Haynes repays Alcorn State for its trust

LORMAN, Mississippi -- On the day she graduated from Meridian Community College, Norianna Haynes learned of news that would drastically change her life for the foreseeable future.

Haynes was a standout basketball player at Northeast Lauderdale High School and later helped lead the Lady Eagles to an NJCAA Region 23 Championship in during the 2011-12 season. At the time of her graduation from MCC, Haynes held scholarship offers from a number of Division 1 women’s college basketball programs.

But on her graduation day, she found out she was six months pregnant.



“I didn’t have any symptoms,” Haynes, 24, recalled. “I played basketball, and I didn’t feel it. The doctor told me that with me playing a lot, I was at high risk. I had to let the schools know. When I told certain schools, they kind of fell back and told me basically I couldn’t give (them my all) because of me being pregnant.”

The pregnancy sidelined Haynes for a year, and also prompted a number of Division 1 programs to alter the conditions of their scholarships. The full-ride offers became partial offers. Haynes said the situation was difficult to accept at the time.

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Texas Southern coach Mike Davis is shooting for more than just a SWAC championship

HOUSTON, Texas -- Texas Southern head coach Mike Davis is not afraid of a battle. You would think that after his team’s 1-11 start last year against a loaded non-conference schedule -- featuring losses to Syracuse, Baylor and Mississippi State -- that the Tigers would have folded up shop early last year.

But although his team got off to a rough start, it righted the ship against its SWAC conference foes, going 16-2 and ending within one game of the NCAA tournament.

You would think after faltering out of the blocks to start, that perhaps this year Davis would consider a different strategy moving forward for the Tigers. Not so.

Once again, Davis has his Tigers pitted against a formidable list of non-conference opponents to start 2016-17, including road games against Arizona, Louisville, Baylor, Cincinnati and TCU among others.

"I’m trying to build a team that has no relax time," Davis said. "My whole mindset is to go and play as many teams as we can on the road and never play a home game in non-conference."

He feels that having his players compete in those hostile environments would help reap some long-term benefits for his players, not to mention the checks that pour in from playing so many guarantees.

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Walter Payton remembered on his 62nd birthday

CHICAGO, Illinois -- Sneak away from the monotony of your work day today and do a Google video search for Walter Payton. You won’t be disappointed.

Monday would have been his 62nd birthday, after all, and you deserve some “you” time.

The Walter Payton-style running back — bruising, durable, workhorse — is indeed a thing of the past. It’s why we loved Marshawn “Beast Mode” Lynch, whose style most resembled that of “Sweetness” — a back who punished defenders, who initiated contact and who perfected the shoulder dip.



Mike Ditka, who coached the former Jackson State University star during the last half of an illustrious 13-year NFL career, called him “’the very best football player I’ve ever seen, period, at any position.”

Payton’s son, Jarrett, admitted in 2011 that it’s not always easy to be the son of a famous person — particularly in sports. But he embraces the legacy his father left behind. “It’s truly an honor,” said Jarrett Payton, who proudly champions the two awards in his dad’s honor: the Walter Payton Achievement Award, which is affiliated with the MEAC/SWAC Challenge, and the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award, given annually by the NFL honoring a player’s volunteer and charity work, as well as his excellence on the field.

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XULA Gold Nuggets introduce three new distance runners

NEW ORLEANS — Xavier University of Louisiana announced Thursday the addition of three student-athletes to its women's cross country program for the 2016-17 academic year. Signed to scholarships were:

• Alexis McDaniel of Biloxi, Miss., and Biloxi High School.
• Taylor Price of Missouri City, Texas, and Ridge Point High School.
• Imani Walker of St. Louis and Parkway North High School.

All will be freshmen and also will compete in outdoor track and field during the spring.
McDaniel was Biloxi's fastest finisher at the 2015 Class 6A state meet. She finished 38th overall and helped her team finish 17th in the team standings. As a junior in 2014, McDaniel placed 56th at the state meet and helped Biloxi finish 12th. She will be a pre-pharmacy major at Xavier.

Price was a national champion at the 2014 USATF Junior Olympics, winning the 3,000-meter run in the 15-16 age group for her club team, the Houston Visions. At Ridge Point she was sixth in the 1,600 at the 5A state outdoor track meet this year, and this past fall she was the Region III-5A individual champion in cross country. Price's best 5K time is 18 minutes, 8.72 seconds, a school record she set while winning the 2014 district meet. Price's XU major will be biomedical science.

