HAMPTON, Virginia -- Hampton basketball senior point guard and 2015 Mid Eastern Athletic Conference Tournament Most Valuable Player, Deron Powers, has decided to transfer.
"Honestly, I want to play for a better program," Powers, a Williamsburg, Va. native, told The Daily Press of Hampton. "I'm definitely up for anything, and it doesn't have to be at the highest level. There are a lot of good programs I wouldn't mind going to, but I am looking for a higher profile team that needs a point guard."
Powers, considered one of the best point guards in the MEAC and a third team all-conference selection, averaged 10.1 points, 29th best in the conference and fourth best on the Pirates squad, 3.8 rebounds and 3.1 assists, fifth in the league. A former MEAC rookie of the year, Powers played three years for Hampton and is fifth on the school's all-time assist list.
The decision is odd considering that he led the Pirates, a fifth seed, to the MEAC tournament title and then guided them to a win over Manhattan in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Hampton lost to top seed Kentucky in the second round. All three games were nationally televised. Powers joins a list of MEAC standouts who have decided to transfer following the 2014-15 season.
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Thursday, July 2, 2015
Wednesday, July 1, 2015
Harris-Stowe State University Hires Hana Haden as Women’s Head Basketball Coach
“After a national search of very qualified candidates, Coach Haden emerged as the best fit for our women’s basketball program. I am positive that she will excel here at Harris-Stowe,” said Jamaal Mayo, athletic director, Harris-Stowe State University. “Coach Haden has connections in St. Louis and across the country and I look forward to her attracting quality young women to Harris-Stowe and developing those ladies into champions on and off the basketball court.”
Haden is a 2014 graduate of Western Carolina University, where she earned her bachelor's degree in Communications and served as a team captain for the Catamount women’s basketball team. As a senior she led the team in scoring once and scored in double figures five times; averaging 4.5 points per game and tied in assists with 32.
“I look forward to leading our young ladies on the court, as well as being an inspiration in helping them achieve the ultimate goal of a four year degree.” Haden said. “I see many great things in the future and couldn't be more excited to join the Hornet family during this new era for Harris-Stowe athletics.”
Prior to graduating from Western Carolina, Haden attended the University of Missouri-St. Louis and spent one season at Mineral Area Junior College, where she was named Honorable Mention All-Region. Originally from Springfield, Mo., Haden attended high school at Oak Hill Academy in Mouth of Wilson, Va.
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Harris-Stowe State University’s Athletics Department Hires Alfred Williams as Men’s Head Basketball Coach
ST. LOUIS, Missouri -- Harris-Stowe State University (HSSU) has hired Alfred Williams as its head coach of the Hornet's men's basketball program, the school announced today.Williams, 31, has served on head coach Dannton Jackson's staff at his alma mater Xavier University of Louisiana for the past six seasons (2009-15). During Williams' tenure as an assistant coach, the Gold Rush were 139-55 with three consecutive Gulf Coast Athletic Conference regular-season championships (2011-12, 2012-13 and 2013-14) and five consecutive appearances at the Buffalo Funds-NAIA Division I National Championships (2011-15).
"We're thrilled to welcome Coach Williams to St. Louis and into the Harris-Stowe State University family," said Harris-Stowe Director of Athletics Jamaal Mayo. "He comes from incredible basketball pedigree and will be an outstanding leader for our men's basketball program and a phenomenal mentor for our student-athletes."
As a player for the Gold Rush, Williams is one of three players in Xavier's storied basketball history to achieve the 800 points, 500 rebounds and 150 assists milestone his career.
"I believe we have a great opportunity to do some amazing things at Harris-Stowe and we'll be working hard to get a little better every day," said Williams. "I look forward to sharing my passion for the game and bringing a thrilling and fun style of basketball to Hornet Nation, exciting the student-body and the entire St. Louis community."
Williams is a native of Greenville, S.C. and a 2008 graduate of Xavier University of Louisiana, where he earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration. After graduation, Williams returned to South Carolina to work with his brother Eric Williams. Eric is the founder and CEO of Fundamentals IV Success, Inc., a non-profit community agency that offers educational, personal and athletic assistance to basketball student-athletes.
Williams' other brother, Shammond was a four-year letterman at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and helped lead the Tar Heels to three NCAA Final Four appearances. Shammond went on to play 13 years professionally, which includes seven in the NBA. Currently Shammond is coaching college basketball in New Orleans as an assistant at Tulane.
COURTESY HARRIS-STOWE STATE UNIVERSITY SPORTS INFORMATION
XU Alum Washington Claims his spot in Louisiana Sports Hall
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| Facebook video of acceptance speech |
"It was never, ever, ever about me," said Washington, a 1961 Xavier University of Louisiana graduate and a Selma, Ala., native. "I just went along for the ride. And boy, what a ride."
