Fairborn commencement
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Division I regional track finals
Award-winning columnist Tom Archdeacon — an old-school storyteller in a brand-new venue — writes about sports, the city, southwest Ohio and anything else that catches his fancy… or yours.Home > Blogs > Through the Arch > Archives > 2009 > August
August 2009
COLUMN: OSU’s Kurt Coleman — A star off the field…and on
It was a foggy Christmas Eve, though not the kind that could be helped by a red-nosed reindeer.
Dan Lassiter — lying in Miami Valley Hospital’s intensive care unit last December, a Christmas tree decorated with Ohio State mementos next to him — was just making his way out of the mental haze that came from more than 21/2 months in a coma.
The Phillipsburg teen couldn’t remember exactly what had happened, nor could he find a comfort zone in the world to which he was returning.
“He was just starting to wake up, and he was scared to death because he was in such an unfamiliar surrounding,” said his dad, Joe Lassiter. “He saw all those tubes hooked up to him, all those wires going everywhere and with his leg hanging out like it was, he asked them to cover it up because he couldn’t take looking at it.”
Told he had been in a serious auto accident, Dan struggled with his thoughts.
“When I first started knowing stuff — right before Christmas — I had some depression,” he said. “I’d ask myself: ‘Why did this happen? How’d it happen? Why am I still here?’ “
Then on Christmas Eve a nurse came in and put a colorful, paste-on Buckeye tattoo on his cheek. She said with it being the holidays and him being a lifelong Buckeye fan and the OSU tree there, why not?
He thought nothing of it until he was told he had three visitors. And the next thing he knew, in walked Kurt Coleman — the Ohio State safety and one-time fellow Northmont High student — decked out in an ICU gown and cap. He was followed by Buckeye teammates Jake Ballard, the tight end from Springboro, and Donnie Evege, the cornerback from Wayne High.
They say history repeats itself, and Kurt — who carried a mini OSU helmet signed by the trio — had a history with Dan.
“I remember when Dan was playing seventh-grade football at Northmont and Kurt was on the eighth-grade team,” Joe said. “They were scrimmaging each other, and Kurt absolutely ran over the top of Dan, just flattened him.
“When you’re an eighth-grader, you think you’re the cock of the walk and seventh-graders are just peons, but Kurt walks over to Dan, offers him a hand, helps him up, pats him on the butt and says ‘good job.’ Right then, I knew he was an outstanding young man.”
And now, Dan needed a hand again. This time, rather than an eighth-grade defender, he’d been run over by a dump truck loaded with nearly 33 tons of gravel.
On Oct. 3, 2008, Dan was driving with his 88-year-old grandfather, Herman, along Ohio 49 south of Phillipsburg, when his 2003 Chevy Malibu suddenly jerked left — a mechanical problem, police surmise — into the oncoming truck’s path.
The left side of the car disintegrated.
“Dan was thrown partly out of the car and dragged on the road, while still being held by his seat belt,” Joe said. ‘It severed his pancreas.”
Herman suffered cracks in his neck vertebra and ankle, and he and Dan were rushed to Miami Valley, although, Joe said, “Doctors didn’t think either of them was going to make it.”
Both did, but it’s been a long struggle for Dan. By Christmas Eve he was 83 days into a 217-day hospital stay that eventually would melt 90 pounds from his body, cost him his left leg and initially a sense of who he was.
And right when he needed it most, there was Kurt Coleman offering a helping hand again.
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MAKING AN IMPRESSION
“When Kurt was 6 or 7, he had a bad habit of throwing stones,” said Heidi Williams, Kurt’s mom. “We told him to stop, that he’d hurt someone, but he kept it up. Then he hit our neighbor’s dog and after that he hit his brother David in the head and there was blood everywhere and that was it.
“I remember a coach wanting to put Kurt on an all-star team to go to some championship, but I wouldn’t allow it. I said, ‘Kurt needs to know there are more important things in life than sports. He needs to learn how to treat others.’ He needed a lesson and he got it. He never threw stones again.”
In fact, Coleman now does everything he can to lessen the impact of life’s hard knocks on others:
— He visits grade schools around the Miami Valley and in Columbus. Recently, he read Dr. Seuss books at Glen Oaks Elementary. Before that he was at his sister Cassie’s class at Northwood Elementary, where, Heidi said, he told the kids to listen to their teachers and their parents because they really were watching out for them:
“It was everything I’d hoped he’d say. It just takes my breath away when he does things like that.”
— He’s president of the OSU chapter of Uplifting Athletes, a group that uses college football players to raise funds and awareness for rare diseases. Earlier this month, he ran a video game tournament at a local restaurant to raise funds for the neurological disorder Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease.
— He speaks at churches and on campus and is especially popular at the Dayton VA Medical Center on West Third St., where Heidi is a speech/language pathologist.
“There’s one man who’s been there a long time and doesn’t have family to support him,” she said. “He’s got Kurt’s autographed picture up in his room, and I told Kurt, ‘You touch lives like you don’t even know.’ “
Involvements like that have gotten him nominated for the Allstate/American Football Coaches Association “Good Works Team,” which honors athletes who give to others “through selfless contributions and commendable acts of kindness.”
Couple that with the fact that Kurt has just been elected one of the Buckeyes’ team captains, and that he’s one of just 31 players in the nation on the preseason watch list for the Jim Thorpe Award, which goes to the nation’s best defensive back, and you have one of the most compelling players in college football.
“We always told him, ‘You’re going to make a big impression with people by the way you treat them in everyday life, not by what you do on the football field,’ ” Heidi said. “A big play is celebrated for just a few minutes, but when you touch somebody’s heart, that lasts a lifetime.”
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SPREADING THE LIGHT
After a stellar career at Northmont, Coleman finished high school early and enrolled at Ohio State the spring before his 2006 freshman season to get acclimated.
Instead, he soon found wrenching personal turmoil.
During spring drills, he tackled receiver Tyson Gentry, who was trying to grab a bobbled pass and instead ended up with a broken C-4 vertebra and permanent paralysis.
The two, though, forged a friendship from that traumatic encounter; and, soon after, Kurt drew strength from Tyson and the Gentry family when his dad, Ron Coleman — the longtime area coach and school administrator who Kurt idolized — was diagnosed with breast cancer.
“Both incidents were very painful for Kurt, and the way he dealt with them was to reach out to others,” Heidi said.
Kurt said: “The whole ordeal made me believe in God, and I found myself.” At about the same time, he said that he got an e-mail from his dad:
“Basically, it asked how much better would I be spiritually if I treated my Bible like my cell phone and gave it the same attention. And so now I try to read my Bible twice a day. I love the Book of John; and, in fact, I’ve got a tattoo of John 8:12, which is:
“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me shall not walk in darkness — but will have the light of life.”
While he knows being a Buckeye gives him a platform to spread that light, Kurt said, in truth, he’s the one who’s been enlightened:
“It’s about finding the true inner you. Once you do — whether it’s through Christianity or whatever — it will help you be a happier person and help you share with others.”
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ALREADY A CHAMPION
Joe Lassiter said he’d just finished reading OSU coach Jim Tressel’s book, “The Winners Manual,” when the three Buckeyes walked into his son’s room for what would end up being a 45-minute visit.
“I’ll never forget the way Dan beamed,” Joe said. “And I thought to myself, ‘Tressel writes about encouraging his players to do community service, and here are three actually living that out.’ “
Dan — whose left leg was amputated in April — was at home the other day, dressed in OSU garb and sitting in a wheelchair with his crutches leaning on a nearby wall. He smiled at mention of Kurt’s visit:
“Up to that point I hadn’t remembered a whole lot.They had me on so much pain medicine, I was just out of it. Really the first strong image I have after the accident is that Christmas Eve and Kurt and the guys there.
“And it’s made me appreciate Kurt so much more. Here it was Christmas Eve, and he and the other guys didn’t have a lot of time. They were taking time away from their own families to come see me. That really lifted me.”
For Christmas, Dan’s parents gave him a Kurt Coleman jersey they’d bought beforehand. “Now he just swims in it,” Joe said. “He was over 240 before the accident and went down to 150 after it.”
But Dan’s getting stronger, and he’s working several times a week with rehab therapist Karen Puterbaugh. He hopes to get his prosthetic leg by this Christmas and before that — if he can come up with a ticket — he’d like to go to an OSU game.
He’s glad that Kurt decided not to leave OSU early and jump to the NFL this year.
“Money was not an issue,” Kurt explained. “There were just two deciding factors. I wanted my degree, and I wanted to leave as a champion. A national champion. That’s burned in my mind. It’s burned in everybody’s mind here.”
And while Dan thinks the Bucks’ captain is one player who can help make that happen, he also knows that Kurt Coleman — the guy who always lends him a hand when he needs it most — already is a champion.
TweetThe Most Compelling Buckeye
Kurt Coleman does a lot of reading:
— A senior safety and a captain of the Ohio State football team, the Northmont High product reads opposing quarterbacks’ eyes and intentions so well that he’s one of just 31 players in the nation on the preseason watch list for the Jim Thorpe Award, which goes to the best defensive back in college football.
— He, like the rest of the Buckeye seniors — per OSU coach Jim Tressel’s request — just finished reading “The Lone Survivor,” a true account by a Navy SEAL that showcases in heart-wrenching fashion both American heroism and Afghan humanity.
— He spent the offseason visiting grade schools in the Miami Valley and Columbus where — among other things — he read Dr. Seuss books to the kids.
— After an E-mail message from his dad — longtime area coach and school administrator, Ron Coleman, who suggested he give his bible the same attention he gives his cell phone — Kurt said he reads scripture daily.
He even sports a tattoo — John 8:12 — which begins: “I am the light of the world….”
And Kurt has gone out of his way to shed that light to others, be it at the Dayton VA Hospital on West Third or to other players on his OSU team.
Among other things, he’s president of the OSU chapter of Uplifting Athletes, a group that uses college football players to raise funds and awareness for rare diseases. He recently ran a video game tournament at a local restaurant to raise funds for the neurological disorder, Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) disease.
Because of such involvements, he’s been nominated for the Allstate/ American Football Coaches Association “Good Works Team,” which honors athletes who give to others “through selfless contributions and commendable acts of kindness.”
