brown youth sports

HAPPY NEW YEAR from BAR-RED ENTERTAINMENT GROUP (BREG)!!!

2012-01-14T11:25:00.000-05:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR from BAR-RED ENTERTAINMENT GROUP (BREG)!!! 2011 was a great year and at the same time presented some challenges. We THANK all of the individuals, organizations and companies that did business with us in 2011, and we thank GOD for bringing us into 2012!

BREG is excited about the opportunities that are coming forth in 2012, and we look forward to helping our current clients and new clients reach their goals and objectives.

In 2012, look for awesome things from Nu Strata Music Group, Chipped Up Entertainment, X-tratainment Inc. & Hustle University! Artists that are bringing new music, live performances and videos in 2012 include Spade Kosta, Da Bad Habbitz, Grizz, Blushe, Chief Scrill, Lady X, Magnem P.I. & Jay L. Also look for new e-books for your Kindle (click on this Amazon.com link) directly from BREG.

We must address our youth of today that are still killing each other at an alarming rate. BREG is looking forward to the day when the tv is turned on and there are no reports of a young person killing another young person. Parents and adults, it is on us to love, teach & discipline our children so that they will love themselves first & foremost and learn to respect & love others. That way they won't believe it is ok to just end another person's life. What actually happens is that two (2) lives are destroyed. The person that has been murdered and the person that goes to jail. Think about it, it's a lose-lose situation. Young people have a responsiblity too! Do not take education for granted because it is your best option for bettering whatever situation you are currently in, and education will bring about positive opportunities for you. You have the ability to understand what is wrong and what is right. Think before you talk, and definitely think before you act; and you will save yourself and your family a lot of heartache and unwanted problems. Believe in yourself, you can do it and have a successful life!

On the political scene, there will be Local, State and National Elections taking place this year with the Presidential Election being the highlighted election. Do your research on the candidates and make the best decision that you can make for you and your family.

So as you have read, BREG is very excited about 2012 and we look forward to connecting with exciting people, organizations and companies this year and beyond! One Love!!!

Yours Truly,

B. Brown

@BREGBrown

Facebook.com/BREGBrown

Instill The Best In Your Children!!! Checkout the Harbaugh Brothers!

2011-11-25T15:37:00.001-05:00

*Thoughts by Coach Brown

When a father has an opportunity to share something positive with his children, it is his obligation to do it. We as a nation of people have gotten so caught up in earning money that we have let some basics with our kids go, and that's not cool!

Jack Harbaugh, the father of John & Jim Harbaugh, the respective coaches of the NFL's Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49'ers has done his best to instill discipline, harwork, working smart and honesty into his children.

I would say that it has paid off handsomely!

A lot of our young people would like to become professional athletes, but as we all know, only 1% or less will actually accomplish that tremendous goal. That leaves room for a lot of people to become head coaches, assistant coaches, videographers, office staff, trainers, field & equipment managers, etc.

Our children can become whatever they set their minds to become, and with our support as parents and adults, our children can and will accomplish amazing and beautiful things!

Young people, the statement I'm about to make is specifically for you. "Be a leader at all times, set short & long term goals, and focus on accomplishing those goals!"

Enjoy the article on the Harbaugh brothers and family. Hopefully it inspires you to do something great!!!

Patriarch Of Passion: How Jack Harbaugh Raised Two Of The Nation's Best Football Coaches

The two brothers, separated by only 15 months, sat in the back of their father's 1962 Chevy as it pulled up to an elementary school in Iowa City.

John Harbaugh was 8. Jim Harbaugh was 6.

John and Jim grew up in their father's football environment, starting when they were toddlers transported to practice in a stroller by their mother, Jackie.

But at Iowa -- one of the 14 stops made during a coaching career that stretched from Ohio to California -- Jack's job title included chauffeuring his boys to school.

Because his time was limited, Harbaugh made certain it was meaningful.

Just before his sons would reach to open the door, Jack would turn around, scan his audience and deliver the same 20 words.

"OK, men, grab your lunchboxes and attack this day with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind," he'd say.

"And don't take any wooden nickels."

Jack Harbaugh can't remember where the saying came from. The wooden nickels line had been passed down from his own father as a reminder not to be taken advantage of.

But it was the first part of his parting instructions that sank in.

"It had a cadence to it and it kind of built and crescendoed," Jim Harbaugh says, his voice raising for emphasis, "OK Men, attack this day with an enthusiasm UNKNOWN TO MANKIND."
They turned out to be words to live by.

"In this world, you can choose to be positive or you can choose to be negative," Jack Harbaugh says.

"You can choose to see things through a set of eyes that sees good or you can choose to see things in life that aren’t so good.

"At least every day, they were reminded to look at it through a positive set of eyes. Let the lens of your eyes be positive."

Years later, when Jim Harbaugh was introduced as Stanford's football coach in 2007, he was asked what he brought to the job.

Without pausing, Harbaugh repeated the words told to him by his father.

"I was like, 'Wow,'" Jack Harbaugh says. "It had never been talked about. (Jim) never said, 'Wow -- that was really something I thought about or that's something that's been a part of my life.

"It was just something I always told them."

It was something they remembered.

"That's probably the greatest lesson," Jim Harbaugh says. "If you have health, then one day, imagine what you can accomplish."

***

John and Jim Harbaugh have certainly accomplished a lot. Both are rising NFL head coaching stars -- John with the contending Baltimore Ravens and Jim with the one-loss San Francisco 49ers. And both give plenty of credit to father Jack, who spent 19 years as a head coach at Western Kentucky and Western Michigan. Jack, age 72, still watches his sons' game film every week, getting FedEx packages from Baltimore and San Francisco and taking furious notes on everything he sees. But don't think Jack is still telling his sons what to do. He says the game has "passed me by." He even says he wishes he could somehow go back in time with the benefit of what he's learned from his two boys.
What has never changed, however, is Jack's ability to tell his sons, very clearly, what matters. That's something all great coaches and parents do. It's something both Jim and John will be doing Thursday when their teams meet in an NFL game. And it's something Jack's been doing since John and Jim were old enough to throw a football.

***
The Harbaughs always lived close enough to their father's work to ride their bikes and see their dad. Jack often rose before the sun and spent 12 to 14 hours at the office, leaving Jackie to run the house.
Jack refers to his wife of almost 50 years as the best head coach he has ever worked for. He was the assistant coach while his kids -- John, Jim and daughter Joani -- made up the rest of the team.
But Jackie, a former high school cheerleader and school teacher, ran the show.

Part of Jackie's job, she believed, was to give them a window into their father's life. She wanted her kids to see how Jack interacted with his players. How he was tough, but fair. How he wanted them to be good students and better people. How he wanted them to live up to their full God-given potential.
He wanted his kids to learn about discipline. About being on time and about doing the things the right way.

"That's what you talk to your players about," Jack says. "That's what you’re going to expect from your kids."

Jack was all business in practice, ever mindful his children were watching. But he wanted them to be comfortable, too.

At Michigan, where Jack served as an assistant to Bo Schembechler, Harbaugh got the OK to allow his boys to be around practice. They'd stack tackling dummies, help clean up, and even got to spend time with players inside the locker room.

But just like in the Harbaugh household, if rules were broken, there would be consequences.

