Wheeler Brown dismissed as A&T athletics director

GREENSBORO, N.C. — In his most high-profile move since a student collapsed and died in an unofficial track practice, N.C. A&T Chancellor Harold Martin fired athletics director Wheeler Brown on Friday.

“I commit to you that I will take constructive steps to move our athletics program in a different direction,” Martin said during a news conference at the school.

Brown’s dismissal comes nearly two months after sophomore Jospin “Andre” Milandu, 20, of Knightdale, died on Aug. 19 due to complications of sickle cell trait. He was one of several students participating in the tryout without medical paperwork required by the NCAA.

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Chancellor Memo

Courtesy: NC A&T Sports Information
Release: 10/15/2010

TO: University Community
FROM: Chancellor Harold L. Martin, Sr.
DATE: October 15, 2010
RE: Milandu Internal Investigation Closed

On yesterday, the North Carolina Office of the Chief Medical Examiner released the autopsy report for our former student, Jospin "Andre" Milandu, showing that he died as a result of "complications of sickle cell trait." Andre, a sophomore from Knightdale, North Carolina, was described by his peers as a caring and kind-hearted young man. His presence has been and will continue to be missed at North Carolina A&T State University.

This continues to be a sad time for the University family, the Department of Athletics, and one beyond measure for the Milandu family. As a parent, my heart continues to ache for Andre's family and friends.

We deeply regret Andre's loss. Since my arrival at North Carolina A&T, I have consistently stressed the importance of adherence to University policies, practices and procedures with all University administrators. This has been reaffirmed throughout my tenure, and even more so since this tragic incident. I commit to you that I will take constructive steps to move our athletics program in a different direction.

Today, I have discontinued the employment of our Athletics Director, Wheeler Brown. I have asked Dr. Deborah Callaway, Special Assistant to the Chancellor, to assume administrative oversight for the immediate future until an interim Athletics Director is named within the next week. I will immediately launch an aggressive, national search for a new leader of our Athletics program.

This new leadership for Athletics will be expected to bring significant managerial and leadership skills, knowledge of Athletics, the ability to develop a high performing organization and the ability to manage the necessary cultural changes to ensure enhanced services, transparency and individual accountability.

Let us continue to pray for the Milandu family.

North Carolina A&T Remembers Jospin Milandu

Greensboro, NC -- Students and faculty at North Carolina A&T remembered a student who died on campus last week. Jospin Milandu collapsed and died Thursday during a track team tryout from complications of an elevated heart rate. Milandu was a 20-year-old sophomore from Knightdale, which is east of Raleigh.

Today, his family and friends gathered to celebrate his life...



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Former Morgan State track star named Fulbright Scholar

Former Morgan State University track star Dakari Taylor-Watson was recently named a Fulbright scholar and will be heading to Terengganu, Malaysia, for 10 months next January to teach English to secondary school students.

Taylor-Watson, who earned a degree in biology from MSU in 2009, was chosen by the international educational exchange program. The program is sponsored by the State Department based on academic merit and leadership potential to study and teach abroad.

Former Bear Dakari Taylor-Watson will travel to Malaysia for 10 months to teach English to secondary scholars as a Fulbright Scholar. (Courtesy Photo/MSU Sports Information).

The 23-year-old told the AFRO that he will also volunteer in a hospital or clinic while in Malaysia, and has plans of applying to medical school when he returns to the United States. As for spending nearly a year away in a foreign country, it’s not something Watson hasn’t experienced before. He moved to Paris for three weeks as an exchange student when he was 10, not long after his mother, Aisya Taylor-Watson, died of cancer. Taylor-Watson believes his mother’s spirit travels with him everywhere he goes.

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Lakeland alum gets Hampton University Pirates out of the blocks

Predist Walker, Position: Hurdles/Relays, Height: 5-11, Weight: 158, Class: Junior, Hometown: Suffolk, VA, High School: Lakeland HS.

