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NCAA News Archive - 2007
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Faces of the tournaments
For NCAA student-athletes, it’s not about who wins, but who plays the game
The NCAA News
For NCAA student-athletes, it’s not about who wins, but who plays the game
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The NCAA News
When the NCAA Division I Men’s and Women’s Basketball Championship fields are announced, the banter begins about who’s in and who’s out, which teams will advance to the Final Fours and which institution will eventually wear the crown of national champion.
Often lost in the discussion are the student-athletes who make it all happen. From the stars on the No. 1 seeds to the reserves on the last teams selected to the field, NCAA blogger Josh Centor captured their stories on the Double-A Zone (www.doubleazone.com).
Following are just a few of those stories about the student-athletes who help make March Madness one of America’s treasured events.
Who says student-athletes think sports first and school second? Virginia Tech center Coleman Collins is walking proof that academic focus is a central tenet of intercollegiate athletics.
Coleman played his freshman season in the Big East as a 17-year-old and graduated in May 2006 with a degree in communications, just three years after arriving on campus. A voracious reader with a thirst for knowledge, Collins got on the team plane to the NCAA tournament with a copy of the New York Times.
Collins lost his father to cancer during his junior season and missed a couple of games. He was able to turn to his teammates for support after his father’s passing, as the Virginia Tech team struggled with personal issues last season. Deron Washington’s mother relocated to Blacksburg from New Orleans after losing her home in Hurricane Katrina. Forward Allen Calloway, Coleman’s roommate, was diagnosed with cancer. Collins’ other roommate, Shawn Harris, lost his grandmother during the season.
The team camaraderie helped it stay together and the Hokies were one of the ACC’s top teams this season. Collins returned for his fourth year and attended graduate school. He spent time writing for the school newspaper and remained extremely active in campus and community events. He regularly reads to elementary school children.
If you’ve attended a Louisville women’s basketball game at Freedom Hall during the past three seasons, chances are you’ve chatted with a member of Patrika Barlow’s family. Her mother hasn’t missed a game in three years, and that means more than anything to the junior guard, who was raised with strong family values.
Barlow cracked the Cardinals starting lineup for the first time this winter after spending her first two seasons coming off the bench. This year, she’s the backbone of one of the best teams in school history.
While things have never been better for Barlow on the court, it hasn’t been an easy road. During Patrika’s sophomore year, she was studying different kinds of cancer in her biology class and sharing the lessons with her mother Wanda. Her mother used that as an opportunity to tell her daughter that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer.
After a battle with the disease, Wanda is now cancer free and hasn’t missed a beat while cheering her daughter from the stands. Both mother and daughter now participate in fund-raisers for breast cancer awareness.
Not a day goes by that Indiana senior guard Errek Suhr doesn’t think about his sister Jenny. Four years older than Errek, Jenny died in 1999 after a battle with brain cancer. She was a freshman at Indiana at the time. Errek has followed in his sister’s footsteps and continued her legacy on the Bloomington campus.
A high school basketball standout, Jenny taught Errek a lot about the game. He has applied her lessons well on the hardwood, becoming one of Indiana’s most reliable players off the bench.
A walk-on during his first two years with the Hoosiers, Errek earned a scholarship last year and played in 28 of the team’s 31 games. A fan favorite, Suhr has played in 27 games this season and started four. He averages 1.7 points per contest.
During his sophomore year, Belmont guard Justin Hare started all but two games for the Bruins. Hare averaged 15.6 points per contest, earned second-team all-Atlantic Sun honors, was the conference tournament MVP and led Belmont to the NCAA tournament. One year later, he was arguably the best bench player in the field of 65.
The junior was removed from the starting lineup during the middle of the season, but that hasn’t quelled his production. He leads the team with 14.6 points per game and was named Atlantic Sun tournament MVP for a second straight year after the Bruins beat East Tennessee State in the conference championship game last week. He also earned first-team all-conference honors this season.
It’s not much of a surprise that Hare didn’t have a problem moving to the bench for the good of his team — he was raised as a team player. When he was 10, Hare’s parents began running a foster home from their house in Cleveland, Tennessee. With between eight and 10 foster siblings in the house at any given time, Hare learned how to share.
He also learned how to study. Hare currently sports a 3.85 GPA in his major of exercise science and health promotion. Two weeks ago, the junior was named to the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America Team.