"You lived with knowing that at any time they could do something and they were going to get snapped at," Jack says.

During one drill, Jack was watching the defense while Schembechler ran the offense. Without warning, a ball sailed over Jack's shoulder and onto the field. Jack cringed.

"I said, 'Please don't let that be one of my kids,'" Jack says.

When one of Jack's sons ran onto the field to retrieve the ball, Schembechler stopped practice.
"Get those kids off the field," Schembechler growled in his slow and steady cadence.

But Jack's sons stayed, and they saw the way their father worked. They saw the way players listened.
They also saw how he dealt with failure.

Throughout his coaching career, Jack's life was a roller coaster. He was fired from his head coaching job at Western Michigan in 1986. He was on a Michigan staff that lost three Rose Bowls in the seven years he worked for Schembechler. His Western Kentucky program endured crippling budget cuts even though the Hilltoppers won the 1-AA national championship nine years ago.

In every instance, good or bad, Jack wanted his kids to learn how to deal with life.

But he wanted them to learn for themselves, living by words he once heard from Ohio State coach
Woody Hayes: Don't do for your kids what they can do for themselves.

"That's the way we kind of looked at it," Jack says. "We didn't understand what it meant at the time but let them do for themselves what they’re capable of without trying to mask things or sugarcoat things or make it look better.

Jack told his kids that life wasn't about what happened, but how you dealt with it. That, he believed, defined you as a person.

"You want them to be competitive -- I want them to understand that everyday is a fistfight in life," Jack says. "You’ve got to battle and you're going to get knocked on your can, but you’re going to get back up if you're competitive."

It's a side of Jim that Jack and Jackie saw earlier this season after a 49ers victory in Detroit.
After the final seconds ran off the clock, Jim celebrated with his players, sprinting across the field to meet Lions coach Jim Schwartz. Harbaugh delivered a forceful handshake and slapped Schwartz on the back.

Words were exchanged.

Jack and Jackie watched the whole thing unfold on television back in Milwaukee.
Jackie smiled. That was a passion unknown to mankind, for sure.
Jack understood the moment as well, but knew that in a media environment much different than the one he coached in, his son would take some heat.
But he loved his son's competitive enthusiasm.
"You've got to be yourself and if you're not, you're a phony," Jack says. "It comes shining through if you're not careful."

***
Loyalty has always been a bedrock of Jack Harbaugh's make-up.

Jack always made one thing perfectly clear: If you need something, Jackie and I will always be here for you. That bled through his entire coaching staff and down to the players.

Michigan coach Brady Hoke learned the lesson first-hand.

Working on Harbaugh's Western Michigan staff, Hoke was sent to Fort Wayne, Ind., to finalize the recruitment of a quarterback Harbaugh wanted to sign. In an era where home visits were critical in building relationships, Harbaugh had sent his assistants out to oversee the signing of every recruit's national letters of intent.

Hoke left Kalamazoo on Valentine's Day, intending to make the short drive to Fort Wayne and return home. Instead, Hoke encountered a blizzard that had paralyzed Fort Wayne, closing the city's schools. As conditions worsened, the young assistant coach found a pay phone to inform the recruit's mother he had run into trouble. The response he got wasn't one he expected.

"Have you talked to Jack Harbaugh?" the mother asked. No, he hadn’t.

"You need to talk to Jack Harbaugh," she replied, giving Hoke a telephone number he didn't recognize.

Turned out Hoke's wife, Laura, was in labor -- three months early.

Harbaugh rushed to University Hospital in Kalamazoo and sat in the waiting room with Brady's and Laura's mothers.

"Jack Harbaugh took charge," Hoke says. "But that's just the person he is. He's tough, but he had a great personal side to him."

Kelly Hoke was born that night, weighing 1 pound, 14 ounces. With Hoke stranded in Fort Wayne, Harbaugh was one of the first people to see Kelly.

"You could hold her in the palm of your hand and her little hands and arms were hanging down," Harbaugh remembers.

For the next 19 years, whenever Valentine's Day rolled around, Jack Harbaugh placed a call to Kelly Hoke, wishing her a Happy Birthday.

Hoke never forgot it.

"You felt such a loyalty to him you wanted to make sure you coaching your tail off for him just because of how he and Jackie treated you as a couple," Hoke says. "You always felt close to them."

***

The phone conversations between father and sons take place on a regular basis.
Rarely, if ever, do they revolve around football. And haven't this week, either.
Jack and Jackie Harbaugh have lived the coach's life enough to understand what game week entails and about the challenges each day bring.

Jack never places a call, never forces his opinion where it’s not wanted.

That carries over to the film sessions in his basement in the days leading up to each game.

Jack limits his film reviews to minimum details, limiting them to the notepad that sits on the chair-side table. He stops and starts the video, taking notice of the movements of the offensive and defensive linemen, gifted enough to know what’s coming next.

He pauses the video from a 49ers-Giants game when his son's team is about to run a play on third down and short.

"This is a situation when Bo (Schembechler) used to say, 'It's time to grind the meat,'" Harbaugh explains.

He lets the play run before stopping it again with his coach's clicker.

"They didn't grind it very well, did they?," he asks the reporter sitting next to him.
Most observations stay in the basement.

On the off-chance John or Jim inquire about what he's seen on that week's coaches cuts, Jack passes his observations on, preferring to keep the conversations about family and other topics.
But even when the conversations include football, there's routinely a lesson imparted.

"Pretty much everything I learned, I learned from my dad," John Harbaugh says. "You get a chance to talk to him after games and you put it in perspective in terms of remembering what’s important."
There are times, Jim Harbaugh acknowledges, when Jack's expertise is required even though Jack prefers to stay out of his son's business.

"Any time I've got a problem or an issue or a decision that's really tough, all I’ve got to do is call him," Jim Harbaugh says. "Something that would take me three hours and give me a massive headache, I just ask him and 30 seconds later, I've got the perfect solution."

Jack always makes sure any decision comes not from what he thinks is right, but what his sons know is.

Last winter, when Jim Harbaugh pondered leaving Stanford, he called his father. The options seemed endless. Harbaugh's name headlined several prominent job openings, including at his alma mater at Michigan along with NFL vacancies in Miami, Carolina and San Francisco.

Harbaugh called his father in Wisconsin, seeking guidance.

Jack was careful not to overstep his boundaries.

As they discussed Jim's options, the son kept asking his father what to do. Jack told him what he thought didn't matter. Jim kept pressing.

Again, Jack told him he had to make up his own mind.
Finally, Jim snapped.

"Damn it, I called you because I want your opinion," Jim told his father. "Just give me your opinion. I'm not telling you I'm going to go that way and if I don't want to go that way, I won't go that way.
"But I called you because you're my dad and I want an opinion." Jack smiled.

He had always encouraged his children to speak their minds.

"I took that as one of the great complements," Jack says. "Every once in a while, you have to express yourself and you have to be who you are."

But Jack didn't relent. Jim had to decide on his own.

***

The expectation growing up in the Harbaugh home wasn’t for the sons to follow in their father’s footsteps. Jack and Jackie Harbaugh simply wanted their children to be happy.

He gave them simple advice: Don't lie. Don't cheat. Don't steal. Those were game-changers and would lead to compromised relationships.