HAMPTON, VA — Anyone who thinks track isn’t really a team sport should chat with Hampton’s Predist Walker. Walker, a junior for the Pirates and a Lakeland graduate, is the first leg of Hampton University’s 4x100-meter relay team and what a team it’s been during this outdoor season. The Pirates set a new school record and a new MEAC (Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference) record (39.71 seconds) in winning the conference crown in early May.

Last weekend, in the NCAA East Regional in Greensboro, N.C., the Pirates took more time off their new school record with a time of 39.55 seconds. More importantly, HU’s relay team qualified for the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Eugene, Ore. June 9-12. Hampton’s time is the ninth-best time in NCAA Div. I this season. In addition to the outstanding, and steadily improving, times for the Pirate sprinters, the team is as unified as any sports squad around. In fact, it’s part of why they’re having success. “We’ve been together since our freshman year, so we’ve built a real connection. We’re pretty much like brothers,” Walker said.

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Savannah State Signs Track and Field Dynamo

Mapp Ivey isn’t one to say ‘I told you so.’ But the Social Circle High School coach knew he was dealing with a special athlete nine year’s ago as a first-year elementary school physical education teacher. Sitting in the audience at the end-of-the-year award’s ceremony at Social Circle Elementary School, Ivey watched as young Asia Stinson was given the “PE Award” for being the best among his students. Two weeks ago, Ivey was again sitting among the crowd, this time at Hugh Mills Stadium in Albany as Stinson was crowned one of the best athletes in the state (Georgia).

The Lady Redskins senior won gold medals in two events and finished fourth in a third at the Georgia High School Association Girls Track and Field meet. When the dust settled, she was the top individual scorer with 24 points, almost single-handedly leading her team to an eighth-place overall finish. “She’s a special person,” said Ivey, who also coached Stinson on the school’s basketball team the past two years. “I told her parents a while back that track would be her ticket out of here.” Right again. A week before her heroics, Stinson received a track scholarship from Savannah State University (Division I, Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference).

At a diminutive 5-foot, 105 pounds, Stinson’s physical presence hardly strikes fear in an opponent. But when the basketball is tossed or the starting gun sounds, she’s often head-and-shoulders above her competition. As the starting point guard this past winter, she helped guide the Lady Redskins to the second round of the state tournament. She averaged five points, four assists, two steals and two rebounds and was named the team’s “Most Improved Player” at season’s end. But for the past four years, she’s been the most valuable player on the track team, qualifying for the state meet every spring.

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Norfolk Women Wins MEAC Indoor Track Championship

LANDOVER, MD — The Norfolk State women’s track team moved one step closer to completing the cross country and track and field MEAC sweep on Saturday when they tallied 159 points en route to their first MEAC indoor track and field title since 2000 at the Prince George’s Sports and Learning Complex. A total group effort carried the Spartans to victory as they scored in each event they participated in.

“Our expectations were there and our ladies performed in every event,” said head coach Ronda Berard, who was named the Women’s Outstanding Coach. “The women put their heart into it and I’m extremely proud of the full they gave. To win the championship on both the men’s and women’s side is exceptional,” stated Berard.

Elaine Rhoades (Norfolk, Va.) was named the Outstanding Field Performer after scoring 17 points in three events. She finished second in both the pentathlon (3,394 points) and the triple jump (39 feet, 6 inches) and came in eighth in the long jump (17-5 ¾). NSU dominated the pole vault for the second straight year by taking the top four spots in the event. Katie Wright (Virginia Beach, Va.) defended her 2009 title by clearing 10-2 ¼ for the win. Candace Shoates (Newport News, Va.) was the runner-up (9-8 ½) and Andrea Saunders (Chesapeake, Va.) and Ashleigh Joseph (Chesapeake, Va.) tied for third after clearing 8-8 ¾.