That was especially evident last Christmas Eve when — accompanied by Buck teammates Jake Ballard from Springboro and Wayne High’s Donnie Evege — he reached out to a Phillipsburg teenager when he needed it most.
Talk about reading the moment, Coleman could not have done it better.
That story — and several others — turned into my column for today’s newspaper. It also can be found up above here on the Web page.
I can tell you this, the more you get to know about Kurt Coleman, the more you realize he is one of the most compelling players in all of college football this season.
TweetOhio State chooses two football captains from Dayton area
Ohio State named its three permanent captains for the upcoming football season this afternoon and two are from the Miami Valley:
Senior safety Kurt Coleman from Northmont High and fifth-year senior linebacker Austin Spitler, the Buckeye strong man from Bellbrook High.
The other captain is senior defensive end Doug Worthington from Athol Springs, N.Y. A rotating fourth captain from the offensive unit will be added each week.
The players on the team chose their captains — though the picks must get approval of the coaches — and it’s no surprise that Spitler and Coleman were selected.
Spitler showed his mettle in classy fashion through trying times the past four years — one as a red-shirt and three as a back-up player, mostly to All American James Laurinaitis, now in the NFL.
“It’s been frustrating — especially sophomore season knowing this guy in front of me was playing just unbelievable football and it wasn’t looking too great for me,” he said. “But (Laurinaitis) helped me pull through it, so did some other guys and the coaches. And it ultimately comes down to what’s best for you and the best place for me was right here.
“That’s when I decided to work as hard as I possibly could and if it didn’t work out in the end, well, I’d know I gave it my all and showed them my very best.”
He did just that and now he’s not only starting at linebacker, but he’s embraced by his teammates.
As for Coleman — he’s THE leader of this team on and off the field.
After last season, Coleman — who has been selected as one of 31 players on the preseason watch list for the Jim Thorpe Award as the nation’s top defensive back — debated entering the NFL draft, but said he decided not to for two reasons:
“Money was not an issue. I wanted to get my degree and I wanted to leave as a champion. A national champion,. That’s burned in my mind. It’s burned in everybody’s mind here.”
And that’s why the other guys chose him to lead them this season.
TweetUD’s 2010 recruits rated No. 1 in nation among non BCS schools
In the latest rankings of next year’s college basketball recruiting classes, Rivals.com has the Dayton Flyers rated as the top non-BCS school in the nation and 12th overall.
Ohio State — with six commitments from the Rivals150 prospects list — was the overwhelming pick for the nation’s top recruiting class for 2010.
While Thad Matta’s recruiting job for OSU is superb — though it again may be a quicksilver surge if it is riddled by more one-and-done commitments — Brian Gregory’s effort at UD arguably is more impressive because the Flyers don’t have the same resources or national exposure that the BCS Bucks do.
But the Flyers’ national profile is on the rise, as evidenced by the Rivals.com rankings.
Ranked ahead of the Flyers are OSU, Syracuse, North Carolina, Illinois, NC State, Wake Forest, Maryland, Texas, Michigan State, Purdue and Virginia.
Rounding out the Top 15 recruiting classes behind Dayton — whose commitments include guards Juwan Staten (ranked 44th among 2010 prospects), Brandon Spearman (116) and Jesse Berry and forward Ralph Hill — are Baylor, Memphis and Florida State.
There are six schools from the ACC in the Top 15, four from the Big Ten in the Top Ten. No SEC or PAC 10 school made the Top 15.
Profiling the Flyers, Rivals.com said:
“Dayton represents the Atlantic 10 in the 2010 team rankings with an impressive four-man class. Staten is a top-50 prospect who is a proven winner at point guard. Spearman, who is ranked in the Rivals150, is a lockdown defender and a versatile offensive player. Berry is known for his scoring prowess. Hill, a developing big man, rounds out the class.”
As for OSU — whose commitments include forwards Jared Sullinger (3) and Deshaun Thomas (18), guards Jordan Sibert (37), Aaron Craft (104) and Lenzelle Smith Jr. (124) and forward J.D. Weatherspoon (137) — Rivals.com said:
“With far and away the best recruiting class in 2010, Ohio State is in familiar territory at the top of the recruiting rankings. Thad Matta has plucked some of the top prospects in his region, creating a formidable six-man class.
“Sullinger is the premier post player in 2010, while Thomas - a fellow five-star player - is one of the top scoring forwards in the country. Sibert and Craft have a strong chemistry as backcourt teammates on the All Ohio Red travel squad. Smith is a unique player with a feel for passing the ball, and Weatherspoon is a tremendous athlete with a lot of potential.”
TweetDrugs, Rock ‘n’ Roll and Becoming a Buckeye
COLUMBUS — In the spirit of Woodstock — whose 40th anniversary was celebrated worldwide a couple of weeks ago — Ohio State running back Jamaal Berry embraced both drugs and rock ‘n’ roll this summer.
One jeopardized his Buckeye career before it even got started. The other was fully supported by Jim Tressel and company.
And now after meeting the highly touted freshman running back and talking to him about both issues, I’m pulling for him to make it with Bucks. I’d hate to see him go the way of Jonathan Skeete and Eric Haw, former Bucks whose missteps were similar.
Berry, from Miami Palmetto High, is considered the top OSU recruit joining the team this season. ESPN Scouts Inc. once rated him the third best incoming running back in the nation and the 22nd best player overall in the 2009 recruiting class. He should be in the mix at tailback for the Bucks behind Brandon Saine and Dan Herron.
On June 11, though. he was arrested in Miami for having more than 20 grams of marijuana , a felony possession charge that was punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. That was later reduced to a misdemeanor and in late July the charge was dropped all together provided he complete a six-month drug program he can take on line.
Hopefully, he takes that seriously and realizes what is at stake here.
In 2005, Skeete was busted for trafficking pot and a week later Haw was arrested for smoking a joint outside a dorm.
Skeete’s Buckeye career died right there. Haw played one season and transferred to Jackson State.
Berry spent the summer at Ohio State, working out, taking a class and learning from the coaches and veteran players what’s expected of him.
“In the beginning I was worried I might not play here,” he said. “I was in the panic mode until I talked to the coaches and they said everything was gonna be okay.
“I’ve got to put that behind me now and move forward, but I’ve I learned I have to pick my friends wisely and hang around positive people. The friends I had before, I’ve got to drop those guys.”
As for the class he took, he smiled:
“It was Music 252. I took it on-line. It was called the History of Rock ‘n’ Roll. It was like a music appreciation class and I ended up with a B.”
So with that new appreciation, what does he think of Woodstock — designated by Rolling Stone magazine as one of “The 50 Moments That Changed the History of Rock and Roll?” How about some of the Woodstock’s legends, folks like Joe Cocker, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix?
With a blank look, Berry said, “Who?”
Asked who his favorite rock ‘n’ roll group was, he shrugged.
“So do you like rock ‘n’ roll?”
With a grin and a shake of the head, he whispered, “No.”
After this summer, Jamaal Berry’s picking new friends and new music.
TweetCOLUMN: Cliff Pierce’s Shrine to Dayton
It was his 20th wedding anniversary and when you asked about the secret of two decades of successful marriage, he motioned for you to follow him upstairs in the 100-year-old Victorian home he and his wife Denise share on Gordon Avenue in West Dayton.
He headed to the spare bedroom or the “archives” as he called it.
“Every guy knows when their wife is in that zone and it’s better for you just to go to that special room,” Cliff Pierce said with a grin. “Well, this is that room. I guess you’d call it my Man-Cave.”
The place had an old feel to it — wood-bladed paddle fan, wood floor, wood trim around the window — but it came alive when he started showing you his burgeoning collection of memorabilia from dozens of area high schools, especially their athletic teams.
The walls were lined with bookshelves crammed with yearbooks, some going back nearly 100 years, many showing the teen images of famed sports figures of the Miami Valley.
“Here’s Gerry Faust’s book,” he said pulling the former Notre Dame coach’s keepsake from his Chaminade section. From the Oakwood shelf, he rooted out the 1935 book: “Their football team didn’t just win every game it was unscored upon.”
He grabbed a Fairview yearbook — signed by ‘73 Bulldog grad Edwin Moses — and quickly thumbed through to the photos he wanted:
“Here’s Edwin with his French class in France.” He found another picture from a prep track meet showing the then 5-foot-9, 125-pound Moses, just a wisp of the man who would become the world’s greatest hurdler ever.
He rummaged through a chest of drawers and found the 1978 commencement program of Roth High — Hara Arena, June 2 — autographed by Falcons’ legend Dwight Anderson. And there was a 1920s ticket stub from the annual Steele-Stivers High football game on Thanksgiving Day — the Turkey Bowl — that once was the hottest ticket in town.
He opened a big plastic tub filled with the uniforms and warm-ups of the entire Dunbar High basketball team. A closet was filled with colorful varsity letter jackets rom Centerville to Carroll to Roosevelt. A box held championship banners that once hung from gymnasium rafters across the Miami Valley.
He pulled out a bag full of white neckties given to the 1958 Fairmont football team for winning the Miami Valley League title.
As he sorted through the stuff — handling it tenderly, almost reverentially — he beamed:
“When you come into this room I want you to say, ‘Yep, this is Cliff. You can see the things he believes in, the things that are important to him.’
“This is the place where I receive inspiration and motivation. I take a nap in here and I wake up with another thought. It’s where some of my finer ideas have come together.”
Maybe his finest idea has been to try to preserve as many of these high school memories and mementoes from the Dayton area as possible.
“This collection can stir the memories of people who went to these schools and it can be a teaching tool for our young people, too,” said the 48-year-old Pierce.
“They can see some of the greatest people in the world went through our school systems. And they can also see that during some of our toughest times — the (1913) Flood, the Great Depression, the World Wars, the civil unrest (of the ’60s) — people still worked together and nurtured one another and we persevered as a community.”
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FINDING HISTORY IN FLEA MARKETS AND ESTATE SALES
Growing up on Lexington Avenue in Dayton. Pierce said he collected baseball cards and used to peruse the daily sports sections, cutting out and filing everything from the Big Ten standings to box scores of prep games.