While Jack preached enthusiasm for each new day, he didn't look too far ahead. Coaches simply can't afford to.

"You never think about what life's going to be like five years down the road or 10 -- you just go though the day and try to make good decisions," Jack says. "Sometimes you do, sometimes you don't. You just hope this day will be a good day.

"Pretty soon it's a week, then it's a month, then it's a year -- then it's way down the road."
Joani, born five years after Jim, also spent time with her father, learning to hot-splice game film by the age of 10. She would fall in love with a coach, marrying Indiana basketball coach Tom Crean while he was an assistant at Western Kentucky. She was selfless, but every bit the leader her brothers are. She just wasn't a leader who appeared on TV.

John played defensive back at Miami (Ohio) while Jim became a star quarterback at Michigan before moving onto the NFL.

Did they compete with each other? You bet. There's a great family story about how the boys each tried to throw a football over a tree. And not just any old tree -- a towering Colorado spruce. Jim, always taller, tried and tried until he could finally do it. John, never quite as good an athlete, could not. The elder brother was always quieter, but he burned just as hot inside. That's how he got to the NFL.

John watched practice at Michigan and paid close attention to the way Schembechler ran his program.

"You can't have a better childhood," John Harbaugh said when he landed his first NFL head coaching job with the Ravens. "When you grow up in that environment, part of your life values and the things you learn are three important things.

"No. 1 is the team. The second important thing is the team. The third most important thing was the team. That's what it's all about."

When Jim was introduced in San Francisco, Jack visited the 49ers facilities and saw six words boldly painted on the wall.

The Team, The Team, The Team.

After a Thanksgiving meal one year, when Jack and Jackie visited Baltimore, John informed his family they were going for a ride. They traveled to a downtown homeless shelter where the Harbaughs served meals to the less fortunate. There were no television crews around, no reporters -- just the coach of the Baltimore Ravens and his family.

Earlier this year, when the 49ers visited Washington to play the Redskins, Jim took his team to Arlington National Cemetery. There, Harbaugh took his players to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, telling a story about loyalty and sacrifice -- two staples of the lessons Jack and Jackie Harbaugh passed on to their sons.

"You ask me what my dad means to me," Jim Harbaugh says. "He took me to ballgames. He played catch with me. He believed in me.

"My whole life, even from a young age, making my dad proud of me has been really important to me. I hope I never grow out of that."

***
On Thursday, Jack and Jackie Harbaugh will travel to M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, where John’s Ravens will face Jim's 49ers.

A day earlier, they will visit their oldest son at practice before attending the 49ers' walk-through.
While the Thanksgiving night game will bring family members from around the country, Jack and Jackie won't stay for the game. They will pose for a family photo on the field long before kickoff, reuniting their three children for the first time in three years.

Then, Jack and Jackie will retreat to John's suburban home to avoid becoming part of the focus.
Jack still doesn't know what Thursday night will be like. It will be an emotional scene, but he doesn’t know what kind of emotions he'll feel as kickoff approaches.

Jim Harbaugh expects the night to be a blend of joy and pain for his father.

Greg Mattison, who worked as Jack Harbaugh's defensive coordinator at Western Michigan and as John Harbaugh's defensive coordinator with the Ravens, expects the night won't be easy.

Not by a long shot.

"It's going to be really hard," says Mattison, now the defensive coordinator at Michigan. "I've seen him up close and the pride he had and how emotional he got after we won a big game.

"Now, he's got two of them and one of the people he loves and one of the people he brought into this profession isn't going to be successful in that game."

Despite that, Jack Harbaugh insists Thursday night won't be about him. It's part of the reason he and Jackie will watch the game in solitude.

"They're going to look across the field and see that guy they grew up with and they were raised with and that’s going to be interesting," Jack says. "But once the ball is teed up, it's a three-hour game and you're trying desperately for your team to win the game."

The Ravens-49ers game has changed the way he communicates with his sons. When Jim was at Stanford, he mentioned nuances John was running with the Ravens.

That all ended when Jim was introduced as the 49ers coach. On the occasions he has met with his sons' coaching staffs, assistants have jokingly reminded colleagues to watch what they say, knowing Jack remains in contact with his other coaching son.

Many aspects of this game week will be different than any other. But in some respects, the routine will remain the same.

As always, Jackie Harbaugh will call both of her sons the night before a game. It's her way of letting them know that she’s thinking of them.

Her message, like any other week, will remain the same with John and with Jim.
Good luck, we're supporting you and we’re pulling for you.

"I can't root for one or the other," Jackie says. "If it would end in a tie, I would be the happiest person in the world."

After the game is over, the families will come together and share a meal, thankful for all they have been given.

Then they will celebrate another major accomplishment. Friday is Jack and Jackie's 50th wedding anniversary.

"We all have a lot to be thankful for," Jackie says.

And a lot to be proud of.

A High School kicker hits a 64-yarder!!!

2011-10-10T11:41:00.000-04:00

Thoughts by Coach Brown

I do not know about you, but when I was in high school playing football, I don't believe I could have kicked a 64-yard field goal. I was an above average (All-County/All-Region) Cornerback/Safety in a great program, but there was no way in the world for me to fanthom the kickers on my team or any other team that we played against kicking a 64-yard field goal!!!

When you read the article below, you will see that Austin Pacheco did just that; he kicked a 64-yard field go with little bit to spare!

The great thing about the story is that Austin received props from the other team! Great sportsmanship, great kicking ability and what a gutsy call by Austin's coach!

Congratulations to Austin and his team, and I hope Austin continues to kick the ball well because it looks like he has a bright future!

Enjoy the article! One Love!

Statistically speaking: Kicker hits incredible 64-yard field goal

By Cameron Smith

On Friday night, Carson (Nev.) High placekicker Austin Pacheco did something at the high school level that no one has ever done in a competitive NFL game: He hit a field goal from 64 yards out.

As reported by the Associated Press and Carson City Nevada Appeal, Pacheco drilled a 64-yard field-goal attempt with 27 seconds remaining to lift Carson to a 27-24 victory against Bishop Manogue (Nev.) High School.

"I'm still in shock," Pacheco told the Nevada Appeal. "I knew it was good as soon as I hit it. The snap was perfect and the hold was perfect. The wind was blowing to the right and I played it perfectly.
"I wasn't surprised that coach let me try. He told me before the game that anything 65 and under we had a chance. We did what we could do."

Pacheco's kick stands as the second longest in Nevada state history, behind a 1985 68-yard effort from Reno (Nev.) High kicker Dirk Borgognone which stands as both the Nevada and national high school record. Pacheco's kick was also long enough to tie for the fourth-longest field goal in high school football history.

Perhaps most strikingly, Pacheco's kick actually came from farther out than any NFL kicker has hit from in a professional game. Raiders place-kicker Sebastian Janikowski connected on a 63-yarder in his team's season-opening victory against the Broncos to tie for the longest in league history, but that kick was still a full yard shorter than the one Pacheco hit on Friday.

While everyone on the Bishop Manogue sideline was stunned to see Pacheco line up to attempt the game-winning field goal, his own coach said he never doubted his decision to attempt the field goal then and there, rather than go for a first down with his team facing a fourth-and-13 situation.

As you can see above, the kick would have been good from even farther back. 70 yards? It sure looked like it had a chance.

