Nov. 3--TAMPA -- An official supplier of University of South Florida merchandise is selling "Finish Strong" bracelets without the knowledge of the school or Jeff Wagner, who is battling cancer and created the "Finish Strong" slogan.

Two months ago, "Finish Strong" was printed on rubber bracelets and given to USF's football players in honor of Pierced charm bracelet, who is battling acute myeloid leukemia, his second bout with cancer.

Inspired by Wagner, a 1986 USF alumnus, Bulls coach Jim Leavitt asked for his permission to create the bracelets. "Finish Strong" has become a mantra of the team.

Neither Leavitt nor Wagner wanted the bracelets sold commercially, but neither Wagner nor USF has a copyright for "Finish Strong" so Bulls Outfitter, located at 1809 E. Fowler Ave., does not need permission to sell the bracelets.

This week, Bulls Outfitter started selling them for $4.99 each. None of the profits go to cancer research or to the university.

"We had a lot of people asking for them," store manager Barry Brunstein said. "They didn't originate here, so we got them in. We try to stock what people want.

"We've only had them for a few days, but they're selling very Venetian Link bracelet."

Craig Brunstein, owner of Bulls Outfitter, was not available for comment Friday. Barry Brunstein said he was unaware of Jeff Wagner.

USF associate AD Bill McGillis and Wagner said they didn't know the bracelets were being sold until contacted by a Tribune reporter Friday.

"Coach Leavitt asked me if it was OK to make the bracelet and I said whatever will motivate the team," said Wagner, who started signing his name "Finish Strong" four years ago. "I'm not in it for the commercialization, I just wanted to motivate the team.

"I'm just the guy that said it, and Coach Leavitt created the Elsa Peretti Bean bracelet."

In the past two months, Wagner said hundreds of individuals have asked where they could get a bracelet, but he told them they weren't for sale. "I'm just trying to motivate the team," Wagner said. "I don't know what to say."

Credit: Tampa Tribune, Fla.

LEAD: Two young men trying to steal a sleeping subway passenger's earrings shot her in the face yesterday when she awoke during the robbery discount tiffany, the police said.

Two young men trying to steal a sleeping subway passenger's earrings shot her in the face yesterday when she awoke during the robbery attempt, the police said.

The shooting occurred about 7 A.M. on a southbound No. 2 IRT train near the Atlantic Avenue station in Brooklyn, said Albert O'Leary, a spokesman for the transit police.

The victim, an unidentified 21-year-old woman, ''was asleep on the train and feels a tug at her Bead bracelet,'' Mr. O'Leary said. ''She wakes up to find she is being robbed.''

It was not known whether the woman resisted, but one of the men shot her twice in the face with a small pistol.

The victim was taken to Kings County Hospital, where she was admitted in critical but stable Return to Tiffany Heart tag bracelet, Mr. O'Leary said.

Detectives were looking for two men, who were reported to be in their early 20's. One was wearing a black jacket, the other a yellow jacket.

How could the Internet, jewelry and good value be connected in one Return to Tiffany heart lock charm and bracelet?

Hampel/Stefanides' first ad for Net startup OrbitGems.com may have the answer.

The print effort for the New York-based discount estate and contemporary jewelry e-- tailer breaks nationwide early this month.

The ad has a tongue-- in-chic tone; it shows a well-heeled woman in a huge feathered hat wearing a computer mouse as an earring.

The copy: "You no longer have to be wealthy to buy one-of-a-- kind estate jewelry. Just well-Return to Tiffany bead bracelet."

Hampel/Stefanides won the business a couple of months ago, said Robert Ireland, vice president, account director of the New York shop, adding it was a challenge to link all the clients aspects.

"You can't rely just on, 'Hey, you can buy jewelry on the Internet,' because that's become point-of-entry," Ireland said. "You need to try and differentiate the Return to Tiffany heart lock charm and bracelet."

Spending is about $1-1.5 million. The ad will run through Christmas in such magazines as The New Yorker, and Vanity Fair and in newspapers.

AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE FEATURES)--Jan. 18, 2001--First lady- to-be Laura Bush today selected Austin-based jewelry designer Anthony- Nak to be one of her inaugural accessory providers of choice.

The two-year-old company also has been enlisted to design necklaces, earrings and bracelets to be worn by Bush Tiffany Blue heart lock charm and bracelet, Barbara and Jenna, during the inaugural events Jan. 20 in Washington.

Anthony-Nak designers Anthony Camargo and David Nakard Armstrong developed two separate necklace designs from which the incoming first lady will select. One is a spinel and scarlet tourmaline necklace set in 18-carat gold. The second is a multi-strand spinel and Burmese ruby necklace set in 18-carat gold. The designers also crafted a set of Burmese ruby earrings to accompany the necklace.