Eventually, he was making the news himself as a 6-foot-5 Fairview basketball player. He was a sophomore on the 1976 team that won the City League and he captained the Bulldogs as a senior.
An injury derailed his sports career and afterward he worked a variety of jobs.
“Like a lot of people, I had good times and some not so good,” he said. “There were setbacks in the family, drug struggles, poor business decisions, early relationship problems. But like Jimmy (Valvano) said, ‘Don’t give up.”
“Eventually you find your way — the right woman, the things that give your life value and meaning.”
In 2005, he helped organize an all-classes reunion and hall of fame induction at Fairview and that struck a chord with him. Soon he was immersing himself into the past of many high schools — especially those like Roth, Roosevelt, Kiser, Steele and Wilbur Wright that, like Fairview, are no longer here.
Associations with local historian Margaret Peters and artist Bing Davis helped nurture that passion and soon Pierce was doing all he could to build his collection.
“I go to estate sales, flea markets, garage sales. I hang flyers in grocery stores,” he said as he pulled out a leaflet, which read:
“WANTED — Will pay cash for Dayton area high school yearbooks. Also wanted, jackets, pictures. other memorabilia. For details call Cliff at 228-2268.”
He smiled and nodded: “People respond. The other day a lady pulled up here to the house with her grandfather’s scrapbook from Stivers in the 1940s. She wanted it in the hands of somebody who’d appreciate it.”
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A BOND WITH DWIGHT ANDERSON
He has befriended Dwight Anderson — arguably the greatest basketball player Dayton ever produced — whose NBA career and life were derailed by alcohol and drugs.
Pierce said they go to the same church and he’s helping Anderson deal with a Cleveland group that is doing a documentary on him.
“We graduated the same year and played against each other in high school,” Pierce said. “It was a magical time back then. Everybody was after him. You’d see (Jerry) Tarkanian, Johnny Orr, Lee Rose, Joe B. Hall, Digger Phelps — all the big-time coaches at the games.
“In later years, I was at some of the same places Dwight was, went to the parties, drank together, did some of the same things. So I try not to judge.
“I figure we’re all just one or two decisions in life away from another person’s situation. And I figure if we can rehab buildings and have stimulus packages for economies, we can reclaim lives, too.
“People need to know Dwight’s whole story, just like they need to know a lot of things in this room.”
He picked up an old Alter cheerleader’s megaphone: “This is from the gold rush days of ‘78. Alter had probably the finest team I’ve ever seen. The son’s of all the UD greats: John Paxson, Dan Bockhorn, Pete Boyle, Don Meineke and Andy Hehr. They lost one game that year.
“Woody Harrelson had it wrong,. White men can jump. I saw some things…They gave facials. It was an incredible bunch of guys .”
From there, he picked up a bound copy of the Tower, Fairview’s student newspaper from the late 1940s:
“Here’s a picture of the stain glass window at the school with the names of all the grads— kids who finished school and went straight to the War — and were killed. They died for what we have back here. That should be remembered.
He continued on, pulling out Steele High cafeteria plates and Martin Sheen’s Stivers yearbook and a photo of Jerry Lucas’ 1958-57 Middletown Middies basketball team.
He’s not sure what will happen with this collection. At the least it could grace the restaurant he wants to open one day. Right now he has a catering business called Bulldogs Bar-B-Que — named after his Fairview Bulldogs.
But he’d really like to see it become part of a museum and resource center that everyone from alumni associations to today’s students could utilize.
“People go to Egypt, they go to Rome and see the Coliseum,” he said. “We could put together our own little shrine that would tell some of our own story. A collection like this can help a lot of people in a lot of different ways.”
It can even get a guy to his 20th wedding anniversary.
TweetRoosevelt Nix — former Bengals lineman, Central State star now jailed
With a bit of a twist to the old Joe Louis claim:
Roosevelt Nix always could run, but he no longer can hide.
And because of it, the former 6-foot-6, 305-pound defensive tackle for the Cincinnati Bengals — and before that a star on the Central State team that won the 1990 national title — is in the Hamilton County Jail because, allegedly, he’s one of the very worst deadbeat dads in all of Southwest Ohio.
Nix always had speed for a big man. When the pros tested him at the NFL Combine, he ran the 40 yard dash in 4.84 seconds. He tried to show his jets again Tuesday after police arrested him in Cincinnati’s West End for owing $214,245. in back child support for his 16 year old son. According to court records, Nix has not made a child support payment in nine years.
In 2006, he failed to show up in court for a child support hearing. Tuesday, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer, the 48-year-old former football player was nabbed by police. He claimed he needed medical treatment, was taken to a hospital and then tried to flee from there.
He was caught and now officials will seek a felony indictment against him.
Nix — who played his prep ball at Toledo Scott — played two years of junior college football, then one at Central State. He was ineligible his senior season and for two years he worked as a bodyguard for Patti LaBelle and others. He once told me worked concerts at Hara Arena.
The Bengals made him an eighth round pick in 1992. He hung around the league for three years, playing 16 games for Cincinnati and two for Minnesota. He has six career tackles and one sack.
I remember sitting with Nix at his dressing stall in CSU’ McPherson Stadium locker room after a game 19 years ago. As they often did back in the day, the Marauders had just beaten the stuffing out of another team, this one West Virginia State, 64-14,
Nix had spent the four-hour game throttling, mauling, all but mugging West Virginia State’s 165-pound quarterback Kenny Grier.
“Pain, that was the object today,” Nix told me with a smile of satisfaction. “We wanted him to hurt.”
If the charges are true, it seems like that’s still his M.O.
Only now, instead of opposing quarterbacks, he’s hurting his own son.
TweetDayton versus Xavier — the schedules
The Dayton Flyers’ non conference schedule has been out for a while and Xavier’s was just announced — so let’s see how they compare.
Looking at just the games that are for sure — the second and third round opponents both teams face in their respective November tournaments are uncertain — Xavier has the more impressive line-up.
The Musketeers face Wake Forest, Butler, Marquette, Louisiana State and Florida. The Flyers counter with Creighton, George Mason, New Mexico, Old Dominion and Georgia Tech.
Both schools play the Miami RedHawks. And depending on how their tournaments play out, they both could end up facing Creighton, George Mason and Kansas State this season
Here are a few other things:
— Xavier plays four teams that finished last season with an RPI under 40: Wake Forest (16), Butler (24), Marquette (35) and LSU (37). UD plays none.
— UD plays five teams that had an RPI worse than 200 last season: Presbyterian (214), Towson (219), Appalachian State (249), Lehigh (254) and Ball State (262). Xavier plays one: Youngstown State (239).
— UD plays five teams that had losing records last season: Georgia Tech (12-19), Towson (12-22), Presbyterian (12-17), Appalachian State (13-18) and Ball State (14-17). Xavier plays one: Youngstown State (11-19).
— As for their November tournaments — Dayton at the San Juan Shoot-out in Puerto Rico, Xavier at the Old Spice Classic at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida) — Xavier likely has the tougher first round opponent in Marquette. UD plays Georgia Tech.
But in round two, Dayton could face Villanova (No. 13 RPI last season), while Xavier would get either Creighton or Michigan.
As for the full field of each tournament, Walt Disney has the better cumulative RPI from last year. Counting Xavier 6 of the 8 teams in the tournament had an RPI under 57. Counting Dayton, Puerto Rico has three.
— And yet, while the calibre of competition will help decide each team’s record and NCAA Tournament chances, all that will be thrown out the window when the two teams meet each other at least twice during the season — and maybe a third time in the A-10 tournament,
No matter who the two teams play during the year, those games are just warm-up bouts for the pair of main events they stage against each year at UD Arena and the Cintas Center.
TweetSaving Prep Football Players’ Lives
High school football players are getting pool time — in backyard kiddie pools, that is — and it could end up saving their lives.
That’s the thinking in Lake County, just outside Cleveland where — according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer — all 14 public and private schools there have been giving children’s wading pools by a local hospital system.
Called the “Pools for Schools Program,” the backyard splash pits are donated by Lake Health to keep over-heating prep football players from suffering heat strokes during August’s steamy preseason drills.
Schools are asked to fill the pools with cold water and keep them out of the sun and near bags of ice. That way a big. woozy lineman or anybody else who is overheating can plop down in the pool, have some ice dumped in and and his body temp can be lowered quickly.
Over the years I’ve seen other teams fill 55-gallon plastic trash cans with ice water so players could submerge themselves.
According to D. Frederick Mueller, the director of the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research at the University of North Carolina, 39 football players — including 29 high schoolers — have died from heat stroke in the past 14 years. Six players died in in 2008 alone.
Health officials say many of those deaths were preventable.
During a blistering, hot day last summer, 15-year-old Max Gilpin — a 6-foot-2, 220-pound lineman at Louisville’s Pleasure Ridge Park High — collapsed some 15 minutes after another teammate went down after the team ran several end-of-practice “gassers”— sprints up and down the field to raise endurance.
The school’s athletics director, bystanders and others treated the groaning Gilpin with water and ice packs, according to court records. Gilpin was unable to talk and his eyes were nearly closed.
His mom was called to practice and, according to court records, she found him with bloodshot eyes staring straight ahead, He had an ice pack behind his neck and a hose was spilling water on him. Hospital officials reported his body temperature was 107 degrees when he reached them.
He died three days later of septic shock, multiple organ failure and heat stroke.
David Jason Stinson, the first-year head coach at Pleasure Ridge Park, was charged with reckless homicide and just today Jefferson Circuit Judge Geoffrey Morris ruled that prosecutors could attempt to indict him with wanton endangerment charge, as well.
Stinson’s trial is scheduled for Aug. 31.
A kiddie pool filled with ice water may have prevented all this.
TweetOSU’s Brandon Saine — Would he leave Pryor in his dust?
COLUMBUS — With all the debate over the rocket-like 4.33 second time in the 40 yard dash Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Pryor supposedly ran during summer drills in Columbus — and only ONE player ran faster at the NFL Combine earlier this year — who better to ask about it than backfield teammate Brandon Saine?
After all, the Bucks’ junior running back from Piqua High is a true track phenom.
He won four state track titles and a national championship in the 60-yard dash when he was in high school. He still holds the Ohio Division I record in the 100-meter dash with a time of 10.38 seconds. While officially timed at 4.40 seconds in the 40, he’s been unofficially clocked at 4.25 seconds.