Final Results Photo Gallery

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Norfolk State Spartan Men Win Record 5th Straight MEAC Indoor Track Title

LANDOVER, MD – The Norfolk State men’s track & field team was in a record-breaking mindset on Saturday, tallying a meet-record 188 points en route to its MEAC-record fifth consecutive indoor championship at the Prince George’s Sports & Learning Complex. NSU broke its own record for points at the indoor meet, surpassing the 2008 title team’s total of 170. Saturday’s biggest star was first-year sophomore Sean Holston (Springfield, Va.), who earned a sweep of the men’s 200 and 400 meters. He just missed a meet-record with a winning time of 47.88 seconds in the 400, and a short while later set a new meet standard with his winning time of 21.32 seconds in the 200.

Holston claimed half of NSU’s four individual wins on Saturday. Senior Raphael Hall (Chesapeake, Va.) won the high jump (6 feet, 8.75 inches) and sophomore Philemon Kimutai (Eldoret, Kenya) won the mile (4:16.24). That trio of winners joined pole vaulter Brett Dodd (San Antonio, Tex.), 3,000-meter winner Amos Kipkosgei (Eldoret, Kenya) and the victorious distance medley relay team to give NSU a total of seven victories in the two-day event.

Final Results Photo Gallery

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Star jumper making leap from Norfolk State to Florida State

Nothing against Norfolk State, Marlon Woods said, but the six-time MEAC high jump champion feels he's topped out there. So Woods, a Booker T. Washington graduate, is making another jump - transferring to Florida State. "I feel there wasn't a lot more for me to accomplish in the conference or at the school, other than to graduate," he said. Woods, who has a year of eligibility remaining, plans to graduate from Florida State, where he'll enroll in January and compete in the indoor and outdoor seasons. He's taking classes at NSU through this semester and should complete his degree in sociology next December, he said.

The move, he admits, is more about athletics. Woods was disappointed in his 2009 outdoor season. Though he was named Most Outstanding Performer at the MEAC championships, he failed to qualify for the NCAA championships in the high jump, clearing just 6-10-1/4 at the East Regional. He has jumped as high as 7-2-3/4, and qualified for the NCAAs as a sophomore. Woods also failed to qualify in the long jump, after earning All-American honors during the indoor season.

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Racial Taunting Results in Spring Break Gunfire

Carlton K. Phipps is a 6-0 junior sprint/middle distance runner from Lynchburg, VA majoring in computer science.

DAYTONA BEACH, FL -- A Norfolk State University student and a track coach are behind bars after police say they responded to racial taunts with gunfire. Daytona Beach Police arrested 21-year-old Carlton Kenneth Phipps and 23-year-old Raymond Eric Brown early Sunday. Phipps is a junior at Norfolk State and a member of the MEAC champion track team. Brown, a graduate of the university, is currently a track coach. Both were on spring break vacation.

Detectives say around 3:30 a.m. officers responded to a disturbance at Sea Oats Resort in the 2500 block of South Atlantic Avenue. Witnesses told police Phipps and Brown, who are both black, were sitting in a hot tub with three black girls when a group of about 15 white spring breakers approached them using racial slurs.

Witnesses say Brown and Phipps ignored the comments for some time, then left the pool area and came back with guns. Reports say Brown told the group if they didn't leave his friends alone he would shoot one of them. Witnesses tell police the group kept saying slurs as they walked away. Brown fired 2 shots into the air and Phipps followed with 3 more. Witnesses say the group continued to yell slurs as they ran off. No one was wounded by the gun shots. Two of the girls who were with Brown and Phipps were injured as they jumped over a wall when the shots were fired.

Police say Phipps and Brown ran off and buried their guns on the beach. Investigators recovered the weapons shortly after arriving.

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Former FAMU Willie Johnson named assistant coach at Radford University

Excerpt:

Johnson joins the Radford University staff after two years as a graduate assistant/jumps coach for the Marshall University women's team, where he guided two All-Conference USA performers and three school record holders. In May, Johnson earned his Master's Degree in athletic administration from Marshall.