Walker was a four-time conference outdoor track champion in the 800 and holds the school record at 2:19.97. She has produced a pair of top-six finishes at the AAU Junior Olympics, including fifth place in 2012. Walker will major in kinesiology
.

Also joining the cross country roster will be sophomore Maliya Vaughan, who competed in track this past season. There will be three returning letterwinners: Chinyere Jones, Dionysia Love and Brianna Pace. The Gold Nuggets will run their first meet of the season in late August. Xavier will release the 2016 schedule soon.

Ed Cassiere, Sports Information Director
XULAgold.com
XAVIER UNIVERSITY OF LOUISIANA 
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Larry Smith set to represent Alcorn in MS Sports Hall of Fame

JACKSON, Mississippi -- Larry Smith wasn’t gifted with natural-born scoring ability, so he knew there were other things he had to do in order to stay on the basketball court.

“It was a situation where if I wanted to get playing time, I needed to find a way to acquire playing time,” Smith said. “I felt if I pound the glass, rebound the ball and play great defense and did those little things, the playing time will come.”

Those little things added up to a stellar career, which stretched from Simmons High School to Alcorn State and a 13-year career in the NBA for the Rolling Fork native.

The next stop for Smith is the BancorpSouth Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame where he’ll be inducted Saturday night at 7 p.m. at the Jackson Convention Center.

“I think he’s one of Mississippi’s all-time basketball greats,” Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame historian Rick Cleveland said. “By any definition he should be in there. He was a great basketball player in college, and was a really solid player in the pros.”

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Alcorn State Athletics Names Robbie Kleinmuntz Director of Sports Information

Robbie Kleinmuntz, SID 

LORMAN, Mississippi -- Robbie Kleinmuntz comes to Alcorn after spending three seasons as assistant director of Media Relations at the University of Louisiana Monroe. He publicized a men's basketball program that shot up to the top of the Sun Belt Conference standings after back-to-back 20-win seasons and a pair of postseason appearances.

In June 2016, Kleinmuntz's 2015 Women's Soccer Media Guide won first-place in the state of Louisiana for Olympic sports by the Louisiana Sports Writers Association (LSWA) and second-place nationally in the Women's Soccer University category by the Collegiate Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA). Kleinmuntz also finished second in the CoSIDA Spring-At Large category for his 2015-16 Track & Field Media Guide, and second for Feature Story of the Year in 2014-15 by the LSWA.

Prior to ULM, Kleinmuntz served as communications assistant at the Sun Belt Conference office, and sports information graduate assistant at Northwestern State University. He experienced working as the primary contact for soccer, volleyball, softball, tennis and swimming and diving during those stints. Kleinmuntz also worked as an athletics media relations student intern at the University of Pittsburgh for two years.

While in Pittsburgh, Kleinmuntz wrote for the school newspaper, The Pitt News, as a sports writer and interned for the Pittsburgh Sports Report newspaper. He worked in the Media Relations Department when the men's basketball team was ranked No. 1 in the nation on two separate occasions.

Kleinmuntz earned his bachelor's degree as a double major in journalism and history from Pittsburgh in 2010, and his master's degree in sports administration from Northwestern State University in 2012.

He is the son of Ira and Leslie Kleinmuntz and has two younger brothers, Michael and Sam. Kleinmuntz is an avid Pittsburgh sports fan.

COURTESY ALCORN STATE UNIVERSITY ATHLETICS MEDIA RELATIONS

Grambling’s dominace in question this season

GRAMBLING, Louisiana -- The dominance that Grambling displayed in the Southwest Athletic Conference in 2015 is somewhat in question at the start of this season.

Grambling, which ran the table through its league schedule last year and then reached the SWAC championship game, has a quarterback issue and a need to improve a defense that allowed 35 points per game, a matter which helped the Tigers finish last in the conference in pass defense.

Coaches and league sports information directors have picked Grambling to finish second in the West Division behind Prairie View A&M. The Tigers received 35 points, six behind Prairie View and three in front of third-place Southern.

The Tigers finished 9-3 overall in 2015 behind quarterback Jonathan Williams, who passed for just over 3,000 yards, an accomplishment that was second best in the SWAC.

There’s quarterback potential help on the way however, as Grambling has Ole Miss transfer
Devante Kincade as a replacement. Kincade injured his foot last year and was not available for any of the Tigers’ spring football workouts.

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