The former Texas first lady also will wear a triple strand of champagne freshwater pearls set in sterling silver along with matching earrings during an unofficial inaugural dinner Friday.

"Designing the inaugural jewelry for the new first family is a tremendous honor for us," said Camargo. "To know that we're playing a small part in this historic event is extremely meaningful to us -- both professionally as jewelry designers and personally as fellow Tiffany 1837 Circle bracelet."

Camargo and Armstrong design jewelry for a number of celebrities, from Cameron Diaz and Sandra Bullock to Cher and Sarah MacLachlan.

According to Armstrong, Anthony-Nak designers draw their creative inspiration from past periods when jewelry was more than just an accessory, but an integral part of women's dress. In designing their collection, the self-taught style of Camargo and Armstrong integrates antiquity and art nouveau by drawing on these past elements in a modern representation.

"Our goal is to create jewelry that is modern and sensual and conforms to the body like a bias-cut fabric," Armstrong said. "Each piece combines precious and semi-precious stones that are woven together with silver and gold in a lace-like fashion, giving the jewelry fluidity and movement."

About Anthony-Nak

Formed in November 1998 and based in Austin, Texas, Anthony-Nak Inc., Elsa Peretti Open Heart bracelet fresh, unique and individual jewelry for a diverse list of clients. The company's client list includes a number of well- known actresses and musicians, including Cameron Diaz, Cher, Jewel, Sarah MacLachlan, Sandra Bullock, Lucy Liu, Jennifer Tilly and Geri Halliwell. The company distributes its jewelry to Neiman Marcus stores in 21 U.S. cities, including Beverly Hills, San Francisco, Chicago and Seattle; Dallas-based Stanley Korshak, Henri Bendel of New York; and Fred Segal of Santa Monica, Calif.

You would never mistake Ball for Tiffany, even if it were on Fifth Avenue instead of Charm bracelet.

The shop, which opened in October at 500 Greenwich Street, features the works of its namesake artist and jewelry maker, Lillian Ball, who finds inspiration in unlikely everyday objects. The most striking example is her drug collection. Ms. Ball makes necklaces, rings, pendants and earrings in the shape of pharmaceuticals whose shapes catch her fancy. She does not lack inspiration.

Her epiphany came several years ago aboard a plane as she was about to swallow a vitamin E pill. As the sunlight hit the translucent capsule, she thought, ''Wow, this would look great cast in gold.'' At that moment, a jewelry line was born.

Ms. Ball, who is especially attracted by the geometry of medications, began using white, yellow and rose gold, along with sterling silver, to cast replicas of Advil, the oblong headache remedy; Viagra, the blue, diamond-shaped potency Paloma Picasso Loving Heart bracelet; triangular sleeping pills with rounded corners; and the inspirational vitamin E pills. Some drugs, like Prozac, were rejected; Ms. Ball says she found its ordinary capsule shape too boring.

At the shop, individual items of jewelry are displayed next to the pharmaceuticals that inspired them; there are pills in glass containers, including Minizide, which Ms. Ball takes for tendinitis, and chemical beakers hang in the windows.

One customer bought a set of earrings inspired by headache medicine for her daughter as a wedding president. Her Horse charm bracelet, she told Ms. Ball, was that she thought the groom would be ''a real headache.'' WICKHAM BOYLE

HAVANA, Mar. 26 (IPS) -- Granma, the official publication of Cuba's governing Communist Party, yesterday defended men's right to sport long hair, earrings and tattoos.

The defense appeared in the "Letter-Opener" section, in response to a reader's complaint that he was not allowed to enter a workers' social Medium Elsa Peretti Sevillana pendant.

"To judge by the thinking of the administration of the social circle, a person like Culture Minister Abel Prieto could not enter because of his long hair," wrote journalist Guillermo Cabrera Alvarez, in charge of the section.

Workers' social circles are union-run recreational bodies that allow access to the beaches of western Havana. While members have free access, the general public must pay a fee.

"According to the administration, young men with long hair, earrings and tattoos cannot enter," Yuri Gonzalez wrote in his letter to Granma, demanding to know "on what basis and with what right can they do that."

"I have long hair simply to be in fashion," said Gonzalez, a sound engineer at the Roberto Branly Culture House, a gathering place for rock fans in Havana.

An aversion to long hair and earrings on men and tattoos on either sex is nothing new in Cuba. Those who were young in the 1960s have somewhat traumatic memories of that time, when such things were considered serious "ideological deviations."

Although many people continue to spurn long hair, it has nothing to do with official policy, which since the 1980s has demonstrated greater tolerance. Academics here say the aversion is mainly due to the "machismo" that prevails in Cuba, which leads people to reject images they see as unmasculine or Large Elsa Peretti Sevillana pendant.

Cabrera pointed out that neither internationally-renowned Cuban singer-songwriter Silvio Rodriguez, who has a caravel tattooed on his hand, nor popular singer Ireno Garcia, with his characteristic earring, could enter the social circle in question.