"I don't know what to say," Carson coach Blair Roman told the Nevada Appeal. "You might have to wait a minute.

"That [field goal] broke the NFL record. I know it was off a tee and I know it was wind-aided, but it was a great kick. It was fourth-and-13, and we're not a fourth-and-13 team. I knew he had the leg to make it."

After the game ended, even Bishop Manogue coach Paul Mills was still struggling to come to grips with the fact that his squad had just lost out to a 64-yard field goal. In fact, he was still stunned that Carson even had the gumption to attempt one.

"We knew it was going to come down to the wire," said Mills. "One of the kids on the sideline said the tee's out there and I was thinking the tee from the previous kick. Then I'm looking out there and they're lining up for a field goal.
"The kid nailed it. My hat's off to him. That's a great job in a very pressure-filled situation. Wind-aided or not, he got the job done and there's a lot of variables when you're kicking that far."

BRIA SANDERS WINS THE WOMEN'S DIVISION OF BLACK ENTERPRISE MAGAZINE'S 2011 GOLF TOURNEY

2011-09-07T00:44:00.000-04:00

By: Coach Brown

When you receive great news, it feels really good! My brother from another mother, Mike Sanders, texted me last Wednesday, August 31, 2011 after receiving my text that my new daughter was in the process of being born and my wife and I were at the hospital. He texted me back and said, "Hope she looks like her mama. We are on the road to Miami, FL because Bria is playing in the Black Enterprise Golf and Tennis Tournament."

My reply to him was "No doubt, she is beautiful! Tell Bria to win the tournament for her new little cousin! Be safe on the road and we love y'all!"

On Monday, September 5, 2011, I received this text from Mike: "Bria won the Women's division of BE Golf at Doral, FL I have the Trophy and she also won the Purple Jacket that will be shipped FedEx. She made Memphis and MBCC proud."

God is great in every sense of the word!

Bria Sanders currently attends The Hank Haney International Junior Golf Academy, and she is on her way to accomplishing some amazing things in golf and in life in general!

I am very proud of her, and I wish her all the best!!!

One Love!

Visit Bria Sanders' Websites:

http://www.briasanders.org

http://www.briasandersfoundation.org

Truly Having A 2nd Career Is Beneficial!!!

2011-08-25T08:43:00.001-04:00

Thoughts By: Coach Brown

When I checked out the story you are about to read, I was thoroughly impressed! This young man not only took advantage of his college scholarship to Alcorn St., but he has kept his nursing license current while he has been playing in the NFL! Young people, this is what I am talking about! A young man understanding and believing that he should get his degree and secured his a degree in a growing field is awesome!

You see, education is something that can never be taken from you. Once you learn something and you are able to apply it, it usually sticks with you for life! Your education and degree is something that no one or no thing can take away from you. Life has an amazing way of humbling us and we must understand that the only thing that is constant is change. Young people that are Blessed enough to earn academic and/or athletic scholarships should always do their best to graduate and take advantage of the opportunities that are presented to them because of their above average skills. We must all use the gifts that God Blesses us with on a daily basis.

Nate Hughes, I tip my hat to you brother, because you are living and setting a great example for other young people to follow! Keep up the great work and make the Detroit Lions team this season so that you don't have put on the hospital scrubs uniform this year!

One Love!

Meet the Detroit Lions wideout who’s also a registered nurse

By Chris Chase

In between playing football and earning All-America honors on the track, Detroit Lions wide receiver Nate Hughes (notes) got a nursing degree during his college days at Alcorn State. Other than the multiple classes, long days of practice, longer hours studying, three weekly eight-hour shifts at the hospital and the 70-mile roundtrip he had to make between nursing school and the football field, it was a breeze.

The NFL hopeful kept his nursing degree active during three seasons with the Jacksonville Jaguars by taking continuing education courses. In his 2009 rookie season, he had five catches and one touchdown in his rookie season with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Hughes spent last season on injured reserve before getting signed as a roster longshot by the Lions.
During this summer's lockout, Hughes took a job as an on-call nurse in his hometown of Macon, Miss. He plans to go to anesthesiology school whenever his football career ends.

He told the Detroit Free Press:

"I think part of the reason why I've been able to succeed on the football field is because once I get to football practice, it's my avenue to let all of that go. [...] Football is my happy place, so when I got to football practice it's like, 'OK, I'm free of all the work, I can just go have fun.' It made me look at football totally different. I didn't look at football as work, I looked at football as play. I looked at nursing as work because you'd have times you'd have to read 12, 13 chapters a night and have a test on it the next day."

Twelve or 13 chapters a night? I'd feel safe wagering that a number of NFL players made it through college without reading 12 or 13 chapters in total. (NFL bloggers too.)

Hughes told the newspaper that his teammates in Detroit don't know he's a registered nurse but that players in Jacksonville would often call him in the middle of the night to diagnose their ailments.

Despite a touchdown in the Lions' first preseason game, Hughes is considered a stretch to make the team's final roster. Given the team's rash of injuries this preseason, perhaps they could find another way to utilize one of his many talents.

High School Star uses Social Media the Wrong Way!

2011-08-04T01:13:00.000-04:00

Thoughts By: Coach Brown

When a young person believes their athletic ability is their pass to do whatever they want to do and the adults around them encourage or support the behavior, many problems may arise!

This is the case of Tony Wroten, Jr. that tweeted about how he was chillin' in a three (3) - person class that really never really met and wasn't an official class as part of his school's curriculum.

Now, I know you're saying, "Why would he do that?" Well, the answer is quite simple if you have spent any significant time around teenagers of today. A lot of them, definitely not all of them, have a terrible understanding of what accountability is and the unbelievable power of cause-and-effect. I always tell young people to just think for at least a minute before you say something or do something because usually you will make a better decision if you just think before you speak or act. Try it, it really works!

So when Tony Wroten, Jr. sent out his tweet, he didn't even think about the consequences of his actions and actually caused a major stir in his school district. Again, adults have a responsibility in this too because we cannot treat our star athletes a certain way that is going to cause them to believe they are above the rules and laws of the land. Haven't we seen that outcome already? It's not a pretty picture and it's usually not a positive ending either.

Checkout the article below, it's something to chew on. One Love!

Top recruit’s Tweet leads to athletic director’s firing

By Cameron Smith

It's become common wisdom to remind everyone to be careful what they transmit across social media. Consider this Tweet sent out in January 2011 by superstar hoops recruit Tony Wroten Jr. exhibit A in what can happen when one isn't quite so careful:

"just me and my 2 bros. we got a 3 person Spanish class. #Niccceeee."

Not surprisingly, officials at Seattle Public Schools, which oversees Wroten's Garfield (Wash.) High, were none too thrilled to get surprising notice that Garfield had established a three-person Spanish tutorial class, particularly as budget cuts force more and more students into crowded classrooms. Soon thereafter, they discovered many more academic irregularities, including the fact that Wroten Jr. and a classmate had been given passing grades for a non-existent class led by the school's athletic director.

According to the Seattle Times' terrific high school sports reporter Mason Kelley, SPS launched a formal investigation into what led to the class being established, eventually finding that Garfield athletic director Jim Valiere had set up the course in conjunction with Garfield principal Ted Howard for Wroten and fellow senior Valentino Coleman, in large part as a way to ensure Wroten would qualify to attend the University of Washington, to whom he has signed a scholarship offer.

