NFL lockout puts life on hold for free agents, ex-SCSU Bulldogs

Former Bulldogs Marshall McFadden

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...

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Kaleidoscope of HBCU Football: Get Your Seasons Tickets--Now!

Former SCSU lineman’s future in MMA continues to look up

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.

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Xavier University of Louisiana's Athletic Director Dennis Cousin oversees mix of academic and athletic success

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.

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VISIT: XAVIER UNIVERSITY OF LOUISIANA
VISIT: XULAATHLETICS

Will Harris: Chalk one up for the good guys

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...

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FAMU eager to pump up its brand

Tallahassee, FL - Whenever Angela Suggs sits in front a potential corporate supporter of Florida A&M athletics, she seldom goes by the routine marketing script. She lets her on-campus background set the precedent. John Burt didn't grow up on FAMU's campus like Suggs did, but he understands the culture of an HBCU.

FAMU clearly is banking heavily on Burt and Suggs. He is a representative of the mega collegiate marketing firm IMG. She is FAMU's associate athletic director for marketing. Together, they have the task of helping the school's athletic department raise millions of dollars, and at the same time get fans back in the kinds of numbers that will have its teams performing in front of packed or near-packed arenas regularly.

It is the first time in at least 20 years that FAMU has made such an intense effort.



So the obvious concept is this: Increase attendance to make the work of Burt and Suggs a little easier. In the meantime, the duo believes FAMU's past success, such as its victory in the first Division I-A championship game in 1978 and its past history of winning titles along with academic achievements and social involvement, make the school recognizable.

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Home for the Holidays: Minnesota Vikings head coach Leslie Fraizer spends the weekend in Columbus

Columbus, Miss. - Leslie Frazier is accustomed to heat. After all, he was raised in Columbus and grew up beneath the glare of the Mississippi sun. If the suffocating temperatures or the stranglehold of a media gaggle perturbed him Saturday afternoon, he didn't let it show. Instead, the Columbus native turned Minnesota Vikings head coach trotted easily up the steps of City Hall, ever the picture of grace and restrained Southern charm.

If anything good can be said of the NFL lockout, it is this: At least it gives a man a chance to spend a holiday with his family and old pals, away from the fishbowl. Well. Sort of.

Frazier arrived in Columbus Friday evening with his wife, Gale, his daughter, Chantel, his son, Corey, and a notebook-wielding, tripod-laden entourage that included a television crew from Minneapolis-based ABC affiliate KPTV and writers from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

Outside City Hall on Saturday, beneath a shade tree on Main Street, Frazier insisted that the lack of privacy doesn't bother him, even when it turns a holiday weekend down home with the family into a media circus. It comes with the territory, he said. You can accept the exposure or wilt beneath it, but if you remember who you are and whom you represent, somehow things work out according to God's plan.
His unshakable faith has imparted to him an almost unflappable confidence, and it guides his every step.

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