An accomplished musician, Kentucky forward Bobby Perry began taking piano lessons when he was in the fourth grade. In fact, he was often late to basketball practice because his lessons sometimes conflicted.
Perry’s love of music has followed him to Lexington, where he regularly lays down beats for teammates Ramel Bradley and Joe Crawford. Perry puts together the music, Bradley and Crawford do the words, and teamwork manifests itself right there in the dorm room.
Although he majors in finance, Bobby has dreamed of working in the recording industry since he fell in love with music as a child at church. After he leaves Kentucky, Perry will explore the possibility of working as a record producer.
Miranda Green had a ton of support every time she stepped on the floor at Xavier. Miranda’s mother and sister became well acquainted with Interstate 74 during the past four years, making the 100-mile drive from Indianapolis to Cincinnati to see Miranda and the Musketeers play every home game.
Green’s sister Shy’la has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair to move around. While they were growing up, Miranda played a major role in caring for her sister and has wanted to become a nurse ever since. She is in fact focusing her coursework at Xavier in nursing and will graduate this spring.
Shen hopes to return to work in the Indianapolis area so that she can once again be close to her sister.
Jenna Plumley got her first taste of fame earlier this year when she received an e-mail from a group of Native Americans who bought tickets to see the Oklahoma freshman play against Kansas. The e-mail didn’t say if the group members were Jayhawk or Sooner fans — they were attending the game because they were Plumley fans.
Her heritage — she has ties to the Comanche, Otoe, Pawnee and Pueblo tribes — is rare among Division I athletes. Research shows that only 0.3 percent of all NCAA student-athletes are Native American women.
Though she had few people to point to as role model growing up, she understands that she can be an example for young Native American girls today. She grew up in Frontier, Oklahoma, and it was important to her to stay close to home and her family, including three protective older brothers.
Her play on the court — she’s been described as a “firecracker” and “feisty” in her first season as a Sooner — has even made newspaper columnists who underestimated her eat their words. One writer for The Oklahoman predicted last year that the 5-foot-4 point guard wouldn’t succeed at the Division I level.
Earlier this month, that same columnist said he fully expects Oklahoma coach Sherri Coale to say, “Told you so.”
Before each Mississippi women’s game, senior Armintie Price and juniors Danetra Forrest and Carla Bartee lead the team in a series of songs.
Two years ago, the three players formed a singing group called “The Anointed Voices.” The group focuses on gospel music and has performed several times locally. Price, Forrest and Bartee were the featured entertainment at the 2006 Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame Induction Banquet.
Forrest and Bartee are daughters of ministers and grew up singing in their respective churches. Price has been singing and playing instruments her entire life.
While the voices are impressive off the court, they are also strong on the hardwood, where Price and Forrest are both starters for the Rebels and Bartee is one of the top players off the bench. A two-time SEC Defensive Player of the Year, Price is an all-America candidate and recently became just the fifth player in NCAA history to register 2,000 points, 1,000 rebounds, 300 assists and 300 steals during her career.
