Swim For Smiles sets 2009 schedule

Swim For Smiles Foundation, a Chapel Hill-based charity, has announced its event lineup for the 2009 season. The Swim For Smiles Youth Triathlon will be May 31 at Chapel Hill Country Club; Wacky Relay Day will be July 12 at UNC's Koury Natatorium; and the inaugural Swim For Smiles Family Triathlon will be July 26 in Southern Village. Proceeds go to the North Carolina Children's Hospital.

"Our events will welcome kids of all ages and abilities and we even have North Carolina's first and only family triathlon -- right here in Chapel Hill," said Gary Kayye, a Swim for Smiles co-founder.

The S4S Youth Triathlon is the Triangle area's first and still only triathlon open to kids 6-18 years old. They can choose either short course (100-meter swim, 2.5-mile bike and 1-kilometer run) or long course (300-meter swim, 5-mile bike, 3K run).

Wacky Relay Day, successor to the Chapel Hill Swim League's marathon relay fund-raiser, will feature noodle races, pyramid relays and parent-child relays.

The Family Triathlon will feature a 250-meter swim, 11-mile bike, 5-kilometer run on a USA-Trianthlon-sanctioned course. It's open to individual athletes of all ages and skills levels, as well as to family relay teams. Relay teams can comprise a mixture of kids and adults or be made up entirely of all adults or all kids; prizes will be given to the top three teams in each category. In addition, Swim For Smiles expects more than 300 entries for individual triathletes in this Sprint Triathlon Course.

To sign up for any of these events or get involved with the Swim for Smiles Foundation, go to www.swimforsmiles.org.

TEAM HANDBALL

Army comes on strong for Blue Cup

West Point's Team Black won this year's Carolina Blue Cup, contested Feb. 14-15 on the UNC campus, prevailing over ATH United in the gold-medal game. New York City won the bronze by edging out the Carolina Blue team of UNC alums coached by John Silva, who was making his first return to team handball since stepping down as the coach of UNC's three-time national champions.

Carolina Team Handball hosted the 21st annual Carolina Blue Cup in Fetzer Gym. This year's competition featured eight of the top teams in the country, including teams from Georgia, New York and North Carolina.

In a show down of the true blues, Team Carolina outfought Tar Heel Team Handball for fifth place. West Point Gold finished in seventh place, beating an injured and undermanned North Pitt.

The Carolina Team Handball Team was led by high-scoring junior Scott Knox and goalkeeper Ryan Morgan. The Tar Heel Handball Team was lead by captain Chandos Culleen, leading scorer Goran Vukicevic, and goalkeeper Justin Bernstein. Both teams were guided by head coach Myles Bacon and assistant head coach Wade Sutton.

Sanctioned as an Olympic game, team handball is a fast-paced, indoor sport that bears some similarity to soccer and basketball. Carolina Team Handball produced two 1996 Olympians, and over a dozen USA National team players have played in the Carolina program.

BRIEFLY ...

EA Sports, whose video games are almost perfect in showing home courts, down to doors, windows and exit signs, conducted an online vote of over 100,000 fans to help develop a new feature for next year's edition of its video game, "Toughest Places to Play." The 15 finalists were: UCLA, Syracuse, Duke, Arkansas, Clemson, North Carolina, Kansas, Florida, Pittsburgh, Illinois, Louisville, Maryland, Tennessee, Texas and Xavier. ... Former UNC assistant Frank Cignetti Jr., has left his job as the offensive coordinator at California to take the same position at Pittsburgh, where he replaces Matt Cavanaugh. Cignetti was the offensive coordinator at North Carolina in 2006 and was the San Francisco 49ers' quarterbacks coach in 2007 before taking the Cal job. ... UNC sophomore Katura Harvey broke the ACC swimming record in the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 4:39.12, a mark that had stood for 20 years, at the 2009 ACC Women's Swimming & Diving Championships at the University of Maryland's Eppley Recreation Center Pool. ... Four North Carolina student-athletes were named to the ACC All-Academic cross country teams Brock Baker and Adam Cunningham were named to the 21-member men's cross country squad and Brie Felnagle and Morgan Stengel were named to the 24-member women's team.