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July 20-25 Blog
End of Week Notes
Posted By John Antonik: July 25, 2008 (10:08 am)
A couple of long-time department personnel are moving on. Today is the last day for Brad Cox, assistant athletic director in charge of compliance, who is taking a job downtown as the assistant director of admissions for the University.
Cox, a Newell, W.Va., native and a West Liberty graduate, first began working in the WVU compliance office in 1992 as a compliance assistant. He was promoted to compliance director in 1996.
I have known Brad since our graduate school days in the WVU Sport Management Program and I am certain he will be a great asset in the admissions office.
Also, Assistant Baseball Coach Bruce Cameron is taking a similar job at Shenandoah College. Cameron was an 11-year member of Greg Van Zant’s Mountaineer staff. Bruce and his wife Lisa have a 1-year-old son, Bruce, Jr., and Cameron has expressed a desire to spend more time with his family.
I got to know Bruce really well when I was still involved with baseball working on the sports information side. Bruce has a great knowledge of the game and an uncanny ability of relating to players. He will be a great addition to the Shenandoah baseball program.
Van Zant indicated in Thursday’s Charleston Daily Mail that he will immediately begin a national search for Cameron’s replacement.
Our best wishes to both Brad and Bruce.
Former West Virginia standout Yinka Sanni wasn’t involved in the Detroit Shock’s bench-clearing brawl with the Los Angeles Sparks Tuesday night that resulted in 10 player suspensions. In fact, Sanni was one of only eight Detroit players available for last night’s 79-61 loss to Houston. Sanni had her best game as a pro, scoring 16 points and grabbing five rebounds.
With Detroit now just ½-game ahead of Connecticut in the Eastern Conference standings, Shock coach Bill Laimbeer is looking for a little shock therapy by coaxing 50-year-old Nancy Lieberman out of retirement.
Lieberman played nine minutes last night and failed to score.
As for Sanni, she boosted her season scoring average to 2.9 points per game following last night’s performance against Houston.
On Thursday we released the renderings of the WVU Coliseum and Milan Puskar Stadium video boards presently being assembled. Today we have a rendering of the new WVU Coliseum floor design. Work crews have already removed the old painting off the floor and today are preparing the lines for the new paint job. Head coaches Bob Huggins and Mike Carey were consulted on the final design.
Incoming men's soccer freshman Kurt Freemyer and his MPS McLean FC (Va.) youth team will begin a three-day, round-robin tournament at the 2008 US Youth Soccer Boys Under-18 National Championships, held in North Little Rock, Ark., at the Burns Park Soccer Complex. Teams will earn three points for a win, one point for a tie and zero points for a loss. The team with the most points at the end of the tournament will advance to play for the national championship on Sunday, July 27, at 7:30 a.m.
Freemyer is one of 14 recruits Mountaineer coach Marlon LeBlanc will welcome to Morgantown when camp opens in August.
As I am writing this a good buddy of mine Ervin Beckman, who is a big WVU supporter, is spending his morning fishing for tarpon in the Gulf of Mexico. That may be the only fishing trip I know of when it is considered a good day when you don’t catch any fish.
Roanoke Times columnist Doug Doughty devoted a large portion of his Friday “Notebook Plus” column (nearly 1,000 words) to whether or not West Virginia was considered a “big-time” football program.
Doughty, who covers Virginia football recruiting for the Times, referenced a number of schools pursuing a top high school prospect from Virginia. He listed the programs he considered “big-time” while also mentioning West Virginia with the caveat, “I don’t know if you put West Virginia in the same category as those schools, but the Mountaineers have offered too.”
Doughty then took time to answer some of the West Virginia hate mail he received.
The simple fact that Doughty wrote about a football program he doesn’t cover, working for a paper that doesn’t request credentials for its home football games - and with a readership of mostly Virginia Tech and Virginia fans - is a pretty good indicator of where West Virginia is at right now.
In fact, in less than 1,000 words Doughty answered his own question.
There is an old political saying that is probably apt here: When you’re explaining you’re losing.
For those of us old enough to remember the days when West Virginia was constantly fighting the never-ending battle for respect, the biggest obstacle wasn’t columns like the one Doughty wrote today.
Rather, it was getting columnists to write about WVU at all.
Have a great weekend!
Checking My Mail
Posted By John Antonik: July 23, 2008 (11:11 am)
Well, I’ve finally done it. After taking a month off I hit the receive button on the company email to get reconnected with what some of you are thinking about our beloved Mountaineers.
