2001 at a glance

January February March

April May June

July August September

October November December

February

 Feb. 3 -- The XFL muscled its way onto the national sports scene with its first two games. With exuberant cheerleaders and trash-talking players sharing center stage, the Las Vegas Outlaws beat the New York/New Jersey Hitmen 19-0, while the Orlando Rage beat the Chicago Enforcers 33-29 before a crowd of 35,603 in Orlando.

 Feb. 4 -- The usually high-scoring NHL All-Star game outdid itself in its 51st edition as the North America team beat the World squad 14-12. Boston's Bill Guerin had three goals and added two assists to win the MVP award. He joined Tony Amonte and Doug Weight on a U.S. line that combined for six goals and seven assists. Mario Lemieux, a three-time All-Star MVP, returned after a 3 1/2-year retirement. The 35-year-old center gave North America a 5-4 lead in the second period with his 12th career All-Star goal. He assisted on the first of two goals by Simon Gagne.

 Feb. 4 -- Oakland's Rich Gannon completed 12 of 14 passes for 160 yards and two touchdowns in the opening 11 minutes, igniting the AFC to a 38-17 victory over the NFC in the Pro Bowl.

 Feb. 5 -- Al Scates became the first men's volleyball coach to reach 1,000 wins as UCLA beat Pepperdine 3-1.

 Feb. 6 -- Dmitri Vassiliev, a Russian ski jumper, was banned for two years for drug use and will miss the Olympics, the first person in the history of his sport to fail a drug test.

 Feb. 9 -- Derek Jeter signed the second-highest contract in sports history, a $189 million, 10-year deal with the New York Yankees.

 Feb. 9 -- Stacy Dragila broke the women's pole vault mark again, by an inch, clearing 15 feet, 3 1/4 inches during a dual meet between Montana State and Idaho State, in Pocatello, Idaho.

 Feb. 10 -- Desmond Mason, The Seattle SuperSonics rookie, won the NBA slam dunk contest, beating 19-year-old DeShawn Stevenson of Utah and Charlotte's Baron Davis in the final round. Milwaukee's Ray Allen made 10 straight 3-pointers in the championship round to win the long distance shooting contest.

 Feb. 10 -- Coach Gene Bess earned his 880th college victory, guiding Three Rivers Community College over State Fair Community College 81-52. The win puts Bess, 65, ahead of both Richard Baldwin, who won 879 games in 40 years at Broome, N.Y., Community College, and Dean Smith, who matched that total in 36 seasons at North Carolina.

 Feb. 11 -- Allen Iverson transformed what looked like a blowout loss into a thrilling, improbable 111-110 comeback All-Star victory for the Eastern Conference. He scored 15 of his 25 points in the final nine minutes, and Stephon Marbury hit two 3-pointers in the final 53 seconds as the East came back from a 21-point deficit.

 Feb. 13 -- Stephon Marbury set a career high and became the first Nets player to score 50 points in almost 19 years in New Jersey's 113-110 overtime loss to the Lakers.

 Feb. 13 -- Ivan Lendl, who was ranked No. 1 in men's tennis for 157 consecutive weeks during the 1980s, was elected to the tennis Hall of Fame along with Mervyn Rose, an Australian star from the 1950s. Lendl won eight Grand Slam titles, reached 19 Grand Slam singles finals and was No. 1 in the world for 270 total weeks. Rose was a member of Australia's 1951 and 1952 Davis Cup champions and won the Australian and French titles.

 Feb. 14 -- Philadelphia center Matt Geiger, who had just returned from a long injury layoff, was suspended for two games without pay for violating the NBA's steroid policy.

 Feb. 14 -- IBF founder Robert W. Lee, sentenced to 22 months in prison for corruption, settled a related government lawsuit by agreeing to a lifetime ban from boxing. The sentencing and settlement ended a case in which prosecutors claimed Lee manipulated the IBF's influential rankings for 15 years in return for bribes.

