ESPN Cable Affiliates Honor High School Scholars as Grand Prize Winners in the ``ESPN SportsFigures Challenge''; $100,000 in Scholarships and Media Equipment Presented to Winners and Schools.

Business/Sports/Entertainment/Education Editors

BRISTOL, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 23, 2001

ESPN, together with cable operators from across the country, today announced the national grand prize winners of the "ESPN SportsFigures Challenge."

Each grand prize winner will receive a $10,000 scholarship and each of their schools will receive $1,000 worth of media equipment. Almost 4,500 students entered the "ESPN SportsFigures Challenge" in 2001.

The winners, their schools, their community, cable system and their created sports are:

Kevin White, Simi Valley High School, Simi Valley, Calif.,

Adelphia

-- Blasterball challenges players to quickly calculate mentally

the projection path of a ball in order to score points. Using

a canon, coaches launch a ball across a field to players

trying to catch it and run it into a goal zone against

defenders.

Lyndsi Hughes, Grove City High School, Grove City, Pa.,

Armstrong Cable

-- Quergaball is a competitive sport involving several physics

concepts including vectors, velocity and the Law of

Conservation of Energy. Teams of three must shoot balls in

moving goals while navigating a half-pipe on in-line skates.

Peter Tipton, Redwood Christian, San Lorenzo, Calif.

AT&T Broadband

-- The "ESPN SportsFigures" Lunar Leap pits contestants against

gravity as they try to bungee their way over obstacles in a

large arena. Connected to the ceiling via long elastic cords,

the athletes use tension to jump through and complete an

obstacle course in the shortest amount of time.

Brian Maneikis, Pinckney High School Pinckney, Mich.

Charter Communications

-- Extinguisher consists of an ice arena (or surface that has

little friction), fire extinguishers for propulsion, and

rolling chairs with flags attached. The object is to capture

all of the other team's spare propulsion units or flags.

Brian's sport demonstrates Newton's third law of motion, which

states that for every action there is an equal and opposite

reaction.

Joseph Galante, North Penn High School, Lansdale, Pa.

Comcast

-- Quantum Baseball is played in an arena where the batter faces

the outside of a series of concentric semi-circles (shells).

The objective of the game is to hit the ball as far as

possible into the shells. Joseph's sport is an introduction

into simple quantum mechanics and sheds light on the motion of

subatomic particles by illustrating the players' movements

imitating those of electrons and photons.

Grant Hutchins, Sante Fe High School, Edmond, Okla.

Cox Communications

-- Time Diving, uses Bernoulli's Principle of wing dynamics to

help guide falling skydivers to a grounded target in a

predetermined amount of time. Using skydiving equipment,

"wings," and a digital stopwatch with altimeter, contestants

jump out of a plane aiming to land on or near the center of a

target as close to the designated time as possible.

Evan Lewis, Henry Clay High School Lexington, Ky.

Insight Communications

-- Slipstream is fast-paced and set on a mainly frictionless

field in which two teams of five players attempt to knock an

offensive player, designated as the "ball," into the

opposition's goal zone. Resembling a cross between rugby,

bumper pool and air-hockey, Slipstream utilizes Newton's first

and second Laws of Motion to push the "ball" into the opposing

team's goal. The first states that an object in motion stays

in motion unless acted upon by another force. The second

states that for every action there is an equal and opposite

reaction.

Michael Shiery, Angola High School, Angola, Ind.

Mediacom

-- Slingball competitors will use the law of reflection, (the

angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection), to

hit targets, some hidden in an elaborate shooting range.

Players will have to couple their knowledge of the law of

reflection with projectile motion to accurately hit the

targets. Played as a team or individually, Slingball pushes

marksmanship beyond archery and sharp shooting.

Stephanie Gaesser, Greece Olympia High, Rochester, N.Y.

Time Warner Cable 

-- Spectoball contains four teams of six players. In a square

arena, each team is given an adjusting incline plane and a

wall with seven light panels. The objective is to hit the

lights sequentially with a two-meter diameter ball. The game

demonstrates the laws of force and friction, as well as the

difference between potential and kinetic energy.

Local cable systems and ESPN teamed up to offer the innovative "ESPN SportsFigures Challenge" to high school students throughout the United States. Together, they asked participating high school teachers to administer the "ESPN SportsFigures Challenge," a tough multiple-choice test that featured sports-related questions focusing on math and physics. Semi-finalists were then asked to describe a sport of their own creation using math and physics concepts in a 250-word essay.

Each grand prize winner was selected out of all the semi-finalist essays entered from schools across the country. Teachers were responsible for administering the guidelines for the "Create Your Own Sport" essay and returning the students' completed essays for grand prize consideration.

Every grand prize winner essay was judged on how they best employed math and physics concepts in the description of the new sport. An expert panel of judges reviewed the essays to determine the winners.

"We are delighted to help bring together high schools and cable operators to recognize the achievements of each of these remarkable students. They are incredibly bright, creative and show a love of sports," said E.J. Conlin, vice president of affiliate marketing, ESPN. "This is a wonderful example of how public and private partnerships help our communities and another way that ESPN is bringing value to our affiliates."

This unique scholarship opportunity is an extension of ESPN and cable TV's continuing effort to bring educational, innovative and commercial-free "Cable in the Classroom" programs to local schools.

"ESPN SportsFigures" is a half-hour weekly program that is presented commercial-free on ESPN or ESPN2 since 1995. It features well-known athletes who use sports to teach math and physics concepts to high school students. Designed as a teaching tool to be recorded by high school teachers (grades 9 through 12), the program is televised on Mondays at 5:30 a.m. (ET).

Top athletes who have appeared on "SportsFigures" include Venus Williams, Derek Jeter, Julie Foudy, Tiger Woods, Janet Evans, Steve Young, Ruthie Bolton-Holifield, Juwan Howard, Chipper Jones, Steve Young, Napoleon Kaufman, Vince Carter and many others.

The "SportsFigures" curriculum guide provides a unique tool for math and physics teachers that helps boost classroom participation. The guides are free of charge and are designed to work hand-in-hand with the "SportsFigures Video Collection," a set of seven videos representing the best episodes from the series.

About ESPN

Based in Bristol, Conn., ESPN Inc., the worldwide leader in sports, is 80 percent owned by ABC Inc., which is an indirect subsidiary of The Walt Disney Co.

The Hearst Corp. holds a 20 percent interest in ESPN. ESPN Inc. includes six domestic television networks (ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Classic, ESPNEWS, ESPN Extra, ESPN Now), ESPN International (19 international networks and syndication), ESPN Radio, ESPN.com, ESPN The Magazine, ESPN Regional Television, SportsTicker, and ESPN Enterprises, overseeing brand extensions such as the ESPN Zone, pay-per-view subscription packages and various consumer products, including an ESPN-branded line of interactive video games.