Yet the only reason why Howard signed off on the course was because Wroten and Coleman were allegedly given passing grades for a completely non-existent Spanish class led by Valiere in 2010, though both students said the athletic director never formally taught them and rarely did more than offer occasional quizzes in the hallway between classes.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Valiere was fired after the conclusion of the investigation, officially notified of his termination on April 11. The longtime athletic coordinator is still fighting his dismissal and has requested a formal hearing into the matter to come.

"The investigation they had going was just to find more dirt to try and bury me," Valiere told the Times. "I was really trying to teach them Spanish. I really wanted them to learn."

According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Christian Caple, Wroten Jr. didn't seem to have learn his lesson from the publication of The Times' investigation, as he took back to social media shortly after the publication of Kelley's story to respond ... in a rather inadvisable way. Shortly after Kelley's story was published Thursday, Wroten Jr. responded publicly with this Tweet:

"Lol this guy @masonkelley be lying. Lol we r retarded now? Lol yea OK. I guarantee it wouldn't even b a story if MY name wasn't in it. Lol Its koo though cause you will NEVER get another interview with me. Never again. Now retweet that. Lol."

The superstar recruit has since deleted that Tweet and fired off a series of social media communications telling the world how important Spanish is as a language, insisting that that he fully intends to continue learning Spanish. Evidently he'll do that last part quickly so he can still enroll in Washington in September.

Unfortunately for Valiere's hopes to have his own penalty reversed, there are a number of extenuating conditions that seem to undermine his contention that he was ever licensed to provide an independent study period for the students, let alone help set up the two-student tutorial, which Wroten and Coleman are still partaking in. Howard insisted that Garfield did not ever offer independent study credit, and that he never signed off on any agreement for Valiere to teach the duo himself. In fact, Howard claims that he was the one who initiated the unique Spanish study group for what he considers to be altruistic reasons.

"I felt like we owed those kids and parents credit and also an education," he said. "The question that became a really big issue at Garfield was: How were the kids going to get the credit and not be penalized?" Howard told the Times.

The solution was certainly a unique and virtually unprecedented one, though it's also one that Howard and Valiere almost certainly would have preferred to keep quiet. Unfortunately, Wroten foiled those plans himself in the blink of an eye with one simple Tweet.

Student-Athlete Gives Away $40,000.00!!!

2011-07-05T21:37:00.000-04:00

Thoughts By: Coach Brown

It is a beautiful thing when our young people step up and make great decisions!

The article you are going to read below is about an outstanding high school basketball player that is also an outstanding student! Since he had already earned a full scholarship to attend college, he gave the prize that he won to the rest of his classmates in the competition. He split $40,000.00 between seven other young people. I love it!

Just when you think there is nothing positive happening with our young people, a story like this pops up. Believe me, there are a lot of other young people doing great things too. We must continue to support them and recognize them for their accomplishments!

I salute you Allan Guei for making a decision to help others!

Checkout his story below .......

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The event - a foul-shooting contest for top academic students at Compton High School in Los Angeles - was created with a simple premise: Organizers wanted to show the kids at Compton how to create community spirit with college scholarship money as the incentive.



Allen Geui won in front of a packed house.

Following a tear-jerking gesture from the winner - it appears the true lessons learned were by the adults.

The kids in Compton are more than alright.
Three months after winning the $40,000 top prize, Allan Guei donated all of his winnings to the seven other finalists.
Guei, a star player on the basketball team who is headed to Cal-State Northridge on a full scholarship, said he felt the others could use the college cash more than he could. He wanted to give his classmates a chance to make their academic dreams come true, too.
"I've already been blessed so much and I know we're living with a bad economy, so I know this money can really help my classmates," he said in a release from the school. "It was the right decision."
One that stunned Court Crandall, the man behind the event.

"What he has done is exceptional, just like Allan," he said. "Like any young people, whether it's my kids or someone else's, you hope they are given opportunities to show what they can do. These Compton High grads have a lot of talent. They have a lot of drive, and I wish them all the best."

Crandall, a partner at the Southern California advertising firm WDCW and a hollywood screenwriter whose credits include "Old School," came up with the idea after watching his 16-year-old son play on a basketball team with some Compton students.

Crandall felt foul shooting was something that could unite a community regardless of racial divide. He felt doing it in Compton - a community battling an image problem - could help change those attitudes, too.
"I thought the free throw is a good metaphor in a world where there's a bunch of lines that are kind of dividing us," Crandall said afterward. "The focus became, how do we show the world another side of Compton, that's more positive, beyond the stereotypical guns and crime stuff."

The only requirement for the contest is that the students must have a GPA of 3.0 and above. After receiving nearly 100 applicants, eight contestants were chosen at random. The contest was held in March.

"My hope was that what started as a competition would become a collaboration with the kids supporting each other," Crandall told the L.A. Times. "They did, but in the end they did that to a much greater extent than I ever could have anticipated."

The students were filmed throughout the ordeal as part of a documentary that is scheduled to be released this fall. One of the final scenes figures to be Compton principal Jesse Jones making the surprise announcement at the school's graduation in June. "Allan is a great basketball player, but he is a better citizen than a basketball player," Jones said. "It's truly a blessing."

Even though Guei was a basketball star, Crandall allowed him to enter the contest to reward him for his academic efforts. Guei would have been allowed to keep the money under NCAA rules. The other finalists, who will receive roughly $5,500, are thankful that he will not.

Donald Dotson, who also plans to attend Cal-State Northridge, said Guei is "a very deep, intelligent, and warm person." Dotson figures his gesture will pay forward. "He's going to go really far in life," he said. "Because of what he's done for us, God will bless him. That's what life is all about; stepping forward to help other people."

The irony in this story: Compton's boys basketball team advanced to the Southern Section Division 2AA title game last winter before losing . The team was done in by poor foul shooting.

Free Throw update from Court Crandall on Vimeo.

How Jose Bautista Became Major League Baseball's Best Slugger!

2011-06-16T16:16:00.000-04:00

*Thoughts By Coach Brown

Below is a great story about Jose Bautista valuing education and using it to get to the United States to play college baseball and get a very nice signing bonus to start playing professional baseball!

A lot of his countrymen would drop out of high school to pursue professional baseball dreams for small signing bonuses (i.e. $5,000.00), but he knew that amount of money was not worth him NOT finishing his high school education.

When he got to the U.S., he worked VERY HARD and fought through ADVERSITY to DEVELOP his game and now he and we are seeing him turn into the MLB's premier power hitter!

Checkout Bautista's story:

Tuesday, June 14, 2011 9:59 pm

Jose Bautista always got A's in classes that involved math. Algebra, geometry, chemistry, physics: the discipline never mattered. His mind worked like a calculator. Bautista took English lessons as an 8-year-old in the Dominican Republic, and eventually he learned the language, but he preferred the earnestness of numbers. They never lied to him.

"There are no flaws in math," Bautista says. "You can have 50 people read one paragraph, and they're going to interpret it in 50 ways. You can't find anybody who would say two plus two doesn't equal four."
More than any sport, baseball loves its numbers. They catalog its past and always have foretold its future. They enforce the game's caste system. There are superstars, stars, good players, average players, journeymen, fill-ins and minor leaguers. No one moves more than a standard deviation or two from his dominion.

