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Clayton, OH -- Northmont High School grad Aaron Burke has signed to run track and field at Kentucky State University in Frankfort, Kentucky.
Burke was a Division I regional qualifier in the 1,600- and 3,200-meter relays as a junior and senior. He owns PR’s of 50.9 in the 400 and 2:01.5 in the 800.
Burke most recently was named Northmont’s athlete of the month for this past May. He’s a 2011 graduate of Northmont.
Lorenzo and Pamela Burke looks on as son, Aaron Burke signs scholarship to run track and field at Kentucky State University, a NCAA Division II Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SIAC) program.
Clark Francis, (Hoop Scoop) recruiting analyst labeled the recruiting class that Howard men’s basketball coach Kevin Nickelberry signed as a top 40 class.
Washington, D.C. -- Howard men’s basketball coach Kevin Nickelberry was never confident about securing a commitment from Prince Okoroh, the Eleanor Roosevelt forward who Nickelberry felt was good enough to play in the Atlantic 10 Conference and smart enough to thrive in the Ivy League.
As a Gates Millennium Scholar, Okoroh had his choice of schools. Would Okoroh want to suit up for a team that had won just six games this past season? Would he commit to a program whose basketball court was sprinkled with dead spots and whose poorly ventilated locker room was no bigger than a large storage closet?
The answer was yes. And when Okoroh called Nickelberry with the news in mid-April, a few days before he was named MVP of the preliminary game of the Capital Classic, the coach was “astonished,” Okoroh recalled. “He almost didn’t believe me at first. When I told him I was coming, it was almost like he fainted.”
This area’s already competitive college basketball recruiting landscape became more competitive in recent weeks with coaching hires at Maryland, George Washington andGeorge Mason. But an under-the-radar development has been the recruiting by success-starved Howard, which assembled an attention-grabbing class punctuated by Okoroh’s signing.
Orangeburg, S.C. - Josh Harrison went back to school, Semaj Moody took up working odd jobs and Marshall McFadden hit the links.
Since going undrafted in April's NFL Draft, the trio of former S.C. State Bulldogs have put their life in a holding pattern working out, waiting, hoping, passing the time and mortgaging the immediate future for a shot at their dream, an NFL contract. Needless to say, with their fate still undecided as the NFL lockout rolls into July with no end in sight and contact with free agents prohibited, there is a bit of restlessness.
"I can't wait until it gets over," Moody, a former star at Denmark-Olar High School said. "I want to know what is going to happen ... whether I get a job or get a call. I'm just hoping everything falls into place really fast."
Moody, who had 22 tackles and two interceptions for S.C. State last season, has been...
Mt. Pleasant - Joe Council is just 2-0 as an amateur mixed martial artist, but word is getting out about the ability of the former S.C. State defensive tackle.
Council (6-3, 255) was featured on a segment on Channel 4 News out of Charleston, a segment that can be viewed on the station's website, Thursday night. That segment comes on the heels of his impressive victory over 6-6, 230-pound Thai Boxer Nick Hollis at last week's "Fight Night at the Point," in Mt. Pleasant. Council hammered Hollis, who landed little more than a second-round knee out of a clench, supposedly an illegal strike in the fight, forcing him to tap to strikes in the second round.
Next up for the former Bulldog is a July 15 fight against David Speas in Hendersonville, NC.
Manning Architects' rendering of Xavier's Convocation Academic Center, which is under construction and is expected to be completed in late summer 2012. The facility will include a 4,500 seat arena suitable for athletic and other large-scale events.
New Orleans, LA - Following 35 years in the Saint Tammany Parish school system, Dennis Cousin said when he accepted the job as Xavier's athletic director in July 2004 he never expected to last this long.
"Honestly, I came here with the intention of staying maybe two or three years, and you look up and now all of a sudden, it's been seven years," Cousin recently said. In six seasons of competition under Cousin's stewardship -- the 2005-06 season was lost because of Hurricane Katrina -- Xavier's seven sports squads have combined for 27 Gulf Coast Athletic Conference or NAIA unaffiliated group championships and 20 appearances in NAIA Division I championships, an unprecedented run of success for the Mid-City school with an enrollment of 3,200.
That level of consistency is a point of pride for Cousin.
"When I took over, I wanted to elevate the status of our athletic program to that of our academics," the 65-year-old Cousin said. "When you think of Xavier, you think of the medical doctors and the pharmacists. My goal was to make athletics a part of our reputation."
While Xavier athletics were far from inadequate before Cousin's arrival, he has expanded the program's reach, leading the athletic department through Katrina's aftermath, reinstating women's volleyball in 2009, and acting as a key force in getting the new arena approved.
Elizabeth City, N.C. - It was a good day when I heard that Michael Bonner would be able to play basketball for Elizabeth City State next season. I had been championing Bonner’s cause for quite a while, but it seemed like nothing was going to change and he would have to sit out another season because of other people’s mistakes.
Bonner, a former Perquimans standout, transferred to ECSU from Winston-Salem State last summer. Normally, this would not be an issue and he could play right away, but Winston-Salem was making the transition back into the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association and league rules say a player moving between CIAA schools must sit out two years. That rule was waived for that year since Winston-Salem, as well as Lincoln which was entering the league at the same time, if players enrolled in summer school. But Booner was not...