With a little tongue-in-cheek needling the other day, Saine was asked:
“So, if they lined you and Pryor up next to each other in the blocks, you’d smoke the guy, right?”
A bit taken back, Saine suddenly turned from a sprinter into a dancer and tried waltzing right around the question.
“Aaaah…I don’t know,” he said with a smile.
“C’mon,” he was prodded. “You’ve probably run hundreds of races.”
Saine grinned and shrugged: “Yeah, I’ve run a few more track meets so maybe I’d have an advantage because I know my way around. But he’s a really fast guy. It’d be a real good, fun race.”
He said he was there the day Pryor supposedly shattered the stop watches: “I wasn’t surprised. He has incredibly long strides He’s a quick guy for as big as he is.”
Asked what he ran that day, Saine said “a high 4.3.”
“Still you’d smoke him, right?” Saine was teased.
By now you could tell he kind of liked the question, though he feigned rebuff: “Man, you are trying to get me in trouble.”
Well then, at least you’re better looking than Pryor, right?”
Saine shock a quick glance at the sophomore quarterback — who happened to be standing about 10 yards away surrounded by reporters — then grinned: “Definitely not.”
When he saw his questioner shake his head in mock disappointment, he shrugged: “Well, we’re both good lookin’.”
Whether they are the best looking backfield mates in college football is for another debate, but they very well could be the fastest this year.
And just as many are anticipating Pryor’s first full season as the Bucks starting quarterback, this could be Saine’s break-out year after two modest seasons at OSU that bear little resemblance to his glory days at Piqua High.
As a high school senior, Saine was Ohio’s Mr. Football, rushing for 1,895 yards and 27 touchdowns on 259 carries, catching 30 passes for another 412 yards and leading the Indians to the Division II state title.
At Ohio State, he rushed for 267 yards as a freshman and, used sparingly last season, ran for just 65 on 26 attempts.
But the other day OSU offensive coordinator Jim Bollman was talking about Saine being one of the Bucks two primary ball carriers this season.
Thanks to the weight room, Saine said he’s gotten stronger since last season and, more importantly, “I really know what I’m doing now rather than overthinking things and hurting myself.” Because of that he said he’s getting a lot more reps in practice so far this preseason.
Asked if he fantasizes about a return to those glory days he had on the field as a PIqua Indian, he thought a few seconds, then smiled and nodded:
“As I sit here and think about it, it’s been a while since I’ve been in the open field just running away from people. I’d really like that to be part of the picture again. I’d love to just run away from somebody out there.”
“Starting with Pryor?”
He smiled and shook his head, but he was prodded again:
“C’mon, be truthful.”
Finally, he nodded and grinned:
“Sure, that’d be a real good start.”
TweetCOLUMN: Hyleas Fountain — “I Need A Woman Like You” …(the kids do, too)
The envelope’s return address was the give-away.
“When I see that big, long number up in the corner I know it’s more fan mail from jail cells,” Hyleas Fountain said with a smile. “There’s this one guy who wrote something like, ‘I can’t wait ‘til I get out. I want to buy you an ice cream cone. Not one, but like 12.”
Then there are the hundreds of young people among her 2,000-plus Facebook followers — many of them school girls from here in the Miami Valley and across the nation — who send regular messages to the Olympic silver medalist from Dayton.
“One young lady was from New Jersey, I think,” Fountain said. “She wanted wanted me to call her principal and help her change her track program at her school.”
Her biggest following may well be from Germany — where she regularly competes when touring Europe — but she’s popular back here, too.
She threw out the first pitch at the Dayton Dragons game earlier this month, a Kettering bank has featured her photo in an ad and, of course, there are those lovestruck guys — some a little creepy, some just heartfelt:
“One guy sent me a message saying, ‘You compete so hard out there. I need a woman like you. Where have you been all my life?’”
Such is life since the 28-year-old heptathlete won her Olympic medal exactly one year ago today — August 16, 2008 — at the Beijing Games. It made her the only American woman other than Jackie Joyner Kersee ever to win an Olympic heptathlon medal.
And to answer that one guy: Where Fountain is today — much to her dismay — is here in Dayton, rather than at the World Championships in Berlin.
The heptathlon competition is wrapping up there today and Fountain — rated No. 2 in the world — was figured to contend for the title, especially after the way she’d dominated the the first five of the seven events at the U.S. Championships in Eugene, Oregon seven weeks ago.
Having the meet of her life, she appeared on track to reach 6,900 points, which would have put her behind only Swedish superstar Carolina Kluft for the best mark in the world in 13 years.
But then — thanks to one, violent snap of the neck — she found herself being carried out of the stadium on a stretcher. As she was put in the back of an ambulance — while Lynn Smith, her personal coach and Central State’s women’s coach jumped in the front — she started to panic:
“I’d lost the feeling in my upper body.”
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A SILVER MEDAL WITH A FEW NICKS
The biggest surprise she had in Beijing was the flood of feelings that washed over her as she stood on the medal podium that night at the crowded, red-lit Bird’s Nest Stadium.
“I didn’t think I’d be so emotional, but at the biggest moment of my life I had come though,” she said. “And to see the flag raised and to hear the crowd and see my mom and sister in the front row and know we were all experiencing it together, it just overwhelmed me.”
Initially, Fountain won bronze, but then Ukrainian silver medalist Lyudmila Blonska tested positive for the anabolic steroid methyltestosterone, was stripped of her hardware and literally thrown out of the Olympic Village.
It was Blonska’s second doping offense and she was given a lifetime ban. “You probably won’t ever see her again,” Fountain said. “She can’t compete, can’t coach, probably can’t even walk on her own streets anymore. That’s the price you pay.”
As she headed back to Dayton after the Games — to serve as grand marshal of Kettering’s Holiday at Home parade and then be honored at the Wilmington Pike Home Depot, where she’d worked in the garden department before Beijing — she said she had her medal “zippered up in my pocket because somebody told me about an athlete who once lost their medal on the flight home.”
So as she sat in a Kettering cafe and talked last week, where was her medal now?
“I think it’s on my kitchen table,” she said. “I was in my friend’s wedding in New Jersey last week and brought it along because a lot of her little cousins wanted to see it.”
She started to smile: “It’s got a few nicks in it. When I went back to my hometown (Harrisburg, Pa.) some of the little kids at the school were pretty excited and they dropped it a few times.”
But while Walter Payton once got his Super Bowl ring pilfered at a school, she laughed and said she wasn’t too worried:
“I tell everybody ahead of time, ‘Don’t try leaving out that door with my medal. I will run you down and catch you.””
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FROM STIFF NECK TO SOFT HEART
She’d heard about the post-Olympic problems athletes face:
“They say the year after the Games is very hard on athletes because of all the stress from the Trials and then again at the Olympics.”
She figured she’d be fine, though, especially after winning again last fall in Talence, France as she wrapped up her season with meets in Europe, Japan and China.
At the U.S. Championships in late June, she strained her neck during the high jump, the second event of the two-day competition.
“It happened when I was jumping 6-feet on my first attempt,” she said. “It was like whiplash. I threw my head back and looked to the side when I jumped and then when I landed I rolled and crunched it.
“They worked on it between events, but I finished the day pretty stiff. I shouldn’t have come back the next day, but I was on a roll. I was scoring big and I was like ‘it’s for the world championships.’”
The next day she landed her best long jump ever — 22 feet, 9 3/4 inches — but aggravated her neck again. This time her body started to go numb.
So with a big lead and just two events to go, she was forced to withdraw, costing her the U.S. crown and keeping her from qualifying for the world championships.
“As they were taking me away, all I wanted to do was get back on the track,” she said quietly. “I nearly worked myself up into an asthma attack.”
Treated for a strained neck, she missed some meets, but she’s back competing again. She leaves this week for Estonia, followed by some other European and Asian stops.
Like many athletes from the Beijing Games, she hasn’t found her Olympic accomplishments to be a springboard to financial opportunity in these tough economic times.
She’d like to do some modeling and thinks a reality show would be fun. “Something like The T.O. Show,” she said of Terrell Owens’ offering on VH1. “The one with athletes and supermodels and all. Now that’d be cool.”
And while she seems to have the portfolio for all that — looks, personality and big-time success — she’s finding her true calling as a role model to young people.
She has spoken at several schools around Dayton and is a huge hit back home in Pennsylvania.
“At my old middle school, the kids were all out front with posters to greet me when I drove up,” she said. “Inside they had my pictures everywhere on the walls and in the (trophy) cases.
“All the kids came to the auditorium and some of my old teachers who are retired now were there. They’re the people who helped me keep on the right track and it was emotional. I cried all day.
“They had a slide show of me set to music, students asked questions and then they read me their essays. One topic was ‘Why I want to be like Hyleas Fountain.’ The other was ‘Why I want to have lunch with Hyleas.’
“It was nice. There were some real creative ones.
Then she smiled because, of course, none of the lunch bunch quite topped the guy back here.
No one offered to buy her an ice cream cone — “not one, but like 12.”
TweetHyleas Fountain could give Terrell Owens some reality
It’s been a year since the Beijing Olympics and some athletes who reached the podium there — including Dayton’s Hyleas Fountain, who won her heptathlon medal a year ago to the exact day — have experienced all kinds of twists and turns in life.
Gymnast Shawn Johnson, the all-around silver medalist, won Dancing with the Stars and gold medal teammate Nastia Liukin appeared on Gossip Girl.
Swimmer Ryan Lochte — of 200 backstroke gold — signed with the Ford modeling agency and gold medal decathlete Bryan Clay appeared on the Wheaties Box.
Beach volleyball’s Misty May-Treanor ruptured her Achilles tendon training for Dancing with the Stars.
Fountain’s fate also took a real twist — literally — at the U.S. Track and Field Champions in late June.
The silver medal winner in Beijing was having the meet of her life, when, late in the competition, she reaggravated a neck injury she’d suffered earlier and her upper body went numb.
She was carried from the stadium to a waiting ambulance on a stretcher. The sprained neck not only cost her the U.S. title, but a spot in the world championships going on now in Berlin.