Washington coached St. Augustine High School of New Orleans to Class 4A state football championships in 1975, 1978 and 1979 and a 4A runner-up berth in 1971. He left St. Aug after the 1979 season and was an assistant coach at LSU for one season, then head coach at Southern University from 1981-86. He also was an assistant coach at Tulane and director of the New Orleans Police Athletic League.
"Otis Washington brought discipline, character, excellence and leadership to St. Aug's football program," said former St. Aug athletics director Emmett Moten, Washington's presenter. "And he brought a can-do, never-say-can't attitude."
Washington thanked many who helped him achieve the honor, including his wife of 48 years, Linda, also an XU graduate.
"She has endured untold numbers of Sunday film sessions at our home and many evenings alone as I prepared for each week's upcoming game," Washington said. "She has endured taunts and barbs from boorish fans and through it all remains my greatest support, my rock. She has served as a surrogate mother to literally dozens of young men. I can't imagine having accomplished any of this without her. I could not possibly end without thanking her."
Washington, who starred in football and baseball as a Xavier student, also is a member of the Allstate Sugar Bowl Hall of Fame (inducted 1994), the Louisiana High School Sports Hall of Fame (2012) and the New Orleans High School Sports Hall of Fame.
Also inducted Saturday were football's Leonard Smith, Kevin Faulk, Jake Delhomme and Pat Collins, softball's Yvette Girouard, horse racing's Frank Brothers and and basketball's Avery Johnson, a St. Aug graduate. A sellout crowd of 831 was in attendance for dinner and inductions at the Natchitoches Events Center. There are nearly 400 members in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, including recipients of the Dave Dixon Louisiana Sports Leadership Award and the Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism. The first induction class was in 1959.
"There's not a nicer, classier guy in this room tonight than Otis Washington," Collins said.
Ed Cassiere, Sports Information Director
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Xavier's Alfred Williams Named Head Coach at Harris-Stowe
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| HEAD COACH ALFRED WILLIAMS MEN'S BASKETBALL HARRIS-STOWE STATE UNIVERSITY |
Williams, 31, was a Xavier men's basketball assistant coach the past six seasons (2009-15) and served a vital role in one of the most successful periods in Gold Rush history. Williams also played three seasons for the Gold Rush (2004-05, 2006-07 and 2007-08).
Harris-Stowe is in St. Louis and a member of the NAIA Division I American Midwest Conference. Like Xavier, it is a historically black university.
"I am definitely looking forward to the opportunity and the challenge," said Williams, whose final day at Xavier was June 22. "I have spent 10 years (at Xavier) with coach (Dannton) Jackson. I have seen just about everything I could see and learn from him. The amount of preparation we did with coach Jackson will help me at Harris-Stowe. I give thanks to the Xavier family for all the support I got here."
Williams succeeds Phillip Hunt, who coached the Hornets for six seasons. Harris-Stowe was 6-24 overall this past season and 5-17 (tied for 10th place) in the American Midwest.
"I'm going to take what I learned here at Xavier and take it to Harris-Stowe with a new energy, a new mentality," Williams said. "We'll be working hard at it every day."
During Williams' tenure as an assistant coach, the Gold Rush were 139-55 with three consecutive Gulf Coast Athletic Conference regular-season championships (2011-12, 2012-13 and 2013-14) and a school-record five consecutive appearances at the Buffalo Funds-NAIA Division I National Championship (2011-15). Xavier's 121 victories from 2010-11 through 2014-15 are the second-winningest five years in the program history, topped only by the Gold Rush's 126 victories from 1936-37 through 1940-41.
"I am proud of Alfred," said Jackson, who has a Gold Rush-record 273 victories in 12 seasons. "Harris-Stowe is getting a very good basketball coach and a very good young man who will care for the university and take care of their student-athletes. From a leadership standpoint, he is prepared."
As a 6-foot-4 forward he averaged 8.4 points and 5.8 rebounds in 97 career games and helped Xavier earn a share of the 2006-07 GCAC regular-season championship and qualify for the NAIA national tourney in 2005, 2007 and 2008. He was All-GCAC his senior year when he averaged 11.4 points and a team-leading seven rebounds per game.
Williams is one of three Gold Rush players with 800 points, 500 rebounds and 150 assists in a career. Williams shot 41.1 percent from 3-point range in his career to rank fourth in Xavier history. His blocked shot and ensuing tiebreaking basket with seven seconds remaining lifted Xavier to an 82-79 victory over third-seeded Georgetown (Ky.) in the opening round of the 2007 NAIA nationals at Kansas City, Mo. — the first opening-round victory for the Rush since 1973.
After receiving his bachelor of science degree from Xavier in 2008 and before returning to the university, Williams worked in his native Greenville, S.C., with his brother Eric for Fundamentals 4 Success, a non-profit community agency which offers educational, personal and athletic assistance to basketball student-athletes.