... While most of her classmates were taking Caribbean vacations and visiting with family, Morgan Hatten was helping to rebuild the city of New Orleans during last year’s spring break. Morgan and some of her UMBC teammates spent time in the Big Easy to help the community recover from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina … In the classroom, TCU’s Ashley Davis is working on her master’s degree in education administration after graduating with an entrepreneurial management bachelor’s degree in December 2005. She also led the Mountain West Conference in three-point field goal percentage this season … On a typical day in high school, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi sophomore Carl Nelson would walk up at 5 a.m., have a bit of breakfast, go to school and practice for two hours after classes were done. When he came home, he would hay 300 cows, and go to a nearby farm to feed cows, mules, buffalo and clydesdales … With a 3.92 grade point average with a concentration in interdisciplinary studies, Middle Tennessee’s Krystle Horton has left her mark all over Murfreesboro, Tennessee. A hometown kid, Horton has always given back to her community and is heavily involved with the Special Olympics program … With a fastball in the mid-90s, Jackson State’s Trey Johnson was one of Mississippi’s top prospects when he was a high school senior. After graduation, he was selected in the Major League Baseball Draft, but gave up a professional career for a chance to play college basketball. The former pitcher was the nation’s second-leading scorer this season with an average of 27 points per game … The second youngest of 14 children, Notre Dame’s Tory Jackson wasn’t raised to be timid. Jackson started the season on the bench but didn’t stay there long. After 12 games playing limited minutes, the speedy guard cracked the starting lineup ... Amanda Popp’s perseverance has paid off on the floor, helping her become a two-year starter for Wisconsin-Green Bay. It was in her personal life, however, where she needed it the most. During her junior year in high school, Amanda’s brother Matt was killed in a car accident. To this day, Popp thinks about Matt when she steps on the basketball floor, lacing up sneakers with his name and high school number written on them....Aside from her performance on the court, where she was the team’s third-leading scorer, Old Dominion’s Tish Lyons has donated her time to the community. Among other things, she has volunteered at the Ronald McDonald House, participated with the Big Brother, Big Sister program and assisted with the Fun-N-Fit Extravaganza, an event to raise awareness about childhood obesity … Arizona freshman Jordan Hill lost his mother to breast cancer when he was only 3 years old. His father, a long-distance truck driver, had to abandon the job he loved and work for the state of South Carolina to care for Hill and his siblings … At Virginia Commonwealth, Calvin Roland finally has a place to call home. After months of occasionally sleeping on the floor in the locker room at his junior college or in the break room of the car dealership where he worked, Roland’s scholarship was more than a chance to attend college … North Carolina State fans are called “Reynolds Rowdies” because the team plays at Reynolds Coliseum. Senior Danielle Wilhelm has often been called a “Reynolds Rowdie” on the bench because of her unbridled passion for the team during games … These days, Weber State forward David Patten sports a neatly cropped haircut, but it wasn’t always that way. David grew his hair out to 10 inches before shaving it all off after the 2005 season and donating it to the American Cancer Society … Basketball isn’t the only thing that has kept Arizona State sophomore Danielle Orsillo busy since elementary school. An accomplished guitarist, Danielle has been strumming the instrument since she was 7 ... When Texas freshman D.J. Augustin was four, his grandmother bought him a black and red Michael Jordan basketball. The ball became the youngster’s most prized possession and after years of wear and tear, D.J.’s father Darryl had plans to refurbish it, but unfortunately it was lost in Hurricane Katrina....
Often lost in the discussion are the student-athletes who make it all happen. From the stars on the No. 1 seeds to the reserves on the last teams selected to the field, NCAA blogger Josh Centor captured their stories on the Double-A Zone (www.doubleazone.com).
Following are just a few of those stories about the student-athletes who help make March Madness one of America’s treasured events.
First class on court, class first off court
Who says student-athletes think sports first and school second? Virginia Tech center Coleman Collins is walking proof that academic focus is a central tenet of intercollegiate athletics.Coleman played his freshman season in the Big East as a 17-year-old and graduated in May 2006 with a degree in communications, just three years after arriving on campus. A voracious reader with a thirst for knowledge, Collins got on the team plane to the NCAA tournament with a copy of the New York Times.
Collins lost his father to cancer during his junior season and missed a couple of games. He was able to turn to his teammates for support after his father’s passing, as the Virginia Tech team struggled with personal issues last season. Deron Washington’s mother relocated to Blacksburg from New Orleans after losing her home in Hurricane Katrina. Forward Allen Calloway, Coleman’s roommate, was diagnosed with cancer. Collins’ other roommate, Shawn Harris, lost his grandmother during the season.
The team camaraderie helped it stay together and the Hokies were one of the ACC’s top teams this season. Collins returned for his fourth year and attended graduate school. He spent time writing for the school newspaper and remained extremely active in campus and community events. He regularly reads to elementary school children.
It’s a mother-daughter deal for Cardinals guard
If you’ve attended a Louisville women’s basketball game at Freedom Hall during the past three seasons, chances are you’ve chatted with a member of Patrika Barlow’s family. Her mother hasn’t missed a game in three years, and that means more than anything to the junior guard, who was raised with strong family values.Barlow cracked the Cardinals starting lineup for the first time this winter after spending her first two seasons coming off the bench. This year, she’s the backbone of one of the best teams in school history.
While things have never been better for Barlow on the court, it hasn’t been an easy road. During Patrika’s sophomore year, she was studying different kinds of cancer in her biology class and sharing the lessons with her mother Wanda. Her mother used that as an opportunity to tell her daughter that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer.
