. Duke overcame a 22-point first-half deficit and advanced with a 95-84 victory over Maryland in a battle of Atlantic Coast Conference rivals in the second game.