The Orlando, Florida native excelled as a collegiate triple jumper at both Florida A&M University and Florida State University. As a Seminole, Johnson was a two-time NCAA All-American (2003-04), and earned All-Atlantic Coast Conference accolades three times in the outdoor triple jump (2003-05) and once in the indoor triple jump (2004).

At FAMU, he was an All-Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference honoree in the indoor and outdoor triple jump (2002). Johnson earned a B.S. in physical education at FSU in 2005.

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Bethune Cookman's Ash finishes 3rd in 110m hurdles

TOLUCA, Mexico -- Bethune-Cookman rising sophomore Ronnie Ash finished third in the 110-meter hurdles at the North America, Central America and Caribbean Under-23 Track & Field Championships.

The 19-year-old All-American finished in 13.72 seconds behind winner and fellow American Jason Richardson. Ash, who is recovering from a strained hamstring, also finished third to Richardson, who attends the University of South Carolina, in last month's NCAA Track and Field Championships.

"I'm happy with him coming off the aches and pains," B-CU track and field coach Garfield Ellenwood said. "He hadn't actually raced since the NCAAs. It's been a great year for him."

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NSU Announces 2008-09 Track & Field Recruiting Class

NORFOLK, Va. – Norfolk State University men’s track and field coach Kenneth Giles announced Friday the addition of 11 athletes to his program, which has won the last three MEAC indoor and outdoor titles.

Giles signed an array of accomplished sprinters, hurdles, middle distance specialists and throwers who he feels will help NSU remain among the top track programs on the East Coast. The recruiting class includes two national champions and five state champions.

Leading the list of sprinters to join the Spartans is Sean Holston (Fairfax, Va./Robert E. Lee HS). Holston, a 2007 high school graduate who originally signed with Florida State, has enrolled at NSU and plans to join the track team this season. He won the 200 and 400 meters at the 2007 Nike Indoor National Championships. Holston clocked a meet-record time of 47.12 seconds in the 400, the seventh-fastest time ever run by a U.S. high school athlete. He went on to run a PR of 46.47 outdoors last year at the Southern Track Classic.

Holston, the 2007 Virginia (VHSL) outdoor champion in the 200 and 400, has also run personal-best times of 21.07 in the 200 and 10.59 in the 100. ,

“Sean could be the next Chris Brown for us,” Giles said, referring to the NSU All-American and current Olympian for the Bahamas. “Simply put, Sean is one of the top recruits we’ve ever had here.”

Sean Holston may re-write the MEAC record book before his career is over at NSU. In the 200 meter race on this clip, Spartans signee Thomas Speller finishes second to Holston for a 1-2 finish. Look out MEAC!


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Howard Bison Oliver blazes to 110 hurdles crown

David Oliver ran the fastest time in every round on the way to his first U.S. outdoor championship

When he found her on his victory lap, the former Denver East athlete and newly crowned Olympic trials champion gripped his mother in a long, tight hug. "I'm just glad to be able to share this moment with her," said Oliver, who blazed to the finish line Sunday in 12.95 seconds to win the 110-meter hurdles at the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials. "She's my inspiration. Without her guidance, especially when I was younger, I wouldn't be able to do the things I'm doing now."

David Oliver's 12.95 wind-aided Olympic Trials Final race in the 110 meter hurdles.


Oliver's mother, Brenda Chambers, was an All-American at Colorado in 1981 in the 400 hurdles. She competed in the 1980 Olympic trials at the same stadium as Oliver but never had a chance to compete in those Olympics because of an American boycott. Her son only recently emerged as a track star. He played football and ran track at Howard University but wasn't a standout until after college. He was the lowest seed in the 110 hurdles in the 2004 Olympic trials but now has the second-fastest time in the world.