After a battle with the disease, Wanda is now cancer free and hasn’t missed a beat while cheering her daughter from the stands. Both mother and daughter now participate in fund-raisers for breast cancer awareness.
Indiana student-athlete plays with heavy heart
Not a day goes by that Indiana senior guard Errek Suhr doesn’t think about his sister Jenny. Four years older than Errek, Jenny died in 1999 after a battle with brain cancer. She was a freshman at Indiana at the time. Errek has followed in his sister’s footsteps and continued her legacy on the Bloomington campus.A high school basketball standout, Jenny taught Errek a lot about the game. He has applied her lessons well on the hardwood, becoming one of Indiana’s most reliable players off the bench.
A walk-on during his first two years with the Hoosiers, Errek earned a scholarship last year and played in 28 of the team’s 31 games. A fan favorite, Suhr has played in 27 games this season and started four. He averages 1.7 points per contest.
Belmont’s Justin Hare redefines ‘team player’
During his sophomore year, Belmont guard Justin Hare started all but two games for the Bruins. Hare averaged 15.6 points per contest, earned second-team all-Atlantic Sun honors, was the conference tournament MVP and led Belmont to the NCAA tournament. One year later, he was arguably the best bench player in the field of 65.The junior was removed from the starting lineup during the middle of the season, but that hasn’t quelled his production. He leads the team with 14.6 points per game and was named Atlantic Sun tournament MVP for a second straight year after the Bruins beat East Tennessee State in the conference championship game last week. He also earned first-team all-conference honors this season.
It’s not much of a surprise that Hare didn’t have a problem moving to the bench for the good of his team — he was raised as a team player. When he was 10, Hare’s parents began running a foster home from their house in Cleveland, Tennessee. With between eight and 10 foster siblings in the house at any given time, Hare learned how to share.
He also learned how to study. Hare currently sports a 3.85 GPA in his major of exercise science and health promotion. Two weeks ago, the junior was named to the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America Team.
Kentucky forward plays different tune off court
An accomplished musician, Kentucky forward Bobby Perry began taking piano lessons when he was in the fourth grade. In fact, he was often late to basketball practice because his lessons sometimes conflicted.Perry’s love of music has followed him to Lexington, where he regularly lays down beats for teammates Ramel Bradley and Joe Crawford. Perry puts together the music, Bradley and Crawford do the words, and teamwork manifests itself right there in the dorm room.
Although he majors in finance, Bobby has dreamed of working in the recording industry since he fell in love with music as a child at church. After he leaves Kentucky, Perry will explore the possibility of working as a record producer.
Green delivers family an inspirational assist
Miranda Green had a ton of support every time she stepped on the floor at Xavier. Miranda’s mother and sister became well acquainted with Interstate 74 during the past four years, making the 100-mile drive from Indianapolis to Cincinnati to see Miranda and the Musketeers play every home game.Green’s sister Shy’la has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair to move around. While they were growing up, Miranda played a major role in caring for her sister and has wanted to become a nurse ever since. She is in fact focusing her coursework at Xavier in nursing and will graduate this spring.
Shen hopes to return to work in the Indianapolis area so that she can once again be close to her sister.
Oklahoma’s Plumley embraces heritage
Jenna Plumley got her first taste of fame earlier this year when she received an e-mail from a group of Native Americans who bought tickets to see the Oklahoma freshman play against Kansas. The e-mail didn’t say if the group members were Jayhawk or Sooner fans — they were attending the game because they were Plumley fans.Her heritage — she has ties to the Comanche, Otoe, Pawnee and Pueblo tribes — is rare among Division I athletes. Research shows that only 0.3 percent of all NCAA student-athletes are Native American women.
Though she had few people to point to as role model growing up, she understands that she can be an example for young Native American girls today. She grew up in Frontier, Oklahoma, and it was important to her to stay close to home and her family, including three protective older brothers.
Her play on the court — she’s been described as a “firecracker” and “feisty” in her first season as a Sooner — has even made newspaper columnists who underestimated her eat their words. One writer for The Oklahoman predicted last year that the 5-foot-4 point guard wouldn’t succeed at the Division I level.
Earlier this month, that same columnist said he fully expects Oklahoma coach Sherri Coale to say, “Told you so.”