Another brother, Shammond Williams, is the University of North Carolina's career leader in 3-point field goals made and is second in career free-throw percentage. Shammond played 13 years professionally — seven in the NBA — and coaches college basketball in New Orleans, too. Shammond in 2014-15 completed his second season as an assistant at Tulane.
Xavier was 24-10 in 2014-15, finished second in the GCAC regular season and tournament and ranked 21st in the postseason poll. The Gold Rush have the NAIA's longest active streak of top-25 appearances, 50.
Xavier hopes to replace Williams as soon as possible. "There are enormous shoes to be filled here," Jackson said, "but we are really happy for Alfred."
Xavier's legacy of educating head coaches dates to the 1940s, when Leonidas Epps joined Clark College of Atlanta and eventually won SIAC men's championships in football, basketball, golf and track and field. Other college head coaches Xavier produced include Marino Casem, Doug Porter and Otis Washington — all football hall-of-famers — and Jackson, Dale Valdery and Bernard Griffith in basketball. Former Jackson players now coaching include Landon Bussie at Prairie View A&M (women's basketball assistant) and Shaun Dumas (boys basketball head coach) at Crescent City Christian High School in Metairie, La. Ryan DeRousselle, Nick Haywood and Devin Andrew were Gold Rush assistants this past season. In addition, John Ashaolu is director of athletics and student programs at Community College of Beaver County in Monaca, Pa.XU assistants under Jackson still coaching include Kim Lewis, entering his fifth season as an assistant at the University of Richmond, and Jason Flanigan, entering his 11th season as head coach at Holmes Community College in Goodman, Mississippi.
Ed Cassiere, Sports Information Director
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'The Secret Game' review: How a scrappy basketball team challenged segregation — and won
THE SECRET GAME
Scott Ellsworth
ISBN: 9780316244619
ISBN-10: 0316244619
Publisher: Little Brown and Company
Publication Date: March 10th, 2015
Pages: 400
Amazon Books: Kindle: $12.99; Hardcover: $19.47; Audible: $20.95 or Free
DURHAM, North Carolina -- At 11 a.m. on a Sunday in March of 1944, two of the best college basketball teams in the United States did something unthinkable.
They played each other.
No cameras, no cheerleaders, no screaming fans greeted the players as they took position on the court. In fact, the gym had been locked in an effort to keep spectators out. The reason for the secrecy was simple. The Duke Medical School team was white. The North Carolina College (North Carolina Central University, today) team was black. And in 1944, the color line in Durham, N.C., ran right through the basketball court. Crossing that line was not just an act of defiance — it was against the law.
This extraordinary contest — one of the first times in basketball history that a black team squared off against a white team at the college level — constitutes the focal point of Scott Ellsworth's compelling history, "The Secret Game: A Wartime Story of Courage, Change, and Basketball's Lost Triumph." But the book is about far more than a single game. It's about the evolution of a sport, the tortured legacy of race and repression, and about how basketball, which for decades had served as an instrument to defend segregation, became a tool to undermine it.
Ellsworth, a former Portland resident, combines an irresistible narrative with outsized characters, particularly the North Carolina Central coach, John McLendon, who came of age in the Great Depression, as basketball fever was sweeping across the Midwest. Too poor to afford a ball, McLendon and his friends tossed rocks and socks through a playground hoop. His stepmother forbid him to have anything to do with the game unless he read the bible for an hour every day and swore off coffee, soda, snuff, cigarettes, and alcohol.
CONTINUE READING
READ RELATED ARTICLES
Original New York Times article by Scott Ellsworth in PDF Format
Duke University Alumni Magazine article by Scott Ellsworth in PDF Format
The Hartford Courant article by Dom Amore in PDF Format
Scott Ellsworth
ISBN: 9780316244619
ISBN-10: 0316244619
Publisher: Little Brown and Company
Publication Date: March 10th, 2015
Pages: 400
Amazon Books: Kindle: $12.99; Hardcover: $19.47; Audible: $20.95 or Free
 |
| Coach John B. McLendon North Carolina Central University (Photo Courtesy: NCCU Eagles Athletics) |
They played each other.
No cameras, no cheerleaders, no screaming fans greeted the players as they took position on the court. In fact, the gym had been locked in an effort to keep spectators out. The reason for the secrecy was simple. The Duke Medical School team was white. The North Carolina College (North Carolina Central University, today) team was black. And in 1944, the color line in Durham, N.C., ran right through the basketball court. Crossing that line was not just an act of defiance — it was against the law.
This extraordinary contest — one of the first times in basketball history that a black team squared off against a white team at the college level — constitutes the focal point of Scott Ellsworth's compelling history, "The Secret Game: A Wartime Story of Courage, Change, and Basketball's Lost Triumph." But the book is about far more than a single game. It's about the evolution of a sport, the tortured legacy of race and repression, and about how basketball, which for decades had served as an instrument to defend segregation, became a tool to undermine it.