She’s back competing though and leaves her Dayton home in a few days for Estonia, part of a tour that includes Europe and Asia.
One morning last week she sat down and talked about everything from the role model she’s become to young women around the nation to the love letters she gets, how she’d like to get on Terrell Owens’ reality show and how her silver medal is now personalized. The hour-long chat became the subject on my column in Sunday’s newspaper and it can be found on this web page, too.
As for that medal:
“When I went back to my home town (Harrisburg, Pa.), some of the little kids at the school were pretty excited and they dropped it a few times,” she said with a smile. “It’s a little nicked, but it still shines.”
Just like her.
TweetCOLUMN — OSU’s Spitler: Hillbilly Strong and About to Shine
COLUMBUS — Kurt Coleman, the senior safety and Northmont product, was doing a live TV interview in the south end zone.
Zach Domicone, the freshman defensive back from Beavercreek High, was near the 30 yard line, posing for pictures with his arm around his girlfriend as his diamond-like earrings sparkled in the last rays of the day’s sun.
Not far away, Jake Ballard, the Springboro tight end, stood with three generations of his family. To his left, a fellow Ohio State football player was introducing his parents to his coaches. Beyond them, two new players in their scarlet jerseys and gray pants gawked around the Horseshoe and just fanaticized.
And then there was the bemused Austin Spitler, whose mom had just read him the riot act.
This was the scene at OSU’s annual Media and Photo Night — which drew 550 family members and 175 media types — Thursday, Aug. 13, at Ohio Stadium.
Spitler, the fifth-year senior linebacker from Bellbrook, was finally in the spotlight — after a red-shirt season and three as a back-up, he’s going into two-a -days as a starter — and that’s why Mom was on his case.
She didn’t like what the bright lights were picking up — specifically his new beard.
“It’s just a (pre-season) camp look and being lazy, but everybody’s giving me crap about it,” he laughed. “My mom was really mad that I didn’t get lined up for picture day. But what you gonna do? You can’t make ‘em happy all the time.”
He shrugged and admitted the new look might soon be gone: “Coach Tressel wants things trimmed up.”
So what you see with Spitler isn’t always what you get.
Someone mentioned that he’s one of the strongest guys on the team and he just shrugged:
“Yeah, that may be one of my strengths…no pun intended. Guys on the team call me ‘hillbilly strong.’ I guess it’s probably because there aren’t many farm and country boys on the team — though that’s not saying I am either …My parents live in (Bellbrook) now.
“But I have baled hay. And everybody thinks I’m country ‘cause I like country music and drive a big truck (a silver Dodge Ram).
‘I’d say there are maybe just five guys on the team who truly enjoy and are heartfelt about country music. But my mom worked for a country station, so I was brought up on it. It’s all I knew.”
He said he and some of his buddies went to the Country Concert in Fort Loramie last month. As for his favorite country artists, he mentioned Sugarland and especially Brooks and Dunn:
“Their song ‘Believe’ has always been one of my favorites.”
And since becoming a Buckeye in 2005, he’s had to believe. The past few years he played in the shadows of All American linebacker James Laurinaitis and it wasn’t always easy.
“It’s been frustrating — especially sophomore season knowing this guy in front of me was playing just unbelievable football and it wasn’t looking too great for me.
“But (Laurinaitis) helped me pull through it, so did some other guys and the coaches. And it ultimately comes down to what’s best for you and the best place for me was right here.
“That’s when I decided to work as hard as I possibly could and if it didn’t work out in the end, well, I’d know I gave it my all and showed them my very best.”
And that’s where Mom took exception.
To her, he still needed a razor and some shaving cream for that.
TweetBronson Arroyo talks drugs, supplements and feeling like a “monster”
In one of the most candid interviews I’ve read from a baseball player in a long time, Cincinnati Reds pitcher Bronson Arroyo talked to USA Today’s Bob Nightengale about drugs, supplements, vitamins and other things ball players use and said the notion that teams have ever been concerned with anything other than wins, losses and money is absurd.
He noted how the Mark McGwire-led St. Louis Cardinals and Barry Bonds-powered San Francisco Giants sold thousands of seats and won lots of games.
The big story and pictures of Arroyo appear both on the front cover and page 2A of today’s USA Today,
Arroyo is one of my favorite Reds players because he’ll always make time for you, he can talk to you on a myriad of topics and he is candid. Sometimes may a little too candid.
I don’t agree with some of the things he tells Nightengale, but I give Arroyo credit for not trying to dodge the issue or flat out lie like many of the big leaguers have done in the past. He said he quit taking various things when Major League Baseball put them on the banned list.
I’ve got a certain appreciation for Jose Canseco, as well. Sure he is a pumped up peacock, has an ego that dwarfs his bulging, once chemically-infused bicep and brags, but it turns out he was telling the truth when he blew the whistle on baseball players and steroid abuse.
Arroyo’s interview doesn’t quite go down that path, but some of the points Arroyo makes are spot on.
Here are some snippets of his conversation:
— “You think the country really cares about what ballplayers put in their bodies? If we really care, why are we pumping Coca Cola in every kid’s mouth and McDonald’s and Burger King and KFC? That (stuff) is killing people.”
— “I can see where guys like Hank Aaron and some of the old timers have a beef with it. But as far as looking at Manny Ramirez like he’s (serial killer) Ted Bundy, you’re out of your mind. At the end of of the day, you think anybody really cares whether Manny Ramirez’s kidneys fail and he dies at 50?”
— Arroyo said he took androstenedione — made famous by McGwire during his big home run season — from 1998 until it was banned in 2004: “Man, I didn’t think twice about it. I took androstenedione the same way I took my multivitamins. I didn’t really know if this was a genius move by Mark McGwire to cover up the real s—- he was taking, but it made me feel unbelievable. I felt like a monster.”
— “I have a lot of guys (in the locker room) who think I’m out of (my) mind because I’m taking a lot of things not on the (MLB-approved) list. I take 10 to 12 different things a day and on the days I pitch, there’s four more things. There a caffeine drink I take from a company that that (former teammate) Curt Schilling introduced me to in ‘05. I take some Korean ginseng and a few other proteins out there that are not certified. But I haven’t failed any tests, so I figured I’m good.”
— “I think I could have had the same career without andro. The best years of my career have been after they enacted the steroids policy.”
—“I do what I want to do and say what I want to say…I’ve always been honest, I’m not going to stop now.”
TweetCOLUMN: Bill Powell - Wilberforce’s PGA history maker
It was late afternoon and his daughter said he was finally resting in a chair in his Minneapolis hotel room.
It had been a whirlwind day, beginning before dawn back home in Canton. Then came the drive to Pittsburgh — where, on an airport TV, he saw himself featured on Good Morning America — and a flight to Minneapolis.
Tonight, August 12 — in a gala gathering before Thursday’s start of the PGA Championship at Hazeltine — 92-year old Bill Powell will receive the PGA of America’s highest honor — the PGA’s Distinguished Service Award
So late Tuesday, his daughter Renee planned to field the phone calls. That worked until the topic was Dayton and Wilberforce. Suddenly you could hear him in the background.
“Guess he’s not sleeping,” she laughed.
Powell came to Wilberforce from Minerva High east of Canton in 1937 and with his older brother Berry and two others, formed the school’s first golf team, which made history when it played — and beat — Ohio Northern in two matches that year.
It was the first time ever that white and black college golf teams faced each other. One match was in Lima, the other in Dayton at the now defunct Miami View course , where Wilberforce practiced.
Powell eventually left college for World War II, but when he returned to Ohio, he was denied access to certain courses and when he applied for a GI Loan — which he was due — he was denied.
Unbowed, he borrowed money from two black doctors and his brother and bought a run-down 78-acre dairy farm in East Canton.
Working nights as a security guard, he spent his days — for two years — clearing the land, building tees and greens and seeding fairways with the help of his wife Marcella.
In 1948 he opened the nine-hole Clearview Golf Club. Buying another 52 acres , he expanded to 18 holes 30 years later.
Today Clearview is the only golf course in the U.S. that was designed, built, owned and operated by an African American.
Bill’s son Larry is now the greenskeeper and Renee is the head pro after spending 13 years on the LPGA tour.
One of only three black women ever to play the tour, Renee said it wasn’t always easy: “I started in the ’60s and there were some problems with the hotels, restaurants and locker rooms. And there were some threatening letters.
“But from my dad I learned to stick it out and never give up. He had wanted to build a course that — no matter what the color of your skin, your religion or nationality, if you were Greek, Irish or Italian — you had a place to play. And that’s what Clearview is.”
Powell’s efforts have been recognized by Wilberforce — which awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2001.
And Tiger Woods — recognizing that Powell helped pave the way for him — awards a William and Marcella Powell Scholarship every year.
Now comes the PGA’s highest honor, which is descried as going to “an outstanding individual” who, among other things, has “a real enthusiasm for golf.”
And that enthusiasm showed itself again late Tuesday when — as the conversation turned to Dayton and Wilberforce — Bill Powell chose reminiscing over rest
TweetSex, Abortion…Trouble for Pitino
No matter how things now turn out down in Louisville, Rick Pitino is damaged goods.
In fact — in light of the story just reported by the Louisville Courier Journal (CJ) — you have to wonder if he still has a future with the Cards.
According to a story written by the CJ’s Andrew Wolfson, the married Pitino not only told police he had consensual sex with Karen Sypher — the estranged wife of his equipment manager and the woman indicted by a federal grand jury for trying to extort $10 million from the coach — at a Louisville restaurant six years ago, but that he gave her $3,000 for an abortion.
The newspaper reported that Sypher told police that Pitino raped her on two different occasions in 2003. The CJ reported her charges have not gotten much traction with authorities who have noted some discrepancies.
Prosecutors have said Pitino won’t be charged.
The Courier Journal first reported the story Tuesday night after using the Kentucky Open Records Act to obtain Louisville Metro Police reports.
Up until now there had only been speculation about what — if anything — had occurred between the two of them. And yet there was a real clue at a pro-Sypher rally outside the courthouse in May.
Initially, the Courier Journal ran a photo of four protestors holding up signs of discontent. One read “Leave Karen Sypher Alone.” Another read: “Karen Sypher is the victim.”
