For The Record Edited by Kostya Kennedy and Mark Bechtel

SEVERED In an attack by a 12-to-15-foot shark, the left arm of
13-year-old surfer Bethany Hamilton. Last Friday, Bethany, a
promising competitor who won a national open in August and also
beat many older surfers to win an event in Oahu in May, was lying
on her board while surfing with friends off her home island of
Kauai when the shark attacked without warning. "She just yelled,
'A shark bit me!'" said her father, Tom. The fish took the arm
above the elbow and disappeared into the deep. Another
surfer--Holt Blanchard, the father of Bethany's best
friend--quickly fashioned a tourniquet out of a surfing leash
before taking Bethany to a nearby hospital, where she is listed
in good condition. Speaking to the Honolulu TV station KGMB on
Saturday, Bethany said the shark, which also took a 16-by-8-inch
bite out of her surfboard, had pulled her around, "but I just
held on to my board and then it let go." Bethany, who was to
undergo a second surgery on Monday, has not said whether she will
continue to surf competitively.

REQUESTED That his milestone 37-yard pass be erased from the
record books, Springfield (Ill.) Southeast High senior
quarterback Nate Haasis. Near the end of an Oct. 25 game against
Cahokia High, the last game of the season, Haasis was 31 yards
shy of 5,000 for his career--a mark only 11 Illinois high school
quarterbacks have passed. The teams' coaches struck a deal:
Southeast would let Cahokia--which led 36-20--score if Cahokia
would let Haasis complete a pass to give him the mark. Haasis
knew about the plan, but two days later upon reflection, he wrote
to the commissioner of the Central State Eight conference, asking
that the completion not count. "I didn't feel right," says
Haasis, who has gotten letters from across the U.S. supporting
his decision. "I wanted the record, but I didn't want it in the
way I got it. So in that sense it wasn't a hard decision at all."
Conference officials were to meet this week to rule on his
request.

ANNOUNCED His intention to sign Sweden's Hanna Ljungberg as the
first woman to play in a men's pro soccer league, Luciano Gaucci,
president of Italian Serie A club Perugia. A 5'3", 128-pound
striker, Ljungberg, 24, has 51 goals in 95 games for Sweden
including three goals in six games at the 2003 Women's World Cup.
Gaucci, who signed Libyan leader Mu'ammar Gadhafi's son, Saadi,
last summer, said he would try to land Ljungberg this week. "We
are in 2003," he said. "Men go to discotheques and go naked on
the beach. I can't see why there would be a problem having a
woman on the team."

COLOR PHOTO: DENNIS FUJIMOTO/THE GARDEN ISLAND/AP (HAMILTON) Hamilton