I’m back out of the cocoon, baby.
The first thing I’ve come to realize is just how popular MSNsportsNET.com is in the Sudan. We must have received at least 50 emails last month from a guy who says I can net $6 million by donating just $100 to help his sick cousin get out of the country. All he needs is the routing number to my checking account.
Sounds like a pretty good deal to me but since I’ve been told you can’t trust anyone on the Internet, I think I will give him my wife’s routing number just in case. Come to think of it, I will probably stick with mine because she’s got all of the money anyway.
Ann Atwood has got a surefire way for us to get more traffic for our web site. “We can help you quickly and with very little expense,” she writes.
Living in Morgantown, heaven knows we need more traffic.
Tai Wong, Agatha Downing, Fanny Lindsay, Maggie Montes, Geraldo Guy and Janice Light are pushing self-improvement products.
Can one pill really do all of that?
My good buddy Anonymous, who writes frequently, says we need to ditch the yellow banana suits disguised as football uniforms. Anonymous also happens to be a great play caller, recruiting coordinator and personnel director. His expertise is primarily in football and men’s basketball, but he claims to have some athletic administration experience as well.
Anonymous also wants to get rid of the big, blue inflatable helmet. However, he wants to hold on to the smoke that comes out of it until the fourth quarter when teams are behind and need to pass to catch up.
Now that’s a pretty good strategy.
Jimmy points out a misspelling made in a story I wrote six months ago, but he forgot the name of the article. Nice catch Jimmy, that shouldn’t be too hard to find.
Doyle Cobb offers a hot stock tip that is certain to beat the Bear Market. I’m going out on a limb here but I’m guessing it’s Exxon. They’ve had a pretty good year so far.
Johnny wants me to settle a little bet he has with a co-worker: Who bench presses more, Amos Zereoue or Noel Devine?
I’m going to say Amos. No, come to think of it, it might be Noel. Does that help?
Rich writes: “When is WVU joining the growing and exciting sport of women’s lacrosse?”
I can’t help you much with that one. That’s way above my pay grade.
And now, it’s on to more serious things:
Add another one to the list of West Virginia University athletes competing in the Summer Olympics in China. Mike Anti, a 2004 Silver Medalist, is competing in the men’s prone position for the U.S. Anti was a four-time All-American at WVU who helped the Mountaineers to three NCAA titles. Thanks for pointing that out Eric Dickinson.
SID Bryan Messerly forwarded me an email he received yesterday from Joe Herber. Joe writes that he is recovering from knee surgery that caused him to miss the entire 2007-08 season.
The knee injury also kept him from qualifying for the Olympics.
Herber plans on playing again next year after having his contract with Berlin renewed for two more years. In the meantime, he’s working on a master’s degree in international relations.
It appears Rutgers may be heading down its own path toward a day of reckoning with its football coach. Yesterday’s Newark Star-Ledger revealed that Greg Schiano has a secret stipulation in his contract that he can walk away without penalty if Rutgers does not complete a major expansion to its football stadium by 2009.
The school expects to complete phase one of the stadium renovation this year in time for the season opener, but phase two which includes the addition of 14,000 seats is presently $18 million over budget.
The Scarlet Knights are paying Schiano more than $2 million per season. His career record heading into this year is 38-46, including a 15-33 record in Big East play.
Following yesterday’s notebook, here are some more big-time opponent performances at the WVU Coliseum:
38, Antonio Daniels, Bowling Green, March 12, 1997
37, John Hempel, Massachusetts, Feb. 12, 1983
35, Darrell Griffith, Louisville, Feb. 14, 1980
33, Ryan Gomes, Providence, Feb. 9, 2005
33, John Wallace, Syracuse, Jan. 16, 1996
Summer League Notebook
Posted By John Antonik: July 22, 2008 (11:16 am)
Count Joe Mazzulla among those impressed with Bob Huggins’ first full recruiting class at West Virginia. However, Mazzulla says pure talent alone will not get them over the top.
“We have a great recruiting class coming in and I think their biggest weakness is they know it,” Mazzulla said. “When we talk about how bad those three hours a day with Huggs are they kind of throw it aside because every high school player thinks it’s easy because of their success. We’ll let them get a taste of it. I can’t wait.
“The most talented guys just don’t grasp it sometimes,” Mazzulla said. “I think the biggest key for these three is to just shut up and listen.”