The sign of the fourth protestor — who later was cropped out of the picture that was published — read: “What’s the price of an abortion?”
Turns out the kid holding the sign was Sypher’s son.
Both Pitino and Sypher — who later married Tim Sypher, Pitino’s friend going back to the days when both were with the Boston Celtics and the Cards equipment manager — agree they had sex at a restaurant after it had closed for the night.
According to Pitino, he had too much to drink and couldn’t drive home so he stayed there. Later he told police Sypher drove him home. He said a couple weeks later she called to tell him she was pregnant.
She told him she was getting an abortion, but had no health care. He claimed he asked her how much it would cost and was told $3,000, which he gave to her.
Sypher disputes Pitino’s version of the story and said the coach raped her once at the restaurant and once a few weeks later at the condo of her future husband. Pitino denies that.
According to the Courier Journal, Pitino’s contract states he can be fired for cause for acts of “moral depravity” or for being dishonest with the school. It also permits him to be fired for generating negative publicity, if it is caused by his “willful conduct that could objectively be determined to bring (the) employee into public dispute or scandal, or which tends to greatly offend the public.”
Pitino has four years left on a six-year deal that with incentives, base salaries and retention bonuses is said to worth at least $23.2 million.
How this plays out with the University of Louisville hierarchy — not to mention Pitino’s wife and five kids — will be interesting.
TweetWSU tops UD in America’s Best Colleges poll — both dissed?
The University of Dayton may well land a Top 25 basketball ranking this coming season, but UD didn’t fare so well in the just-released FORBES’ list of America’s best Colleges.
Dayton was ranked 567th of the 600 colleges in the poll.
Wright State was ahead of UD at 554, as was the University of Cincinnati (538), Ohio State (361), Miami University (331) , Wittenberg (301), Cedarville (284), Xavier (196) and 18 other Ohio colleges and universities.
The top school on the list was the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y. It was followed by Princeton University (2), California Institute of Technology (3) , Williams College (4) and Harvard University (5).
As writer Hana R. Alberts explained on Forbes.com:
“Our college rankings are based on five criteria: graduation rate (how good a college is at helping its students finish on time); the number of national and global awards won by students and faculty; students’ satisfaction with their instructors; average debt upon graduation; and postgraduate vocational success as measured by a recent graduate’s average salary and alumni achievement.
“We prize the undergraduate experience and how well prepared students are for the real world rather than focusing on inputs such as acceptance rates and test scores. Our data are from publicly available sources rather than surveys filled out by the schools themselves.”
She explained the rankings are compiled in conjunction with Ohio University economist Richard Vedder and his Center for College Affordability & Productivity.
West Point got the top ranking, Alberts said, because of, among other things, the intense work ethic of the cadets, their drive to succeed on all fronts and because there is no financial cost to the student.
Just as the West Point ranking can be debated — and Alberts notes the many critics of the academy — so too can be the low assessment of UD and WSU.
I’m thinking Forbes should open a branch office here. Dayton has become one of its favorite punching bags whenever its trying to fill in the back end of one of numerous polls.
As for the America’s Best Colleges list — which can be found in full at Forbes.com — it includes various data on each school, including total annual cost, percentage of applicants admitted, average range of SAT and ACT scores, student to teacher ratio and notable alumni.
I’m not sure of all their numbers, but the notable alumni sections that Forbes listed for the various schools is quite skewered in some cases and paltry in many. None more so than Miami University. And in the case of Wittenberg, there is some wrong information. While Al Davis did attend there, he graduated from Syracuse University.
Anyway, here’s some of what Forbes listed for a few of our nearby schools:
UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON:
Total cost $38, 210; percent of applicants admitted ,74; SAT range 1050-1260; ACT 23-28; student to faculty ratio, 16 to 1.
Notable alumni — Jon Gruden ‘86, Monday Night Football analyst; Joseph Hinrichs ‘89, vice president of Ford Motor Company; Bob Schaffer ‘84, Colorado State Board of Education Chairman and former U.S. Congressman from Colorado; Dan Patrick ‘79, current Sports Illustrated columnist and syndicated sports radio talk show host, former ESPN anchor.
WRIGHT STATE UNIVERSITY:
Total cost $18, 865; percent of applicants admitted, 85; SAT range 870-1120; ACT 18-24, student to faculty ratio, 20 to 1.
Notable alumni — Gregory Lockhart, U.S. Attorney; Robert Pollard, singer and songwriter for Guided by Voices; Siva S. Banda, aerospace engineer; Anthony Shaffer, U.S. intelligence officer.
CEDARVILLE UNIVERSITY:
Total cost $28,102, percent of applicants admitted NA; SAT range 1070-1290; ACT 22-27; student to teacher ratio, 15-1
Notable alumni — Matt Shiraki ‘06, served at the White House in the Bush administration; Michael Koerbel ‘00, director/producer of award-winning re:View film series; Stacie (Bennett) Cox ‘00, NASA shuttle engineer; Paula Faris Krueger ‘97, sports anchor, NBC Chicago; Megan Waters Lynch ‘08, summer internship with the United States Mission to the United Nations (USUN), pursuing masters in politics with a concentration in international relations at New York University.
WITTENBERG UNIVERSITY:
Total cost $44,550; percent of applicants admitted, 69; SAT range 1060-1230; ACT 23-29, Student to teacher ratio. 12-1.
Notable alumni — Adam Willis Wagnalls, co-founder of Funk and Wagnalls Company; Al Davis, owner of the Oakland Raiders NFL franchise; Hugh M. Raup, botanist and ecologist; John E. McLaughlin, former deputy director of the CIA, senior fellow at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies and Brookings Institution.cost
MIAMI UNIVERSITY
Total cost $26,734, percent of applicants admitted, 80; SAT range 1100-1290; ACT 24-29; student to teacher ratio ,15 to 1.
Notable alumni — Jeffrey Vanderbeek ‘81, Chairman and managing partner of the New Jersey Devils hockey franchise.
OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY:
Total cost $22,554; percent of applicants admitted, 62; SAT range 1130-1330; ACT 25-30; student to teacher ratio, 13 to 1.
Notable alumni — Larry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia; Roy Lichtenstein, artist; R.L. Stine, author; Patricia Heaton, Emmy Award-winning actress; Erin Moriarty, CBS news correspondent and Emmy Award winner.
Kenyon College — at No. 22 — got the highest ranking of an Ohio school.
The rest were: College of Wooster (74), Oberlin (88), Marietta (112), Denison (125), Capital (138), Ohio Wesleyan (183), Xavier (196), Hiram (204), Otterbein (221), John Carroll (273), Cedarville (284), Wittenberg (301), Baldwin Wallace (305), Miami (331) and OSU (361).
Case Western Reserve was 439, followed by Ohio University (471), Mount Union (481), UC (538), WSU (554), Kent State (557), Akron (560), Youngstown State (562), BGSU (566), UD (567) Ohio Northern (570) and Toledo (583.)
TweetCOLUMN: A Saviour in “Hell”
It was her first morning in Africa.
She had just arrived in Kigali, Rwanda from Dayton the night before and already word was out.
There was a knock at the door.
“If you are the doctor and you have medical supplies you need to come with me,” said the priest from Goma, a ravaged city three hours away by bus, just across the border in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). “We have a cholera outbreak.”
Dr. Sylvia Esser-Gleason has worked the emergency rooms of various Dayton-area hospitals for the past 25 years and currently practices at Fort Hamilton in Hamilton. She also competes in grueling, 50 and 60-mile ultra-marathons and once was a world class cyclist.
With such a background, the 49-year-old doctor figured she had experienced some of life’s most intense situations.
And yet she had experienced nothing like Goma.
A mother of three who, with husband, John, lives in a 100-year-old farmhouse west of Dayton on Infirmary Road, she was travelling last November with her daughter Mary, a Chaminade Julienne grad attending Ohio University.
They boarded a bus jammed with humanity and belongings and headed northwest through the lush green hills — where gorillas live in the wild — until they got to the DRC.
“At the border, we had to cross on foot,” Gleason said. “We had just left all these white-washed stucco buildings and tourist hotels around Lake Kivu in Rwanda and all of a sudden — after walking through a no-man’s land — we emerged…in hell.
“The city of Goma is bombed out. The roads were muddy and filled with debris, craters and blown-up cars. People were everywhere living in the streets.
“UN peacekeepers with tanks were at the intersections. We were picked up in a 4-wheel drive charity vehicle. On its side was a picture of an AK-47 with a line drawn through it, meaning ‘no arms on board.’”
In the past dozen years, the two Congo Wars and their aftermath have claimed close to six million people., making them the planet’s deadliest conflict since World War II. Every month now it’s estimated another 45,000 die, half of them children under age 5.
Once known as Zaire, the DRC is the size of the United States east of the Mississippi and has 66 million people. Most speak French, nearly half are Catholic, all are poor.
And in the country’s lawless eastern regions — especially around Goma, which also was battered by the nearby Mt. Nyiragongo volcano that sent a river of lava 7-feet deep through the city a few years ago — chaos reigns.
Almost two million refugees from the ethnic violence in Rwanda have crowded into camps around the city. Fighting continues and so does the systematic rape of the area’s women — and now men — by guerilla troops. According to the Daily Nation newspaper, 1,000 rapes have occurred in the eastern part of the country in first three months of 2009.
Gleason and her daughter were taken to Don Bosco Ngangi, a 10-acre compound run by the Salesian Catholic order that helps refugees, orphans and war victims . It has a small hospital staffed by one full-time doctor — Dr. Joseph Muyumba — who along with treating the malnutrition, tuberculosis, malaria and AIDS that ravages the populace, was getting 250 new cholera patients a day.
Muyumba gave Gleason a a crash course in treatment capabilities at the hospital — where equipment and supplies are almost non existent — and then said:
“OK, now this is your hospital. Do like you would at home.”
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AN ECCENTRIC MOM WHO IS FAST, FRESH, FEARLESS
Gleason said her children — 20-year-old Sean, 19-year-old Mary, and Lizzie, an 18-year-old CJ senior who is the Eagles’ top cross country runner and has over a 4.0 grade point average — “say they have an eccentric mom.”