 Feb. 15 -- Washington's Mitch Richmond became the 26th player in NBA history to score 20,000 points when he hit a 16-foot jumper in the second quarter of a 102-78 loss to San Antonio.

 Feb. 16 -- Philadelphia coach Larry Brown earned his 1,000th professional win, which includes his ABA record. Brown, 1,000-707 overall, ranks third on the career list behind Toronto's Lenny Wilkens and Miami's Pat Riley. Allen Iverson scored 42 points, his third straight 40-point game, as the 76ers beat the Los Angeles Clippers 108-93.

 Feb. 17 -- Arnold Palmer, 71, became the first player to shoot his age in a the PGA tour event since Sam Snead did the same thing 22 years ago. Palmer finished the fourth round of the Bob Hope Classic with a 1-under 71. Joe Durant set a 72-hole record of 29 under four a five-shot lead. Durant, with rounds of 65-61-67-66, broke the 72-hole record for relation to par set by John Huston in the 1998 Hawaiian Open.

 Feb. 17 -- Stacy Dragila raised the world record in the women's pole vault to 15 feet, 5 inches, twice breaking her own indoor world marks during a Golden Spike Tour meet in Pocatello, Idaho.

 Feb. 18 -- Dale Earnhardt, the greatest stock car star of his era, was killed in a crash on the last turn of the last lap of the Daytona 500 as he tried to protect Michael Waltrip's victory. The accident happened a half-mile from the finish of the NASCAR season-opener as Earnhardt's newest driver, Waltrip, and son Dale Earnhardt Jr. were in front racing toward what should have been the most triumphant moment in the brief history of Dale Earnhardt Inc.

 Feb. 18 -- Joe Durant had birdies on two of the last three holes win the Bob Hope Classic and set a record for the lowest score ever in a 90-hole PGA Tour event. Durant, who had a closing-round 65, made the birdies to get to 36-under 324, breaking the mark of 35 under set in 1993 by Tom Kite. It was Durant's second career victory.

 Feb. 18 -- Marla Runyan, the first legally blind athlete to make a U.S. Olympic team, broke the American indoor record in the women's 5,000 meters in a meet in New York. Runyan was timed at 15 minutes, 7.33 seconds -- more than 15 seconds faster than the previous mark of 15:22.64 by Lynn Jennings in 1990.

 Feb. 18 -- Gabriela Szabo of Romania broke the world indoor record for the women's 3,000 meters at the Norwich Union British Grand Prix meet with a time of 8 minutes, 32.88 seconds. Szabo bettered the mark of 8:33.82 set in 1989 by Elly van Hulst of the Netherlands.

 Feb. 20 -- Atlanta outfielder Andruw Jones won a record $8.2 million in salary arbitration when a panel selected his request instead of the Braves' $6.4 million offer. Jones' salary eclipses the previous arbitration high of $7.25 million set last year by New York Yankees closer Mariano Rivera -- who had requested $9.25 million but lost his hearing.

 Feb. 20 -- Golden State's Mookie Blaylock had four steals in a 113-102 loss to Toronto, raising his career total to 2,001. Only seven other players reached 2,000 career steals.

 Feb. 23 -- Jeremy Roenick recorded the ninth three-goal game of his career and became only the third U.S.-born player to reach 400 career goals in leading Phoenix to a 7-3 win over Buffalo.

 Feb. 25 -- In the largest playoff in PGA Tour history, Robert Allenby won the Nissan Open on the first extra hole against five other players. It was Allenby's third PGA Tour victory, all of them won in playoffs. The playoff was the largest since six players went extra holes in the 1994 Byron Nelson Classic, but that tournament was only 36 holes because of rain. Allenby closed with a 1-under 70 to tie Jeff Sluman, Dennis Paulson, Toshi Izawa, Brandel Chamblee and Bob Tway at 8-under 276.

 Feb. 27 -- All horse racing in Britain and Ireland was suspended and a major rugby match was called off because of the fast-spreading outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.