Ellsworth, a former Portland resident, combines an irresistible narrative with outsized characters, particularly the North Carolina Central coach, John McLendon, who came of age in the Great Depression, as basketball fever was sweeping across the Midwest. Too poor to afford a ball, McLendon and his friends tossed rocks and socks through a playground hoop. His stepmother forbid him to have anything to do with the game unless he read the bible for an hour every day and swore off coffee, soda, snuff, cigarettes, and alcohol.
CONTINUE READING
READ RELATED ARTICLES
Original New York Times article by Scott Ellsworth in PDF Format
Duke University Alumni Magazine article by Scott Ellsworth in PDF Format
The Hartford Courant article by Dom Amore in PDF Format
Lynn Thompson Receives Promotion from B-CU President
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| LYNN W. THOMPSON VICE PRESIDENT FOR INTERCOLLEGIATE ATHLETICS Photo Courtesy: Bethune-Cookman University Athletics |
Thompson, a native of Daytona Beach, Florida and 1980 graduate of Bethune-Cookman College, has served as Director of Athletics at Bethune-Cookman since 1991, recently completing his 24th year at the helm in Daytona Beach. Currently, B-CU has a total of 17 intercollegiate sports, all of them competing on the Division I level of athletics.
“We are so proud of the accomplishments of Wildcats Athletics under the direction of Lynn W. Thompson,” said Dr. Jackson. “Under his leadership, Bethune-Cookman Athletics has become a championship program across the board with impressive academic performances of the student-athletes, conference championships and NCAA postseason bids in several of our sports. More importantly, his integrity, leadership and creative vision for branding Wildcats Athletics has opened doors for the entire university, and we are pleased to have him join the senior leadership and university cabinet as we further the mission of our institution.”
During Thompson’s tenure at Bethune-Cookman, he has served in several Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) leadership roles. On the national level, he became the first African-American to chair the NCAA Baseball Rules Committee, and also served as a member of the NCAA Division I Baseball Committee, the NCAA I-AA Football (now Football Championship Subdivision) Committee and the NCAA Football Issues Committees. Thompson has vast experience in creating policy for intercollegiate athletics on a national level. He has also served as chairman of the MEAC Basketball and Baseball Tournaments, and has been selected five times as an NCAA Peer Reviewer for the athletics certification process.
“Thompson is known across the nation as an outstanding athletic administrator who is highly respected and sought after,” continued Dr. Jackson. “We are extremely happy to have him remain as the leader of our program for years to come.”
During his tenure overseeing a sports program that is known throughout the nation, Thompson has directed the Wildcats to a total of 64 championships, beginning with 44 MEAC championships, including a dynasty of 12 baseball titles in the past 15 years; a run of five consecutive softball titles from 2000-2004 – as well as three addition consecutive titles from 2010-12. B-CU Football has won a total of six MEAC titles, including at least a share of the last three consecutive from 2012-14.
“I am humbled by the opportunity to join with Dr. Jackson and his cabinet to push forward the agenda of Bethune-Cookman University,” commented Thompson. “Dr. Jackson clearly understands the impact that a successful athletic program can have on the entire university, and I look forward to assisting in implementing his vision.”
B-CU’s golf programs for women and men have won a total of 20 PGA National Minority Golf Championship (13 women, 7 men) titles, featuring an international roster from all around the world. The men’s program won the inaugural 2014 MEAC Golf Championship, earning the school’s first-ever team bid to the NCAA Regionals in Raleigh, North Carolina. B-CU track & field has trained an indoor/outdoor NCAA hurdling champion, and were represented by the Wildcats’ first ever Olympian in the 2012 London Olympic Games. In 2015, B-CU Men’s Track & Field swept the indoor and outdoor MEAC crowns, while defending the outdoor title from a season ago.
Away from the athletic fields, Thompson is heavily involved in the B-CU Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA), where his office is constantly open for prayer and consultation with all students. He served as a staff pastor at Calvary Christian Center in Ormond Beach, Florida, for over 10 years in addition to leading the men’s ministry.
A veteran television and radio producer and personality, Thomp
son has utilized his experience in the media with the development of B-CU’s CatEye Network which produces and distributes programs on television, live streaming of Wildcats athletic events, and he also serves as executive producer of the various B-CU coach’s television shows and the CatEye Radio Network. In addition to his duties as Director of Athletics, he was recently named as chair of the advisory committee for the university’s acquisition and management team of WELE 1380 The Cat radio station located in Ormond Beach, Florida.
For the latest information on Bethune-Cookman Wildcats Athletics, follow us on Twitter (@BCUathletics), Instagram (BCUathletics), Facebook (facebook.com/BCUathletics), or visit us at www.bcuathletics.com.
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