Another CJ student, senior volleyball player Rachael Bridgman, called Dr. Gleason “pretty intense,” — an understatement.
Chuck Bridgman, Rachael’s dad and the CJ cross country coach, echoed his daughter, saying Gleason “goes through life by what distance runners call the 3Fs — fast, fresh and fearless.”
Certainly Gleason embraces life to the fullest.
The daughter of a Dutch father and French mother — whose own dads were noted physicians — she graduated from Oakwood High, Wright State and Ohio University’s College of Osteopathic Medicine.
It was through her next door neighbors — a family from Burundi — that her interest was drawn to Africa. She then met George and Joan Riess, two of the founders of the Dayton-based Bridge to Rwanda, which funds orphanages there.
In 2007 — accompanied by her son — she went to Rwanda to work with the orphans. Last November she had returned to do the same when she got that knock at the door.
“I didn’t grow up wanting to be a missionary or wanting to save the world or anything like that,” she said with a shrug and a faint smile. “I didn’t find Goma, Goma found me.”
And once it did, her wheels began turning…non-stop.
“My mind plays out like a 3-D chessboard.” she laughed. “I can’t sit still.”
She pointed to the small TV sitting cattywampus on a living room counter, not far from a room filled with guitars and other stringed instruments that she makes and plays.
“That’s the only TV in our house and nobody ever watches it,” she said. “There’s just too much else going on.”
That’s especially the case since she’s been to Goma, a point heart-wrenchingly underscored when she took out some photos.
She handed you a picture of a severely malnourished 13-month old child named Ivote who came to the center weighing 3 pounds. It just looked as if skin were pulled over a tiny skeleton.
Then she handed you another photo of him in the arms of his mother after several months of care. He looked more normal.
“That’s what can happen when a child gets treatment,” she said. But her smile faded quickly when she took out another photo of a small child sitting in an orange washtub.
“This is Vanqueur,” she said quietly. “I was working with him when I had to return to Dayton. He was three years old. Someone had poured acid down his throat. His esophagus was scarred. He couldn’t talk, couldn’t eat. We couldn’t get a feeder tube down his throat and they didn’t have the nutritional IVs they needed to give him enough calories.
“If he were back here, it would have been no problem. We would have scoped him, he’d have had a feeding tube and we would have fixed his esophagus.
“That wasn’t possible there …and he died right after I left.”
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CJ’s CROSS COUNTRY TEAM STEPS UP
On the bus ride back out of Goma last year, Gleason said she just kept thinking, ‘I’m not done with this. I’ve got to follow through.’
“I figured there were two things I could do — get some equipment and supplies and get the word out. All those people dying and no one back here knows anything about it or why it’s happening.
“They tell you it’s an ethnic war, but it’s also about a mineral resource called coltan used in cell phones and computers. We need it, so we’re helping fuel the fight over it.”
She started Project Congo, a 501(c ) 3 charity to raise funds for life saving medical equipment and supplies for Don Bosco Ngangi. She launched a website www.projectcongo.org that explains the situation and tells people how they can help.
She also began speaking on the subject and it was after a talk at CJ that she was approached by Rachael Bridgman.
“She’s a pretty fine young woman,” Gleason said. “She wanted to do something and she followed through.”
Rachael lobbied her dad to make Project Congo the beneficiary of the annul CJ Varsity versus Alumni (and Others) Cross Country Race — called the Lucas Pfander Memorial Run — next Saturday, August 15 (5:30p.m.) at Triangle Park. Anyone can run for a minimal fee.
Gleason said the big thing next Saturday will be raising awareness — which often pays surprising dividends.
Rachael’s aunt, Dr. Anne Reddington, has given medical supplies and funds. The West Chester fire department has donated 35 oxygen canisters. The Sharonville fire department is considering donating an ambulance. A Cincinnati company gave 30 computers.
The VA Medical Center in New Orleans provided medical equipment — including a pair of X-ray machines — donated but unused after Hurricane Katrina.
Later this month, Sean will take their garage full of supplies — much of it bought by Gleason herself — by truck to New Orleans, where, with the rest of the stuff, including a CAT scan machine, it will be loaded into containers and sent by ship to Africa.
Although she said her husband worries about her safety, Gleason will return to Goma for a month at the end of this year — this time working with better equipment — and in years to come, she hopes to become more deeply involved in Project Congo.
“I keep going back to that bus ride out of there last year,” she said quietly. “I wanted to stay and help. I know what I’m doing is just a tiny drop in a bucket, but I couldn’t just sit back and do nothing.
“I truly believe that the smallest act of kindness can be worth something. Even if just one person is consoled through this, then you’ve done something for your fellow man.”
TweetA Shout-Out from Jimmy Buffett
It was late one summer night in the early 1970s.
I was down in Key West with my pal Capt. Tony Tarracino. We were sitting at the bar at his sagging, old saloon on Greene Street. He was chain smoking Lucky Strikes and nursing a beer as he told me fishing tales. I was drinking rum and trying to write down some of the stuff he was saying on my bar napkins.
A guy walked in off the street carrying a guitar and Tony called him over.
“This is Jimmy Buffett,” Tony said in that gravelly, smoke-cured voice. “One day he’s gonna be big.”
Buffett bellied up next to us and joined the conversation and from fishing stories we eventualy moved to talk of our families, especially our grandfathers.
Later, at Tony’s invite, Buffett went back to the bandstand and did a couple of songs. To be truthful I can’t remember the first one, but then he called out to Tony and me and said, “Here’s one you two might like.”
He sang “The Captain and The Kid” which is a story about his own granddad:
“I never used to miss the chance
to climb upon his knee and listen
to the many tales of life upon the sea.
We’d go sailing back on barkentines and
talk of things he did, tomorrow just a
day away for the Captain and the Kid.”
It was pretty magical listening to him right then and I remember thinking, “Tony’s right, this guy is something special.”
I’m reminded of that again now as some 20,000 Buffett fans — many of them from the Dayton area — turn Riverbend into Parrothead Nation tonight.
Buffett has sold out 48 straight shows in the Cincinnati area, going back to a half dozen concerts he did at Kings Island in the mid-1980s. In fact, that’s where the whole Parrothead concept began.
As Buffett writes on his website:
“Timothy B. Schmidt (Eagles bass player) was in the band, and we were playing a venue outside of Cincinnati called King’s Island. People had already started wearing Hawaiian shirts to our shows, but we looked out at this Cincinnati crowd, and they were glaringly brilliant to the point where it got our attention immediately. I said “Look at that!” Then Schmidt says to me, “They look like Deadheads in tropical suits. They’re like Parrot Heads!” He yelled to me in the middle of a song. So I immediately took the term and threw it over the microphone — the people identified themselves with the term from the get-go.”
That Buffett — a kid born in Mississippi and raised in Alabama — became the poster child of the tropics had a little to do with Tony.
The two first met late in 1971 when another of Tony’s pals — Jerry Jeff Walker — brought a mostly-broke Buffett down to Key West from Miami in his old Packard.
“Jimmy came in here, a kid from Alabama with cotton sticking out his ears, and I gave him a job,” Tony used to say. “Paid him $10 and a few beers and told him he had to play something people here identified with. I said, ‘Nobody sings about Key West - that could be your ticket.’
Years later Buffett’s paid triubute to Tony with The Last Mango in Paris. “
“I went down to Captain Tony’s
To get out of the heat,
And I heard a voice call out to me,
Son, come have a seat.
I have to search my memory
As I looked into those eyes,
Our lives change like weather
But a legend never dies.
I ate the last mango in Paris
I took the last plane out of Saigon,
I took the first fast boat to China,
And Jimmy, there’s still so much to be done.”
Captain Tony died last November 2. That night Buffett was playing a show in Tampa and from the stage he called out a tribute to his old buddy. When I heard about it it reminded me of that magical night so many years before when he did the same in Key West.
TweetFor Julio Castillo — baseball or ball…and chain?
If, for just a second, you set aside that much-talked-about Rawlings baseball from a year ago, picked up a crystal ball and looked inside, what would you see?
What’s going to happen to Julio Castillo this afternoon in the courtroom of Judge Connie S. Price?
The Montgomery County Common Pleas judge will render her verdict on the former Peoria Chiefs pitcher who — in the early stages of a bench-clearing brawl with the Dayton Dragons 13 months ago — threw a baseball into the stands at Fifth Third Field and injured a fan.
Castillo was arrested and charged with two counts of felonious assault, each punishable by eight years in prison. The fan, 45-year old Chris McCarthy of Middletown, suffered a concussion, was treated at Miami Valley Hospital, released a few hours later and said he suffered headaches at home for the next nine days.
Since then, he has received a cash settlement from the Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds, the parent clubs of the two minor league teams who were involved in the melee.
The three-day trail of the 22-year-old pitcher from the Dominican Republic was last month. Since Castillo waived the right to a jury trial, his fate is in the hands of Price.
In the days since the trial, everybody seems to have an opinion. I’ve talked to two local judges in the past few days who had very different ideas about what should happen to Castillo. One thought Castillo committed a felony, the other thought it was a misdemeanor — at best.
This afternoon Castillo can, among other things, be:
A. — convicted of one, or both, of the felonies.
B. — see the charge reduced and be convicted of a misdemeanor.
C. — be found not guilty of both charges.
My guess is B and I think that would be a reasonable compromise. If he were found guilty of say misdemeanor reckless assault, he could get a maximum 60 days in jail and a $500 fine. And if I were the judge I’d add a couple of other stipulations, as well.
But I don’t think he deserves eight years in prison, which would almost certainly follow with deportation, the end of his baseball career and what could still be a productive life.
And yet neither do I think he should not be made to shoulder responsibility for his actions, though everyone agrees he wasn’t trying to hit the fan and there is debate — the crux of the case — whether he was trying to hit a Dragons player or send a warning pitch to tell the on-charging Dayton players to get back into their dugout.
Castillo has paid some price already. He’s not been allowed to pitch for over a year and he paid some of McCarthy’s settlement out of his own shallow pockets.
Judge Price was going to issue a written verdict, then changed her mind and said she would announce her decision in court, with Castillo — who has been staying at the Cubs spring training complex in Arizona because he had to surrender his passport — present.
