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FAIRBANKS — Four major professional drafts in the first half of this year, and four Alaskans were selected.

National Football League training camps open this week, and three Alaskans will be contributing their muscles and sweat.

One Alaskan played peacemaker during the brawl between the Los Angeles Sparks and Detroit Shock in Tuesday night’s Women’s National Basketball Association game at The Palace of Auburn Hills in Michigan. She also aided in the Sparks’ 84-81 win.

And there’s at least two Alaskans in next month’s Summer Olympics in Beijing, one of whom plays in the National Basketball Association.

Two former Alaska Nanooks — Jaime Beyerle and Olympic gold medalist Matt Emmons — are also members of the U.S. team headed for Beijing.

Call it karma or credit good nutrition, but it’s been an excellent year for some athletes from the 49th State.

Fairbanks-born and Colony High School graduate Jessica Moore chipped in three rebounds in a 10-minute, 54-second stint for the Sparks on Tuesday night. The fifth-year forward was shown in a photo Wednesday on the WNBA Web site helping to restrain Los Angeles teammate Lisa Leslie, who was reportedly pushed by Detroit assistant coach Rick Mahorn during the brawl that was triggered by a skirmish between the Sparks’ Candace Parker and the Shock’s Plennette Pierson.

On the same day the Sparks and Shock played a heated game, forward and Juneau-Douglas grad Carlos Boozer was practicing in Las Vegas with the U.S. Olympic men’s basketball team. A few months before getting selected for his second Olympics, Boozer was playing with the Utah Jazz in a second-round NBA Western Conference playoff series against the Los Angeles Lakers, who include his Olympic teammate Kobe Bryant.

Boozer will be joined in Beijing by Eagle River’s Corey Cogdell, who will be competing in trapshooting in her first Olympics.

Emmons and Beyerle — who won individual and national honors while competing for the Nanooks rifle team — are among a talented group of Americans entered in the rifle events.

Eielson graduate Janay DeLoach missed a berth in the Olympics after placing 21st in the women’s long jump at the Olympic Track and Field Trials in Eugene, Ore., in June. Two weeks earlier as a Colorado State University senior, DeLoach earned All-America honors in the long jump and 100-meter dash at the NCAA Division I track and field nationals in Des Moines, Iowa.

Though Beijing didn’t beckon, London could be calling, as DeLoach could return for the trials for 2012 Summer Games in the England capital.

Bartlett graduate and cornerback Zackary Bowman began his first NFL training camp with the Chicago Bears on Wednesday in Bourbannais, Ill. The former University of Nebraska standout was taken in the fifth round and 142nd overall by the Bears in the April draft.

Dimond grad and offensive guard Chris Kuper starts his third training camp with the Denver Broncos on Friday in Englewood, Colo., and left offensive guard and North Pole alumnus Daryn Colledge enters his third training camp with the Green Bay Packers on Sunday in Green Bay, Wis. Colledge was one game away from playing in the Super Bowl, but the Packers lost in January in the NFC Championship game to the eventual Super Bowl champion New York Giants. It seems, too, that it was the last time Colledge would block for future Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre.

Bowman, whose parents live at Eielson Air Force Base, was the second Bartlett alumni to be drafted this year, joining Mario Chalmers, who set up Kansas’ NCAA Division I basketball national championship with the game-tying 3-point shot to force overtime against Memphis.

The Jayhawks guard appeared on the covers of Sports Illustrated and The Sporting News in the same week — a first for an Alaskan — and he was selected in the second round and 42nd overall by the Miami Heat in the NBA Draft in June.

Chalmers showed he belonged in the NBA by averaging 15.8 points, 5.4 assists and two steals per game for the Heat in five games of the Orlando Pro Summer League a few weeks ago.

North Pole grad Chris Aure is working toward a Major League Baseball career. The left-handed pitcher has a 3-2 record and 4.60 earned run average for the Gulf Coast League Pirates, a rookie league affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates, who selected Aure in the 15th round and 444th overall in the MLB Amateur Draft in June.

David Carle, a defenseman from Anchorage, saw his hockey career cut short after an examination at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., revealed hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a heart condition that puts him at sudden risk for cardiac death if he exerts himself too strenuously.

Eight days later, the former blueliner for the Shattuck’s-St. Mary’s School in Fairbault, Minn., was taken in the seventh round and 203 overall by the Tampa Bay Lightning in the NHL Entry Draft through a trade with the Anaheim Ducks.

Though his playing career is over, the University of Denver is honoring the scholarship it gave him earlier this year and Denver head coach George Gwozdecky said he would make him a part of the Pioneers team.

It’s the same program which brother Matt, now a San Jose Sharks defenseman, helped capture D-I national titles in 2004 and 2005, and earned himself the 2006 Hobey Baker Award, college hockey’s highest individual honor.

CAMPUS TRAILS: West Valley graduate Casey Miller, a junior guard for the Merrimack College (Mass.) women’s basketball team, was named July 10 as a gold scholar on the Northeast-10 Conference 2007-08 Commissioner’s Honor Roll. Gold scholars finished in the top five percent for student-athletes at their respective institutions ...

Audrey Coon, a Kenai grad and Western Washington senior, captured three medals last weekend at the U.S. Rowing Club National Championships, a five-day regatta on the Cooper River in Pennsauken, N.J. Coon, competing with the Thompson Boat Center Development Camp club team of Washington, D.C., won gold in the women’s open lightweight eight and intermediate lightweight four, and a silver in the intermediate pair. The 2008 CoSIDA Women’s At-Large Academic All-American was in Western Washington’s varsity eight last spring that won an unprecedented fourth straight NCAA Division II national championship. She’s been a member of the Vikings’ last two national title squads.

PRO NOTES: San Jose Giants pitcher and Lathrop graduate Ryan Shaver is 0-0 with a 4.50 earned-run average. The righthander has worked 14 innings in eight games, striking out 12 and walking two for the San Francisco Giants’ affliate in the Class A California League ... ... In San Jose, Calif. on July 12, Grand Rapids (Mich.) Rampage wide receiver Cole Magner, a Colony grad, had 10 catches for 103 yards, including a 3-yard touchdown with 35 seconds left in an 81-55 loss to the San Jose Sabercats in the Arena Football League’s American Conference Championship. He was Grand Rapids’ third-leading receiver in the regular season with 69 catches for 739 yards and 12 touchdowns. Magner played for the runner-up Columbus (Ohio) Destroyers against San Jose in last year’s league championship game. ... Lathrop grad Justin Buchholz won a lightweight preliminary bout on the Ultimate Fighting Championship 86 card on July 5 in Las Vegas. Buchholz got Corey Hill of West Virginia to submit to a rear naked choke at 3:57 of the second round. Buchholz has a 9-2 career record in mixed martial arts.

Contact staff writer Danny Martin at dmartin@newsminer.com or 459-7586.