City agencies spar over sporting events

The Shreveport-Bossier City region will be a major player in Southwestern Athletic Conference events in 2010/11 with the first Port City Classic on Labor Day Weekend featuring Grambling State vs. Louisiana Tech at Independence Stadium; Southern University vs. Prairie View A&M University on October 23 in the inaugural Shreveport Classic, played at Independence Stadium; the men's and women's SWAC basketball tournament; and the SWAC baseball tournament played at Fairgrounds Field in Shreveport.

Nicknamed the Sportsman's Paradise, Louisiana is known for sports. But the most contentious battle is happening off the field between two agencies vying to bring bigger and better sporting events to Shreveport-Bossier City. That competition is attracting attention from local officials and others who say this particular brand of infighting is not good business. The Shreveport-Bossier Convention and Tourist Bureau and Shreveport Regional Sports Authority are active members in the area's sports business. And both can stake respective claims to a certain measure of success.

This year, the tourist bureau will spend about $450,000 in sports marketing and assistance. In return, it expects to receive about $300,000 in revenue from events like the Port City Classic (featuring Grambling State University vs. Louisiana Tech University), the Sickle Cell Softball Tournament and USA Weightlifting.

The sports authority, a nonprofit by incorporation that receives city funding, is operating under a $193,890 budget in 2010 but projects it will generate a revenue figure that exceeds $206,000. But numbers alone don't tell the whole story. "We need the tourist bureau out of the sporting event business with the understanding that we have a properly led, properly managed, properly staffed sports authority," Shreveport Mayor Cedric Glover said in a recent interview. "Have the bureau take care of the sports conventions. What we're doing right now is not making maximum use of our taxpayers' resources.

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Coach Kevin Nickleberry expected to land at University of Hawaii

Coach Kevin Nickleberry will soon be landing on the University of Hawaii Rainbow staff.

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin and ESPN are reporting today, that Kevin Nickleberry is expected to join the staff as an assistant basketball coach at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. The Rainbows new head coach Gib Arnold was hired on March 19, 2010. The former University of Southern California assistant coach (Arnold) is one of the elite recruiters in all of college basketball bringing top-caliber talent to USC. Gibson was the lead recruiter for former Trojan standouts DeMar DeRozan and Taj Gibson, who were selected in the first round of the 2009 NBA Draft. View Video

Kevin Nickleberry is currently in Africa--coaching the Libya National Basketball Team. Arnold said he has offered one of his assistant coaching positions to Nickleberry, but details are still be worked out. The former Prince George's County, Maryland product has made coaching stops at seven schools between South Carolina and Massachusetts. Nickleberry is the former men's head basketball coach at Hampton University (2006-09). He resigned after three seasons and has held assistant coaching positions at Clemson, North Carolina -Charlotte, Holy Cross, Monmouth, Howard and Columbia Union. Coach Nickleberry is a 1984 graduate of Virginia Wesleyan University.

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Louisiana Tech and Grambling State Tigers Football Has a Date

SHREVEPORT, LA — Shreveport Mayor Cecil B. Glover couldn’t keep from using a New Orleans Saints’ analogy when speaking about the historic football game announced by Louisiana Tech University and Grambling State here Tuesday. “Hell has refrozen and the pigs are starting to sing again,” laughed Glover. “And Louisiana Tech and Grambling are going to be playing a football game.” Not just any football game, mind you, but the very first one between two schools located five miles from each other.

It’s set at the very site where Glover and other city and university representatives made it official with a late morning press conference — at Independence Stadium, where the Tigers and Bulldogs will collide on Sept. 4 at 6 p.m. “It’s 2010 and it’s been a long time in coming,” said former GSU head baseball coach Wlbert Ellis. “This is such a great opportunity for two great institutions to continue their relationship.

“We’re going to have a great game, we’re going to have fun and we’re going to fill the stands. But when it’s all over, we are going to continue the great relationship that we’ve had for so many years. What better way to continue this relationship than to have these two teams meet on the football field for the first time this September.” Grambling will serve as the host school for a game that will actually be the first in a series called “Port City Classic,” one in which the Tigers are scheduled to play several regional schools in upcoming years.

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