Her decision to have the pitcher here might well mean she’s going to find him guilty — of something. An innocent verdict — and his release — could have been handled in written form.
Regardless in a case has drawn such national interest, it’s probably better to do the whole thing face to face.
While McCarthy’s medical bills supposedly have been paid, Price should insist on a few other things from Castillo: A non-wiggle room probation, some kind of gratis work with people who have suffered head traumas, so he would learn, first hand, what can happen. And I’d make the Cubs — his employers the last five years since they signed him as an uneducated teen out of the Dominican — get him tutors or put him him in classes so he learns to read and write.
Right now, he can do neither — in Spanish or English. That’s inexcusable.
The Cubs certainly aren’t the only big league organization where this happens. You find guys like Castillo sprinkled all though the minor leagues, including over the years, the Dayton Dragon, who now, through the Reds. provide an English-as-a-second-language teacher for some bare-bones instruction, That’s a necessity because Major League teams sign young talent cheaply in the Caribbean and those kids give up on school, often to try to get their families out of poverty and always to chase that elusive dream.
Today Julio Castillo finds out where that dream is headed.
Will it include a baseball or a different ball? The one affixed to a chain.
TweetCOLUMN: Central State — Bare Heads, Big Dreams
WILBERFORCE — When you see his Central State office for the first time, everything seems to tie in…but the caps.
Behind his desk is an old picture of Alabama’s defensive end corps from the days when he was a two-time All American there. The bulky ring on his right hand is from the Crimson Tide’s 1979 national championship team.
A map of Ohio — a necessity for a new head football coach who is not from the area and needs to do some quick recruiting — is tacked up on the wall.
Not far away are photos of the two Pro Bowl teams he made as a hard-nosed NFL linebacker.
As for the old white polo shirt he wore — the one with a flame logo on the front — it was from his days as coach of NFL Europe’s Rhein Fire.
And then there were those new caps — one bearing a New York Yankees insignia, the other from the St. Louis Cardinals. A few weeks earlier the whole shelf had been filled with caps.
Is it a hobby?
“Not exactly,” E.J. Junior said with a laugh. “They’re collected from young men who wear them in the building. I’m trying to break them of that habit. I tell ‘em there’s no sun in here. When I grew up you never wore a hat in the presence of a lady and you took it off when you walked in a building. To me it’s disrespectful.
“Guys can get them back if they use their favor point. Each gets one. But that one cap there, the guy got caught twice in one day.”
CSU’s new coach said he has a similar policy with cell phones that go off in his meetings: “I either break ‘em or take ‘em.
“And I don’t let anybody wear their hips off their waist either,” he said of low-riding pants.
If the Marauders players — who meet on campus for their first preseason drills Tuesday, Aug. 4 — are wondering just who is running the show this year, Junior has two answers:
• He’s the guy who has been where they all want to be. A star of Bear Bryant’s Tide teams, Junior was taken by St. Louis — the fourth overall pick in the 1981 draft — played 13 NFL seasons for four different teams and then coached in the NFL and college.
• He’s also the guy who’s been where they don’t want to be. A few months shy of 50, he points to this hair which now sports patches of gray:
“People say, ‘You gonna dye it?’ and I say, ‘No, I earned it.’ It’s wisdom from mistakes, bumps, divorces, remarriages, drug matters. All that has become the lessons I try to teach these young men — don’t make some of the mistakes I once made.
“With me it’s live it — tell it.”
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JUST 10 WINS IN FOUR YEARS
Junior has a lot to tell and that’s why Central State athletic director Kellen Winslow has entrusted him with the difficult task of returning Marauder football, not just to the glory of the past, but to a lofty status far beyond those days of NAIA fame.
How tough will it be?
Although the team is now playing a full 11-game schedule at the NCAA Division II level, it still has no scholarships to offer, the program is on its third head coach in five seasons and CSU has lost 22 of its 32 games in the four years the school has fielded a team since dropping football for eight years.
And yet Junior is undaunted.
“Eventually our goal is to win the Division II title , become a competitive NCAA Division I-AA team and be able to play Ohio State or Cincinnati in their backyard…and beat ‘em.”
He said it without a flinch or a smile.
“You can do whatever you need to do if you believe.” he finally said.
“I think Appalachian State showed that with Michigan two years ago.”
As you listened — like those capless players — you wondered, ‘Just who is this guy?”
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LESSONS FROM BEAR BRYANT and DON SHULA
“I’ve been connected to HBCUs in some form since I was little,” Junior said of Historically Black Colleges and Universities. “I saw lots of Tennessee State games. My parents went to Morehouse and Spellman. So did my brother and sister.
“I call myself the white sheep of the family. I’m the only one who didn’t go to an HBCU.”
Recruited by over 100 football programs, he was academically gifted, as well, and had an appreciation of education.
His father was a professor and financial affairs vice president at Central State a decade ago. His mom was a high school principal in Nashville and his stepdad was a district superintendent there.
Junior chose Alabama after Bear Bryant visited his home and, as he put it “sealed the deal.”
As he speaks of the legendary coach, Junior does so with a mix of wondrous appreciation…and relief.
“When I think of Coach Bryant, I think of the discipline, the character and the class. He did everything with class. And he made ever player better.”
Of course he also has those memories of survival. He told of one of Bryant’s torturous practice sessions — called Gut Check — where he was left on the field during a marathon scrimmage for over 100 straight plays.
“We survived that and I remember during the ‘79 title game (against Penn State in the Sugar Bowl) Marty Lyons looking at us in the huddle and said ‘Remember Gut Check? Anybody tired?’ None of us were.”
Junior’s pro career took him to St. Louis — and Arizona when the Cardinals moved there — then to Miami, Tampa Bay and Seattle.
Early on — in February of 1983 — he nearly derailed his life when he was sentenced to two years in prison for cocaine possession, given three years probation and suspended for the first four games of the season.
He went on to become part of the NFL’s Drug Advisory Committee, had his greatest years as a pro right after that, became an ordained minister and formulated some lessons that still guide him today.
“I don’t hide from that,” he said. “It was a mistake I made and thankfully God stepped in early in my use. Had I gone deeper into it, I could easily be dead or in prison.
“So now I use it as a teaching tool. When young guys are tempted to do drugs I can say, ‘Been there — don’t do it.’ There’s no such thing as recreational drug use. It’s like taking a .357 Magnum, putting in one bullet, spinning it and firing at your head. I remember Len Bias, Don Rogers, a lot of guys who didn’t walk away from drugs.”
The lessons he learned on the field came from coaches like Bryant, Don Shula and Sylvester Croom, then a young Tide assistant whom he now calls his mentor.
He also credits Keith Allen, the head coach at Southwest Baptist University, with whom he coached the past three seasons after serving as Seattle’s linebackers coach and the Dolphins’ Director of Player Development.
“Ironically, back in 1999 I had written a memoir to God that I wanted to coach in the NFL for several years and be the head coach of a historically black college by the time I turned 50,” he said. “I was worried I wouldn’t get there on the last part.”
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A DIFFERENT TEAM THAN LAST YEAR?
When Winslow called in March and asked that he apply for the CSU job — after Al West and some of his staff had been fired following the 2-7 season — Junior thought the AD was joking:
“I know he’s a practical joker, so all I could say the first five minutes of our conversation was ‘Are you kidding me?’”
The two men had first gotten to know each other in 1978 when Alabama came from behind to beat Winslow’s Missouri team thanks, in part, to a blocked punt by Junior. Later, they met on opposite sides of the field as pros.
“The way he tells it, his DNA is under my fingernails,” Junior laughed. “But I’m here to tell you, my DNA is under his. His San Diego team usually got the best of us.”
Junior accepted the job sight unseen and now has put together a staff that includes four former NFL players, including offensive coordinator Ben Coates, the 10-year NFL tight end, who made five Pro Bowls, was a Super Bowl XXXV champ with Baltimore and coached tight ends with the Cleveland Browns.
Junior said 90 players — some returnees, others who were newly recruited or have just showed up on campus with the proper grades and film — have been invited to Tuesday’s camp. Several other players will be given try-outs when school starts Aug. 17, just 12 days before CSU opens at West Virginia State,
Junior believes the team will be more disciplined than he said it was a year ago. He’s also told his players they need to be in better physical shape and mentally tougher:
“I tell the parents ‘I’m gonna love your kids up when they do right, but when they do wrong, I’m gonna fuss ‘em up and down.’”
And that’s why, at CSU these days, caps are stacking up on the shelf and young, bare heads are now filling with football dreams.
TweetE.J. Junior: Looking to Upset OSU
WILBERFORCE — When he first heard the proposition, he thought it was a joke.
E.J. Junior was the defensive coordinator at Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, Missouri when Kellen Winslow called this past March.
The new Central State athletics director was making drastic changes in his fledgling football program. Last year’s head coach Al West, offensive coordinator and former CSU All-American Henderson Mosley and a couple of other coachers were out after a 2-7 campaign.
“He asked me if I’d throw my hat into the ring,” Junior said. “But I know he’s a practical joker, so all I could say the first five minutes of our conversation was ‘Are you kidding me?’”
The two men — both former All Americans and trumpeted NFL pros — had played against each other in college and the NFL.
“The way he tells it, his DNA is under my fingernails,” Junior laughed. “But I’m here to tell you, my DNA is under his. His San Diego (Chargers) team usually got the best of us.”
From that DNA, Winslow knew that in Junior he was getting a guy who had played for some of the legendary coaches in the game, had himself coached at the pro and college level, was an ordained minister and also could impart some sobering life lessons learned away from football.
Junior talked to me abouit all this and much more a couple of days ago and that’s the subject of my column in today’s newspaoper. The story is also posted up above on this web page
Although he has no scholarships to offer this year and CSU has won just 10 games in the four seasons since football’s revival on campus — following eight years in mothballs — Junior has put together a staff that includes four former NFL players, believes his 2009 team will play with more discipline and be in better shape than he thinks last year’s Marauders were in and already is embracing some far-reaching dreams for the future:
“Eventually our goal is to become a competitive NCAA Division I-AA team and be able to play Ohio State or the University of Cincinnati in their backyard…and beat ‘em.”
Think what you want, but to E.J. Junior, that proposition is no joke.
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