By RHIANNON POTKEY, Scripps Howard News Service

The athletic career of Ariana Martinez has been one full of opportunity.

Martinez, who recently completed her freshman season on the UCLA women's soccer team, was never denied a chance to play because she was a girl. She grew up with a college scholarship as a realistic goal and a professional career as a possibility.

Christian Shaifer begged his parents to let him play tackle football. But Kevin and Anita Shaifer resisted.

They felt exposing their son to so much contact at such a young age could do more harm than good.

They knew Christian had an aggressive nature and high threshold for pain and worried he may suffer an injury with long-term ramifications.

They could say the losses were intentional to provide a heartwarming story of childhood loyalty.

Rather than breaking the all-time record for most doubles titles at a Grand Slam event, Bob and Mike Bryan of Camarillo, Calif., could say they were waiting to do it in their own backyard in front of family and friends.

Gail Lemberger was browsing through the Sunday advertisements when she started to notice a colorful trend.There were pink blenders, pink iPods, pink garden tools, pink vacuums. There were even pink coupons to purchase pink food items.October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and the pink-tinged campaigns turned out in force.

Add another famous-named offspring to the Oaks Christian football roster.Nicholas Montana, a 6-foot-2 junior who is the son of NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Montana, filed his admission papers for Oaks Christian online last week.