Which is why the game struggles to wrap its mind around Bautista, the Toronto Blue Jays' right fielder. What he did remains inconceivable: evolve from a nobody, a piece cast off by the sport's dregs, into the most dangerous hitter on the planet. He hit 54 home runs last year when no one else hit 40, and he followed up this season with the best two-month stretch since Barry Bonds.

History says with no malice that Bautista should not be doing this. He disturbed baseball's neat order. It was no random stretch, no burp in the matrix. It demanded an explanation. And so for the last 14 months, the scouts and the statisticians and the fans have probed and prodded and dissected Bautista's ascent, the sort that gives divers the bends. They turned accomplishment into interpretational gymnastics. One set of numbers, 50 theories behind it, all trying to answer the same question. How?

Baseball's calculus changed with steroids. No ophthalmologist can fix the lens through which the public now views accomplishment. Success -- out-of-nowhere, what-the-hell success especially -- begets skepticism. There must be a reason, a plug-and-play, easy-to-digest, quick-and-dirty catch-all that makes way for the next question. "Sometimes there is a reason," Bautista says. "It's just not simple."
*** In his free time, Bautista reads books on exceptionality. "I'm trying to understand why mediocre people become good at what they do," he says, "and why good people become the best." So he mixes other players' post-career musings on success with real mental protein. He's gotten into Malcolm Gladwell. He recently finished "Outliers.

Were Gladwell writing the book today, Bautista could constitute an entire chapter. He is both the exception and the exceptional, his life every bit as circuitous and unorthodox as his career path.

Unlike so many of his countrymen who grew up impoverished, with milk cartons for gloves and balls made of socks and duct tape, Bautista lived a middle-class childhood with a family that stressed education. His father, Americo, ran poultry farms, and his mother, Sandra, was an accountant and financial planner. Around his neighborhood in the capital city of Santo Domingo, Bautista was known as "El Raton" – the rat, his friends called him, because he was skinny and had big ears.

Bautista eschewed the life of a typical Dominican prospect: drop out of school around 13 and join agents, called buscones, who house and feed them, teach them the game and take usurious cuts of signing bonuses when they cash in at 16 as international free agents. Bautista went to a private Catholic high school and graduated as the youngest in his class. His greatest exposure came from a city league run by the old Dominican ballplayer Enrique "Quique" Cruz. Scouts saw him there and liked him enough to invite him to train at their complexes and see if he might be worth signing.

During the days, Bautista worked out with the New York Yankees. At night, he took business classes at Pontificio Universidad Catolica Madre y Maestra, a college with one of the country's best business schools. Bautista figured if baseball stardom never materialized, he'd do fine as a bilingual businessman. He took school seriously enough that when the Yankees finally offered him a contract for $5,000 in 1999, Bautista laughed.

"I was not," Bautista says, "going to drop out of college for $5,000."

He started training with the Arizona Diamondbacks. They tried to sign him for $42,000. He turned that down, too. Soon thereafter, the Cincinnati Reds recognized the same burgeoning bat speed and arm strength and offered Bautista a $300,000 bonus. He agreed to sign. Then Marge Schott sold the Reds to Carl Lindner, and the franchise reneged on its offer.

Frustrated, Bautista started to splice together a highlight tape of himself filmed on a camcorder. He sent it to colleges in the United States. None responded. His baseball career stagnated until he received a call from a man named Oscar Perez, who he knew from the Quique Cruz League. Perez started telling him about a program in the United States called the Latin Athletes Education Fund. Don Odermann, a businessman in the Bay Area, aids players from Spanish-speaking countries who want to play college baseball in the U.S. And it just so happened Chipola College, a junior college in Florida, needed an everyday player.

The opportunity intrigued Bautista, even more so after he met Odermann, who in his time as a Peace Corps director in Colombia and the Dominican Republic developed an affinity for assisting Latin American teenagers. He's still at it today.

"I'm up on a mountain here in Puerto Rico talking about baseball," Odermann says. "I'm looking for the next Jose Bautista."
*** Jack Powell found the first Jose Bautista, and he remembers the day well, as does every scout with his prized signee. Bautista was a freshman at Chipola, lithe and angular, bundled potential. He moved well. He laughed a lot. He caught fly balls and fielded ground balls and hit line drives and Powell, then with the Pittsburgh Pirates, couldn't take his eyes off him.

"You were sold just by watching him," Powell says.

Scouts disregarded Bautista after he sprained his ankle and missed almost the whole season. Powell filed a report on him anyway: "This kid's got the potential to hit 30 home runs." He urged the Pirates' scouting director, Mickey White, to join him in Florida before the draft to see Bautista in person. Pittsburgh chose Bautista in the 20th round of the 2000 draft and allowed him to return to Chipola, where they would track him as a draft-and-follow candidate whom they could sign anytime over the next year. Bautista thrived as a sophomore and held a scholarship to South Carolina over the Pirates' heads. He never lost that businessman's intuition, either: They gave him $500,000, 100 times the Yankees' offer.

Two years later, he was one of the Pirates' best prospects, a 22-year-old third baseman hitting third in High-A, three steps from the major leagues. His Lynchburg Hillcats team teemed with future major leaguers: Nate McLouth, Ryan Doumit, Jeff Keppinger, Ronny Paulino, Ian Snell, Bryan Bullington and others. Even among them, Bautista's tools stood out: the buggy-whip swing, the defensive keenness and the sort of wisdom that belied his age.

"I can remember him swinging at bad pitches just to set up pitchers," says Dave Clark, the Lynchburg manager and now the Houston Astros' third-base coach. "You don't see that from a guy in A ball. He was going to be a winning-type player. He cared. He just felt like every time he went to the plate, he was supposed to get a hit. I was OK with that. But it ended up being a rude awakening for him."

A little more than 50 games into the season, Bautista returned to the dugout after an out and punched a trash can. Bautista figured it was made of cheap plastic, like in most minor league dugouts. The metal receptacle didn't give. Bautista cracked a bone in his hand and missed the rest of the season.
"I learned something," he says. "Not to punch anything if I don't know what it's made of."

*** The odyssey started Dec. 15, 2003 and ended 229 days later, leaving Bautista exactly where he was before: baseball purgatory. Between the punch and the iffy production before it, the Pirates started to sour on Bautista and left him exposed in the Rule 5 draft, the annual Winter Meetings grab bag in which teams take a $50,000 flier on a high-upside player. It reduced Bautista to a tin can, kicked about and unwanted and left to rust.

Five teams gave up on him that season. He appeared in transaction agate more than a desperate socialite shows up on Page Six. Designated for assignment, waived, sold, traded: Bautista got dumped in nearly every fashion possible.

The Baltimore Orioles selected him as a Rule 5 pick in December 2003 and replaced him in late May with 27-year-old Jose Leon, who had 66 at-bats that year and never played in the major leagues again. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays held onto Bautista for three weeks before discarding him for Joey Gathright, who would go on to have the worst slugging percentage of any player with at least 1,000 at-bats in the 2000s. The Kansas City Royals purchased Bautista for $50,000, stuck him on the bench as journeyman Desi Relaford garnered full-time at-bats and a month later traded him to the New York Mets for Justin Huber, who bombed out after 175 at-bats. The Mets owned Bautista's rights for mere minutes, spinning him back to Pittsburgh in a deal for Kris Benson.

