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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Summer tour has brought Broadway, Ellis to Grambling faithful

GRAMBLING — For Grambling legend Wilbert Ellis, the summer has been busy —and more than a little nostalgic. He's spent the bulk of the past few weeks on the road with second-year GSU football coach Rod Broadway, visiting alumni and boosters for the program and a proposed museum in honor of Ellis’ old friend, the late gridiron great Eddie Robinson.

Ellis, a former baseball skipper and athletic administrator at Grambling, used to make similar appearances across the Deep South with Robinson during their coaching tenures. “It’s kind of like the old SWAC tours,” Ellis said. “You go from place to place similar to that — and you tell the Grambling story.”

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Mauricia Grant Speaks On Why She Filed A Lawsuit Against NASCAR

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Ex-TSU Coach Temple led first U.S. team to China in '75

Hall of Fame Coach Ed Temple (Edward S. Temple) is Tennessee's most honored and accomplished track and field coach. His famous Tigerbelles Women's Track Club of Tennessee State University (TSU) won twenty-three gold, silver, and bronze Olympic medals, thirty-four national team titles, and thirty medals in the Pan American Games.

Historic track trip helped to open doors

Profoundly polite people, hotels without keys and a relay team with only anchor legs. That's what former Tennessee State track Coach Ed Temple remembers most about a historic 1975 trip to China with a U.S. track and field team. As coach of the first American team to compete in China during the communist era, Temple guided 38 female athletes on a goodwill tour of meets in Hong Kong, Canton, Shanghai and Peking, now commonly known as Beijing.

"I was reluctant to go since it was China and no one had ever been to China at that time," Temple said recently. "But I was also curious. It turned out to be one of the most unique experiences I have ever had." With athletes preparing for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, Temple looked back on his trip to China, which was just beginning to open its doors to more of the world.

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The 81 year old Coach Temple served the United States and TSU 43 years, retiring in 1993. He is a native of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and is a member of the National Track and Field Hall of Fame, the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame, the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame, the TSU Sports Hall of Fame, and has also received the Helms Award.

Mr. Temple attended and graduated from Tennessee State University, (B.S. and M.S. degrees in Health and Physical Education; minor in Sociology). He has also done work toward the doctoral degree at Pennsylvania State University.

There is a wonderful story in the biography of Ed Temple on how he was persuaded by his neighbor to attend Tennessee State, that's very funny...

"It was fate and a bit of trickery that led Temple to Tennessee State University.

After his high school graduation in 1946, Tom Harris, Temple's neighbor and also a coach at Tennessee State, persuaded Temple to attend the university by telling him that Leroy Craig would be attending also. Craig was Temple's rival and after hearing this, he turned down Pennsylvania State University because he thought that Tennessee State University must have been a good school if Craig was enrolling, and so he too enrolled.

He later learned that Harris had misconceived Craig with the same story and both gullible athletes were coaxed to attend Tennessee State University. Declining Pennsylvania State University was not an easy task but nevertheless, Temple decided to stay at Tennessee State. A scholarship was not offered, so Temple was forced to compensate for his tuition with work-aid."

Independence Day Fireworks at Washington, D.C.

TSU coach sprints back to Olympics

Cheeseborough is U.S. assistant in women's track

Chandra Cheeseborough's life has been a collection of very fast, very significant footsteps. As a young girl she outran every boy in the neighborhood. As a teenager her feet carried her into the track and field spotlight, where she set American records, won Olympic gold medals and international acclaim.

She kept striding forward and became women's track and field coach at her alma mater, Tennessee State University, taking over the Tigerbelles program for the legendary Ed Temple. Now, as the United States prepares for next month's Olympics in Beijing, the 49-year-old Cheeseborough is taking another big step, serving as an assistant coach for the U.S. women's team.

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As an athlete, Cheeseborough was named to three United States Olympic teams. She placed third as a 17-year old in the 100-meter dash in Montreal. She qualified for the ill-fated 1980 Olympic team that did not compete because of a boycott. In 1984, at the Los Angeles games, she made Olympic history by running a leg on two Gold Medal Relay Teams and was the silver medalist in the 400-meters.

Coach Cheeseborough has led the TSU track program to a pair of consecutive Ohio Valley Conference Outdoor Track Championships and is the reigning OVC Indoor champion as well. She is a four-time OVC Coach of the Year.

A native of Jacksonville, Florida, she is a graduate of both Ribault High School and Tennessee State University, earning a B.S. degree in Health and Physical Education.

B-CU Coach Kia Davis chooses different path to Beijing Olympics

Excerpt from article:

"It really hasn't sunk in yet," the 32-year-old Kia Davis said by phone Thursday afternoon. "I want to treat it like just another meet, but I know it isn't just another meet. I'm sure I'll start getting those butterflies inside very soon."
The only thing that would make the experience better is the uniform she will be wearing in China.

Davis will compete for the Republic of Liberia, the homeland of her father and paternal grandparents, not for the United States. She will be competing in the 400-meter dash, and possibly the 200. "It wasn't an easy decision," Davis said. "I agonized over it. I sat down and had a long talk with my coach, Bethune-Cookman University's Garfield Ellenwood, who also is coach of the Liberian national team, my family and my fiancée (Michael Ford, an assistant coach at Baylor).

"I know some people won't like that," said Davis, who lives in Daytona Beach, Fla., and is an assistant coach at Bethune-Cookman University. "They'll think I'm un-American or unpatriotic. I've already received some static over it. If someone can come to this country and take a spot away from an American athlete, why can't an American do the same thing elsewhere?

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