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UMES Track Athlete Fothergill Heading To Beijing Olympics

KINGSTON, JAMAICA--Allodin Fothergill has had a stellar sophomore year for the University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES). From the start of an early indoor season he has garnered All-MEAC honors, earning two gold medals in the conference championship (200, 400-meter dashes). He then placed 10th in the 400 meter-dash in the NCAA Division I 2008 Indoor Championships (47.24). His performances during the Outdoor season improved as he qualified for the NCAA East Regional track meet. On the big stage he ran 46.40 to advance to the Outdoor National Championship. For personal reasons he would not make the trip to Iowa. But his season wasn't over.

Taking this time off proved successful for the Jamaican native as he returned home to reunite with family and compete in Jamaica's Olympic Trials in Kingston. To say Fothergill represented UMES well would be an understatement. In the 400-meter semifinals he placed third in his heat to advance to the finals. In the final round Fothergill scorched the track to a 4th place finish and an amazing time of 45.97. With his performance Fothergill was named to the Jamaican Olympic team for this year's 2008 Beijing China Olympic Games.

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For Howard's Oliver, Great Leaps Forward

David Oliver has posted three of the world's top five times in the 110-meter hurdles this season, including 12.95 seconds in May.

EUGENE, Ore. -- David Oliver couldn't believe the turn his life had taken. He had graduated from Howard University with a bachelor's degree in marketing for this? He found himself bunking in an Orlando house with three other track athletes, one of whom was sleeping in the living room. They were so broke, they never turned on the air conditioning or used the dishwasher.

Oliver recalls buying five-pound bags of rice at Wal-Mart and pancake mix that required only water, and eating cereal all day long. He drove a rickety 1992 Chevy that sometimes got him to practice without stalling, but usually didn't. And then, once he arrived for his daily training under legendary, old-school coach Brooks Johnson, things got really tough. During Oliver's first practice under Johnson in 2004, the coach demanded nine 300-yard sprints, broken up into three sets.

After each set, Oliver stepped to the side of the track and vomited.



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Two former Norfolk State sprinters qualify for Beijing Olympics

Former All-American Norfolk State sprinters Chris Brown and Chandra Sturrup qualified for the Beijing Olympics with victories in the 400 and 100 meters, respectively, over the weekend at the Bahamas' Olympic trials in Nassau.

Brown, 29, clocked a time of 45.43 seconds to edge 2008 NCAA outdoor 400-meter champion Andretti Bain of Oral Roberts (45.53). It was the second national 400-meter championship in Brown's career. Earlier this month, he set the national record of 44.40 at a meet in Oslo, Norway.

Sturrup, 36, will be competing in her fourth Olympics; she ran in Atlanta (1996), Sydney and Athens. She won the 100 meters in 11.14 seconds over the weekend. She will also compete in Beijing in the 400 relay.

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Runner Hyppolite commits to FAMU

Miami native anxious to be with Rattlers

Benedick Hyppolite doesn't intend to take too long to fit in on FAMU's men's track team. Hyppolite, who ran on the Miami Booker T. Washington High School's state champion relay teams, became the newest runner for FAMU this week. He's spent the last two years running with the same relay teammates that had the fastest time in Dade County this past season.

He is anxious to build a relationship with his new teammates that can produce similar results, Hyppolite said Thursday just after his signing was announced. "We're going to be the youngest team and I just want to help Florida A&M work its way back up," he said. "We've got all the talent so hopefully we can make it happen."

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Sprinter headed to Olympic time trials

Since the seventh grade, Romulus' Landria Buckley has been excelling in track. Now this soon to be junior at Howard University in Washington D.C. is headed to the July 6 Olympic Trials in Eugene, Oregon. "In the beginning of the year my goal was to run under 13.3 seconds and qualify for regionals," Buckley said. "I surprised myself and made to nationals and ran 13.24 in the 100-meter hurdles."

She said that the adjustment from high school to college was different. For her she had to continue to work hard and really hit the weight room. The workouts are a lot harder and a lot more," she said. "The competition ends up being the best in the country."

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