Ole Miss trio known for pregame ritual
Before each Mississippi women’s game, senior Armintie Price and juniors Danetra Forrest and Carla Bartee lead the team in a series of songs.Two years ago, the three players formed a singing group called “The Anointed Voices.” The group focuses on gospel music and has performed several times locally. Price, Forrest and Bartee were the featured entertainment at the 2006 Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame Induction Banquet.
Forrest and Bartee are daughters of ministers and grew up singing in their respective churches. Price has been singing and playing instruments her entire life.
While the voices are impressive off the court, they are also strong on the hardwood, where Price and Forrest are both starters for the Rebels and Bartee is one of the top players off the bench. A two-time SEC Defensive Player of the Year, Price is an all-America candidate and recently became just the fifth player in NCAA history to register 2,000 points, 1,000 rebounds, 300 assists and 300 steals during her career.
... While most of her classmates were taking Caribbean vacations and visiting with family, Morgan Hatten was helping to rebuild the city of New Orleans during last year’s spring break. Morgan and some of her UMBC teammates spent time in the Big Easy to help the community recover from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina … In the classroom, TCU’s Ashley Davis is working on her master’s degree in education administration after graduating with an entrepreneurial management bachelor’s degree in December 2005. She also led the Mountain West Conference in three-point field goal percentage this season … On a typical day in high school, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi sophomore Carl Nelson would walk up at 5 a.m., have a bit of breakfast, go to school and practice for two hours after classes were done. When he came home, he would hay 300 cows, and go to a nearby farm to feed cows, mules, buffalo and clydesdales … With a 3.92 grade point average with a concentration in interdisciplinary studies, Middle Tennessee’s Krystle Horton has left her mark all over Murfreesboro, Tennessee. A hometown kid, Horton has always given back to her community and is heavily involved with the Special Olympics program … With a fastball in the mid-90s, Jackson State’s Trey Johnson was one of Mississippi’s top prospects when he was a high school senior. After graduation, he was selected in the Major League Baseball Draft, but gave up a professional career for a chance to play college basketball. The former pitcher was the nation’s second-leading scorer this season with an average of 27 points per game … The second youngest of 14 children, Notre Dame’s Tory Jackson wasn’t raised to be timid. Jackson started the season on the bench but didn’t stay there long. After 12 games playing limited minutes, the speedy guard cracked the starting lineup ... Amanda Popp’s perseverance has paid off on the floor, helping her become a two-year starter for Wisconsin-Green Bay. It was in her personal life, however, where she needed it the most. During her junior year in high school, Amanda’s brother Matt was killed in a car accident. To this day, Popp thinks about Matt when she steps on the basketball floor, lacing up sneakers with his name and high school number written on them....Aside from her performance on the court, where she was the team’s third-leading scorer, Old Dominion’s Tish Lyons has donated her time to the community. Among other things, she has volunteered at the Ronald McDonald House, participated with the Big Brother, Big Sister program and assisted with the Fun-N-Fit Extravaganza, an event to raise awareness about childhood obesity … Arizona freshman Jordan Hill lost his mother to breast cancer when he was only 3 years old. His father, a long-distance truck driver, had to abandon the job he loved and work for the state of South Carolina to care for Hill and his siblings … At Virginia Commonwealth, Calvin Roland finally has a place to call home. After months of occasionally sleeping on the floor in the locker room at his junior college or in the break room of the car dealership where he worked, Roland’s scholarship was more than a chance to attend college … North Carolina State fans are called “Reynolds Rowdies” because the team plays at Reynolds Coliseum. Senior Danielle Wilhelm has often been called a “Reynolds Rowdie” on the bench because of her unbridled passion for the team during games … These days, Weber State forward David Patten sports a neatly cropped haircut, but it wasn’t always that way. David grew his hair out to 10 inches before shaving it all off after the 2005 season and donating it to the American Cancer Society … Basketball isn’t the only thing that has kept Arizona State sophomore Danielle Orsillo busy since elementary school. An accomplished guitarist, Danielle has been strumming the instrument since she was 7 ... When Texas freshman D.J. Augustin was four, his grandmother bought him a black and red Michael Jordan basketball. The ball became the youngster’s most prized possession and after years of wear and tear, D.J.’s father Darryl had plans to refurbish it, but unfortunately it was lost in Hurricane Katrina....
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