Word has been filtered down from the coaching staff to the veteran players to put the newcomers on notice: Things are not going to be easy when individual workouts begin in August.
“Al (Ruoff) and I had a 20-minute conversation with Huggs and it was mostly him talking and us listening,” Mazzulla said. “What he told us was that we have to get these guys in line.”
Three of the freshmen are playing in the Pittsburgh Summer League that is wrapping up this week. The league is comprised of players from Pitt, Duquesne, West Virginia, Penn State, Robert Morris and other local colleges. Mazzulla is having another outstanding summer and could capture the league MVP award for the second straight year.
However, Mazzulla said don’t read too much into what is being reported in the papers about the performances of the players in the league.
“I was the MVP of this summer league and I had the worst first half of a season of my career,” he explained. “This means nothing and that’s what I try to tell (the freshmen).
Mazzulla said the games are up-and-down affairs with very little defense being played.
“There is no game planning. There are no scouting reports. There is no having to look for a second or third option because the first one is not there,” he said. “I’m a perfect example of that because people may have thought I was going to have a great year because of the summer and it’s just not the same. It takes experience and it takes time.”
Those are some interesting observations by a pretty savvy basketball player.
A couple of baseball notes passed down from upstairs …
Jeremy Cummings hasn’t been able to crack a Major League roster in nine previous professional seasons, but he is going to represent his country in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China.
Cummings found out yesterday that he will be a member of Team USA. Davey Johnson will coach the team. Cummings, 32, told the Charleston Gazette that he planned to retire after this season. Now he said he may reconsider.
Cummings also recently pitched in the Triple-A all-star game. The former Mountaineer was drafted in the 21st round by the St. Louis Cardinals in 1999.
Cummings now makes four athletes with West Virginia University ties going to Beijing. Rifle coach Jon Hammond is shooting for Great Britain, former WVU national champion Megan Metcalfe is running for Canada and ex-Mountaineer national champion and assistant coach Pat Itanyi is coaching the Nigerian hurdlers.
Justin Parks is playing in the Coastal Plain League All-Star Game to be held tonight at McCrary Park in Asheboro, N.C. League coaches and one media representative from each club helped select the rosters.
Parks is currently sixth in the league with a .340 batting average with seven doubles, three home runs and 27 RBI playing for the Wilson Tobs.
In 54 games for the Mountaineers last spring, Parks batted .378 with five home runs and 43 RBI. Parks will be a senior for West Virginia in 2009.
An interesting topic came up yesterday during our evening walk around the WVU Coliseum. What was the best individual performance by an opponent in the history of the Coliseum?
The answer: Austin Carr’s 47 points scored against the Mountaineers on Feb. 20, 1971 in Notre Dame's 107-98 victory.
There were two honorable mention performances: Walt Szczerbiak’s 41 scored in George Washington’s 105-96 loss to the Mountaineers on Jan. 30, 1971, and Gary Trent’s 41 put up against West Virginia in Ohio’s 90-81 loss on Dec. 18, 1993.
Women’s soccer freshman Meghan Lewis will compete at the 2008 U.S. Youth Soccer National Championships on July 22-27 at the Burns Park Soccer Complex in North Little Rock, Ark.
Lewis, a midfielder from Naperville, Ill., plays on the club team Eclipse Select North which is one of four teams that won their respective regional championship in the Under 18 division. Her team advanced to the national finals by defeating St. Louis Soccer Club, which has a pair of Mountaineer freshmen in Morgan Betscher and Blake Miller.
Lewis’ Eclipse Select North will face the Dallas Sting soccer club in an opening round game on Wednesday morning.
Work is moving along on several different projects this summer. Finishing work on the football stadium locker room expansion project is wrapping up in time for the team to arrive for fall camp in August. The old scoreboard will be removed by the end of today and according to WVU Senior Associate Athletic Director Russ Sharp, cranes to assemble the new scoreboard are scheduled to be at the stadium later this week.
The Coliseum lighting and sound system upgrades are nearly complete. There will be a noticeable difference when fans watch games at the Coliseum this year. With only a third of the lights on, the Coliseum is already brighter than when all of the lights were on before.
Framework for the Coliseum scoreboard is finished and it is currently hanging from the Coliseum rings. The scoreboard will be assembled inside the arena and will be ready by late August. In the meantime, work crews are on the floor stripping off the old paint in preparation for a new, updated look.
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