Milestones Jul. 17, 2000

RETIRING. LARRY SMITH, 55, two-star general accused of sexual harassment by Lieut. General Claudia Kennedy, the U.S. Army's highest-ranking woman officer; in Washington. Smith requested retirement after being reprimanded by the Army.

DIED. FRED LANE, 24, promising but troubled running back for the Indianapolis Colts; shot by his wife during a marital dispute at their home in Charlotte, N.C. The couple had a baby two weeks ago; last week Lane had been indicted for possession of marijuana.

DIED. CORY ERVING, 19, son of basketball legend Julius ("Dr. J") Erving; in Sanford, Fla. Missing since May 28, he was found in his car at the bottom of a pond less than a mile from home. The cause of death was not immediately determined.

DIED. KENNY IRWIN, 30, up-and-coming stock-car racer; after suffering multiple injuries when he crashed into a wall at the New Hampshire International Speedway--on the same turn that killed 19-year-old Adam Petty two months ago; in Loudon, N.H.

DIED. JOHN HEJDUK, 71, architect whose brooding ruminations on the field filled 21 books and made him a revered educator and theorist; of cancer; in New York City.

DIED. HAROLD NICHOLAS, 79, acrobatic tap dancer who with his older brother Fayard helped break the color barrier in Hollywood musicals; in New York City. Early in their career, the brothers' dizzying footwork and preternatural elegance was displayed onscreen, though never in the same scenes as their white counterparts. In 1948, however, their virtuosity landed them alongside Gene Kelly in The Pirate. The brothers awed such dance-world luminaries as Fred Astaire and Mikhail Baryshnikov, who called the Nicholas brothers "the most amazing dancers I've ever seen in my life--ever." They were honored by the Kennedy Center in 1991.

DIED. GUSTAW HERLING, 81, Polish essayist and dissident whose 1953 book, A World Apart, captured in harrowing if dispassionate detail the horrors of his experience in the Soviet gulag; in Naples, Italy.