"We weren't sure about Bautista's bat," says Jim Beattie, then the Orioles' co-general manager.
They weren't the only ones. The Devil Rays' scouting director, Cam Bonifay, was the GM in Pittsburgh when the Pirates drafted and signed Bautista. His time with Tampa Bay left quite the impression. "I can't remember that far back," Bonifay says. The Rays' GM at the time, Chuck LaMar, couldn't recall any specifics, either. "If we had him," LaMar says, "I guess we're part of that success story."

The best hitter in baseball ended up with a major league-record five teams in one season, his talent locked inside a safe he couldn't crack. By the end of his Rule 5 odyssey, Bautista hit .208 with two RBIs and struck out in nearly half of his 48 at-bats. Even if his development schedule suggested he spend the year in Double-A, 2004 firmed up the perception about Bautista.

"I remember when I started working for the Mets," says Rafael Perez, now New York's director of international operations. "I asked one of the scouts what he thought about Jose. I'll never forget the response: 'He's a fourth outfielder.'"

Bautista fell in and out of favor over the next four years with Pittsburgh, the prime of most players' careers. The Pirates batted him toward the bottom of the order and suggested he try to hit the ball to the opposite field. He chafed at the idea, and the sour relationship reached its nadir Aug. 13, 2008, when the team demoted Bautista to Triple-A. He went to Pirates GM Neal Huntington and suggested the team place him on waivers so it could shed the remainder of his $2.4 million salary and he could start over.

"Sometimes you've got to get with the right people," says Clark, his Class A manager. "It's kind of like being with a few different women before you find the one you want to spend the rest of your life with."

*** No one knew. That's what they all say now, even Bautista himself. No one realized the impact of one trade, one conversation, one modification. On Aug. 21, 2008, the day the Pirates sent Bautista to Toronto for a third-string catcher named Robinzon Diaz, Toronto Star columnist Richard Griffin asked Blue Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi about Bautista.

"This guy isn't like Mike Schmidt," Ricciardi said. "He's not going to come out and hit 40 home runs."

Bautista arrived in Toronto and proceeded to go 0 for 14. Though any slump triggered fear from his Rule 5 days, Bautista's new manager, Cito Gaston, and first-base coach, Dwayne Murphy, urged him to relax. They saw potential in Bautista. As long as he worked with them -- Murphy would become hitting coach before the 2010 season, and Gaston was long considered a hitting guru -- they believed they could blow open the safe. After years of failing to do so in Pittsburgh, Bautista embraced them.

"Baseball is one of the sports where it's hardest to make adjustments and trust in changes," Bautista says. "Your results immediately are affected by making a change, and at least at the beginning, in the short term, it affects them negatively. Your production goes down when you make a change. It might help you in the long run, but it's really tough to trust in yourself. You feel like your role gets affected, and maybe negatively. I knew I needed to make changes to become successful in the future. But if I did them and didn't pick it up in one or two months, I might've been out of a job anyway. It's hard for guys to do that, and I know because I went through it."

Before they tried to rescue Bautista's psyche, Gaston and Murphy wanted to overhaul his swing. Scouts admired Bautista's hips as much as Shakira's. The torque he generated allowed him to wait for the ball to travel deeper into the strike zone before he started his swing. Bautista knew this but never took advantage of it. The late start on Bautista's swing negated his hips' quickness. Gaston and Murphy urged Bautista to trigger his swing by moving his top hand in a small semicircle almost a second earlier than before and allow his wrists to drive the bat through the zone.

"I used to start when the pitcher would let go of the ball," Bautista says. "His position would be like this" -- he freezes his arm at a 90-degree angle, his wrist next to his ear -- "and the ball would come out of his hand and I'd just be late. When the pitcher takes the ball out of his glove [now], I'm moving. I've got all this time to load. My top hand moves at the same rate as the pitcher is cocking his arm."

Bautista added a leg lift, too, mainly for rhythm. He drew inspiration from some of his favorite hitters --Robinson Cano, Alex Rodriguez, Ichiro Suzuki -- and spent hours studying their swings. Blue Jays teammate Rajai Davis, who played with Bautista in their first professional season 10 years ago, calls his video sessions "manic." Bautista saw others' good tendencies and his bad and tried to flip-flop the two.

He also adopted Murphy's grip-and-rip motto. Look for a good pitch, Murphy urged, and don't miss it. Innate strike-zone judgment helped Bautista avoid the eagerness that plagues some of Murphy's other disciples.

"You look at the pitches he takes," Murphy says. "It's crazy. Nasty pitches that he lays off. Real good hitters do that. Mediocre hitters get themselves out on those pitches."

The new swing took about a year to sync, by which time the Blue Jays had cleared spots in their lineup for him. From April through August 2009, Toronto never gave Bautista more than 68 plate appearances in a month. In September and October, he strode up 125 times. Ten at-bats ended in home runs, the most in baseball over that time period. Since then, he has hit 75 home runs. Albert Pujols ranks second with 57.
"It's like the atom," says Powell, the scout who signed him. "He's trying to figure out how it works. He wants to know how to split an atom. And finally, he did it."
*** Bautista needs to understand how and why things work. He obsesses over it, now and in his youth, when he and his brother, Luis, would plunder the guts of broken electronic equipment, study them and build something new.

He understands how he was baseball's collective mistake, why five teams gave up on him, why another seven disregarded him in the Rule 5 draft and waiver process, why the 18 others declined to pay more than the $50,000 Kansas City did: He wasn't ready for this.

And he understands why Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos approached his agent, Bean Stringfellow, last fall and initiated what eventually would lead to a five-year, $64 million contract he signed at the start of spring training: He is, in addition to baseball's best home run hitter, a little bit of everyone in the game. He grew up in the Dominican Republic and commiserates with the Blue Jays' sizeable Latin presence. He went to college and speaks better English than most American players. His trials allow him to appreciate the struggles of lesser players, and his triumphs win him the instantaneous respect he works to foster.

He understands, too, why "strangers treat me like I've never been treated before. It's strange. They treat you like a --- " He stops. He wants to say a god, because that's how it is -- mouths agape, eyes aflutter, excitement spasmodic -- but he's too polite. " --- it's like they respect you or something. I think it's funny. I don't think I'll ever get used to it. I guess on your second go-around, people are more aware of you, more prone to recognize you. They believe in you."

He understands that belief because he studies the game. He knows that in 1973, Davey Johnson hit 43 home runs a year after he hit five. And that Jayson Werth, the outfielder who signed a $126 million deal with the Washington Nationals this off-season, wasn't a full-time player until his 29th birthday. And that "Cactus" Gavvy Cravath, who held baseball's home run record until Babe Ruth, was a career minor leaguer until he turned 31. He is not the first outlier.

Most of all, Bautista thinks he understands how all this happened. In "Outliers," Gladwell outlines the 10,000-Hour Rule -- the idea, based on Swedish psychologist Anders Ericsson's theory, that success manifests itself when a person spends 10,000 hours practicing a particular task. It often takes a decade.
Another chapter focuses on the superiority of youth hockey players in Canada born in January, February and March, just after the cutoff date from the previous year. Their physical and mental development, the argument goes, gives them a distinct advantage over kids just months younger. Bautista was born in October 1980, and his parents pushed him ahead rather than hold him back and let him be the oldest in his grade.

