Roy Riegels, Who Ran Wrong Way, Is Dead At 83

-- PASSAGES

Roy Riegels, whose wrong-way run during the 1929 Rose Bowl game ranks among the most famous plays in football history, died yesterday in his sleep at age 83 in his Woodland, Calif., home.

Riegels was the California center when he picked up a Georgia Tech fumble on Tech's 20-yard line, spun and ran in the wrong direction, toward his own goal. Cal quarterback Benny Lom, pursued Riegels but could not catch him until he reached the 1-yard line.

On the next play, Lom's punt was blocked for a safety, which turned out to be the decisive margin in an 8-7 Cal loss.

Riegels was elected captain of the Cal team the next season and was named to the Associated Press All-American team. In 1991, Riegels was inducted into the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame.

-- TENNIS

Top-seeded Gabriela Sabatini breezed past Italy's Sandra Cecchini 6-2, 6-1 in the quarterfinals of the $375,000 Virginia Slims of Houston.

Sabatini's victory set up a semifinal match with No. 3 seed Conchita Martinez, who beat Patricia Tarbini of Argentina 6-3, 6-2.

Fourth-seeded Jana Novotna stopped Radka Zrubakova 6-3, 7-5. Novotna will meet unseeded Sabine Hack in the seminfinals. Hack advanced with a 6-0, 6-3 victory over Tatiana Ignatieva.

-- COLLEGES

Olympic silver medalist Greg Burgess of Florida set U.S. and NCAA records in winning the 400-yard individual medley at the 70th NCAA swimming and diving championships in Indianapolis. Burgess won in 3:41.54 to lower the mark of 3:42.23 set by USC's David Wharton.

Stanford was well on its way to claiming a second consecutive team title. The Cardinal heads into today's seven final events with 385 points.

-- The University of Nebraska has asked the NCAA to check into possible rules violations by the Creighton baseball program, according to the Omaha World-Herald.

-- HORSE RACING

Gary Stevens rode three winners in the first Dubai International Jockeys Challenge in United Arab Emirates. Stevens rode Mizoram to a four-length victory in the opening race, steered Dream Talk to a five-length victory in the second race, and won the fourth race aboard Esbooian.

-- MOTOR SPORTS

Rain forced postponement of time trials for the TranSouth 500 NASCAR series race at Darlington, S.C., Raceway, much to the disappointment of Dale Earnhardt.

Earnhardt had a practice lap timed unofficially at 29.94 seconds in his Chevrolet just before the showers.

That computed to 164.248 mph, considerably faster than the track record 163.067 set by Ford-driving Sterling Marlin last March.

The cold, wet weather also forced NASCAR officials to cancel qualifying for the Mark III Vans 200, a Grand National race scheduled for today.

-- Arie Luyendyk, the 1990 Indy 500 champion, crashed his 1993 Ford-Cosworth Lola during a practice run at Phoenix International Raceway. Luyendyk was treated for neck and shoulder injuries. Rain halted the rest of qualifying.

-- Alain Prost won the provisional pole position in the first qualifying session for tomorrow's Brazilian Grand Prix in Sao Paulo.

The French driver clocked a lap of 1:16.809 around the twisting, 2.68-mile Interlagos track, averaging 125.959 mph in a Williams-Renault.

-- BOXING

Johnny Bredahl of Denmark, the World Boxing Organization junior bantamweight champion, easily defended his title, outpointing Rafael Caban of Puerto Rico in Copenhagen, Denmark.

-- Former heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield will fight Alex Stewart on June 26 in Atlantic City as a warmup to a title match against Riddick Bowe, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. The fight is part of an agreement requiring Holyfield to fight a top-12 contender before he gets a rematch against Bowe, who defeated Holyfield last Nov. 13.

-- SKIING

Melanie Turgeon and World Cup veteran Brian Stemmle scored downhill wins as Canadians dominated the North American Championships Series at Mount Bachelor, Ore. Turgeon, 16, won easily in 1:21.27 seconds. Stemmle led a 1-2-3-4 Canadian sweep in 1:24.94.