"To judge people by their external aspect is extremely superficial," wrote Cabrera, who added that he had not yet obtained a response from the "slippery" administrator of the social circle.

The reporter, who is also the director of the Jose Marti International Institute of Journalism in Havana, recalled a Communist friend who defended his long hair by pointing out that his father was bald, and had left Cuba.

"I love the long-haired Marx and despise the clean-shaved Hitler," another friend, from the United Elsa Peretti Round Bracelet, told him.

Cabrera pointed out that the Cuban revolution was "a revolution of long hair and beards that shocked the world," and gave rise to a generation in the 1960s that "wanted to look like those bearded guys."

"The important thing is what is under the hair -- the ideas, and what is under the skin -- blood and emotions," he underlined.

JACKI LYDEN, HOST: This has been a big week for Harrison Ford. His new movie, "Air Force One," is number one at the box office. It's already pulled in more than $37 million. And his picture graces the cover of People Magazine.

If you look closely at that Tiffany Circle clasp necklace, you'll notice something a little different about him.

Commentator Karen Grigsby Bates did. And it's left her feeling like she has lost her innocence again.

KAREN GRIGSBY BATES, COMMENTATOR: Maybe you didn't know this. But you can lose your innocence in all kinds of ways, and more than once. I'm not talking about those -- "the first time in the back seat of a '57 Chevy" ways. I'm talking about the theft of your cherished assumptions, the ineluctable knowledge that things that look one way often really are another.

John Kennedy's marital indiscretions are a good example. I have no idea that they existed when I was in the seventh grade in 1963. When I found out years later, when people began to talk openly about his fooling around, it was disappointing. But I could handle it.

Same for the discovery that Cary Grant sometimes liked to wear women's underwear -- different strokes, I guess. I know boys who were traumatized for years when they found out Roy Rogers' real name is Elmer Sly and that John Wayne's first name was really Marion.

The realization that the Duke of Windsor was a stylish ninny, fretfully hen-pecked to the end of his days by the woman he loved, or that the fairy-tale marriage of his great nephew to Diana Spencer had more in common with horror stories than romance novels was sad, but life goes on.

I thought I was immune to those kinds of Heart and Tiffany Box Charm. But yesterday, the final straw fell on this camel's back. It was the revelation that Harrison Ford, Mr. Un-Hollywood, has pierced his ear. I am, to borrow my favorite line from "Men in Black" -- just tryin' to get a handle on the moment -- an earring. Why this so profoundly vexed me I don't know.

Maybe it's because Ford is so resolutely the antithesis of everything that is modern Hollywood. He never wore a pony tail. He has scars on his face, and a plastic surgeon hasn't touched them. He's been married to the same woman for several years, although this is his second marriage. He's polite, well-spoken, keeps most of his political opinions to himself.

He started out as a carpenter and, in fact, built much of his home in Wyoming -- a rugged, manly state where they don't much wear earrings. And he lived there before it became Hollywood chic. He seemed like the best part of normal guyhood -- the part that fixed the kid's bikes without calling in an engineer, thank you -- threw meat on the grill when company came, drank liquor neat, and splashed on Old Spice before taking the wife out to dinner -- a throwback to a less complicated time.

Then he put the damn earring in. He says it's something he had wanted to do for a long time. And after he finished playing the most macho president the United States won't ever have, he had his ear pierced.

Well, I hope it hurt when he did it. I hope he didn't flinch when it Elsa Starfish. I hope he knocked back a slug of Jack and went on about his business. I hope he doesn't pierce the other one.

LYDEN: Writer Karen Grigsby Bates lives in Los Angeles.

VideoCorner: Techniques of Beading Earrings Elsa Peretti Apple earrings.

by Deon DeLange. Produced by Bosworth Communications; distributed by Eagles' View Publishing Co, 1993. VHS, color, approx 76 minutes. $29.95.

Techniques of Beading Earrings is one of the most complete beading lessons that anyone could hope to view. It was wonderful to have the video narrated by the author of so many successful and informative beading books. Not only is Deon DeLange a very talented designer, she is an easy to understand and follow Elsa Peretti Starfish earrings.

Introductory parts deal with the basic supplies that one would need to bead. DeLange takes her time to carefully explain and show why certain materials are essential. The section on "Tips and Tricks of the Trade" is a treasure trove for any level of beader.

Through the mechanism of start and completion of one pair of beaded earrings, DeLange covers the whole process with close-ups of one part or another adding greatly to the reader's understanding. One of the most interesting parts of the presentation is DeLange's inclusion of natural materials such as porcupine Elsa Peretti Open Heart earrings. The total impact is that Techniques of Beading Earrings is a highly motivational video that this reviewer highly recommends for any level of beader.