"Both of those apply to me," Bautista says. "That's the thing about this. Everybody wants a quick answer. They want to say I'm doing this for one reason. But I lost two years to my injury in 2003 and the Rule 5 thing in 2004. And then I bounced back and forth, and my at-bats in the majors were still developmental for me. And the swing is totally different. These are all things that should be looked at. A lot of things can add up to someone being a late bloomer.
"It's not always luck."
*** As much as he hates it, Jose Bautista also understands the steroid specter.
We've seen this before. New swing. Late bloomer. The excuses don't change. Only the names and faces. And it doesn't matter that at 6-foot, 195 pounds, Bautista cuts the same unimposing figure as Hank Aaron, as Willie Mays, as Mickey Mantle. He is playing 2011, which means he bears the consequences of those who abused performance-enhancing drugs in the 1990s and 2000s, that he sees his accomplishments sheathed in cynicism.

"I haven't done anything to create suspicion other than play well," Bautista says. "I think it's sad and funny at the same time. When did the default on achievement become cheating or beating the system or doing something illegal?"

The damage from the last 20 years remains palpable. Not only are baseball's historic numbers now subject to a morality divide, every present-day achievement finds itself under an electron microscope, ultimately never free of suspicion. A Toronto columnist last August questioned whether Bautista could possibly do what he had done clean. Others later intoned hope that he was drug-free, which amounted to tacit implications that he might not be. White Sox announcer Hawk Harrelson in May suggested Bautista could be corking his bat. Bautista may hold no ill will toward his predecessors -- "At the time," he says, "they were doing it under conditions that were there" -- but their deeds bring his into question.

And they stay there, even though Bautista has deposited clean urine into dozens of test cups, even though, when asked whether he would have used steroids back in the 1990s, he says: "No. That's not my nature. I didn't cheat on tests in school. I don't skip working out and use something else to boost my performance. I try to be the best at anything I can be, that being school, baseball. Whatever I take serious, I do it to get better, to learn and to be successful. I'm not going to half-ass anything. My success is based on hard work, dedication and perseverance. I have no shame in talking about it, and I have nothing to hide. So when people ask those questions, if that's what I've got to deal with because of my success, I'll deal with it. I know I haven't done anything wrong. Whatever. I'll face whatever questions anyone has."

They'll continue for the rest of Bautista's career. He is steroids' collateral damage. If he keeps hitting home runs, he's got to be on something. If he stops, he must've quit taking them.

The whole thing is rigged, of course. No matter how strong his case, Bautista knows he cannot win a debate where he argues against perception. He faces it with certitude and conviction anyway, with the hope that people choose to trust him. He understands, above all, himself.

It's just that simple.

American Soccer is on the rise!!!

2011-06-04T00:03:00.000-04:00

By: Coach Brown

American Soccer is continuing to make major strides! The story you will read below highlights a young American player that appears to be heading toward an amazing soccer career if he continues to develop at a high level.

Because soccer is the most popular sport in the world, my daughter is playing and developing with one of the State of Georgia's best programs, Concorde Fire Soccer Club. Click here to visit Concorde Fire's website and see the success the program is having with signing young men and women to college scholarships. It is a beautiful thing!

Thu Jun 02 09:03am EDT

Barcelona signs 10-year-old American prodigy to academy

By Cameron Smith

On Saturday, FC Barcelona won its fourth UEFA Champions League title, the second it has earned in the past three years. The victory cemented the club's place at the pinnacle of European football, with many -- Yahoo!'s own Martin Rogers among them -- calling the current Barcelona incarnation the greatest club team ever assembled.

Of course, the trick with Barcelona is that its top team is as much built from within as it is assembled, thanks to its youth development program, the pride of the organization. And now, for the first time, an American is joining that very outlet. According to a variety of sources (but first reported by the website BarcaLoco and soccer blog 3four3), Southern Californian Ben Lederman -- a 10-year-old who visited and worked out at the club's La Masia training complex in April -- signed a two-year development contract with the club's youth academy.

The American soccer prodigy, whose style of play and precocious ball control skills have drawn comparisons to Barcelona star Andres Iniesta (you can see him in action wearing number 10 below), accepted the team's offer, with his future in Catalonia to be reevaluated after his initial two-year stay at the club. His parents are also reportedly moving to Barcelona to be closer to their son as he continues his soccer development abroad.
While the professional moves of any number of prior American stars have been held up as hallmark moments -- with Landon Donovan's failed German adventures and loan deal with Everton, and striker Jozy Altidore's move to Villareal among them -- the signing of an American 10-year-old with what is almost inarguably the world's most decorated soccer development school (officials at Ajax's De Toekomst Academy in Amsterdam may beg to differ) is truly a watershed. For the first time, it signifies officials at the highest level possible recognizing that American youth soccer talent does in fact match up well with its global counterpart.

As for Lederman himself, who was raised as a Barcelona fan, the move almost surely marks the fulfillment of a dream, albeit earlier than he or anyone could have reasonably imagined. Of course, all of that is only speculation, as his parents and others have understandably protected him from public comment because of his age.

It's impossible to know if Lederman will still be a part of Barcelona's developmental plans in three years, let alone begin to predict when he might break through to the Barcelona senior team. After all, for every Leo Messi, Xavi Hernandez and Iniesta, there are dozens of Dos Santos brothers, incredibly talented players who never truly make the phenomenally high grade required to have a significant impact at a club like Barcelona.

Still, it's almost impossible not to dream of a day eight or ten years down the road when Lederman might make his way onto a Barcelona pitch -- or even any other field within the realm of La Liga -- representing the first American to break through as an authentically dual citizen of global soccer, a prospect who was raised on both American training and its counterpart at the world's best club.

Tiny sophomore point guard lands $750,000.00 Italian pro offer!

2011-05-09T21:15:00.000-04:00

Thoughts by Coach Brown

Now, when I first looked at this story, I was like what? A sophomore in high school has gotten an offer to play overseas! Yes, it is true! Now my only real problem is that the young man is 17 years old in the 10th grade, and there are some admitted academic problems. With that said, I believe the first step in this process should be getting this young man some serious academic help so that he can at least get his G.E.D. Then his family or advisor/agent should put enough of this 1st contract away so that he can go to college in the off-season. He is only 5' 6", so I wouldn't bet on a long career, but you never know. Have you ever heard of Spud Webb (5' 5") and Mugsy Bogues (5' 3")? I wish this young man all the best!!! One Love!

*Checkout his story below .....

By Cameron Smith

When you stand just 5-foot-6, you usually aren't considered a basketball prodigy.

When you are just a 17-year-old sophomore in high school, you usually aren't considered a pro prospect.

Aquille Carr -- in what many will consider a surprise -- apparently is both.

The quick-as-lightning, high-scoring, show-stopping point guard from Patterson (Md.) High School returned from a recent tournament in Milan, Italy, with a $750,000 contract offer that conceivably could be worth nearly $1 million.

Really? Yes.

But before anyone need shout that this is just the latest example of too-much too-soon in the youth athletic world, realize this -- the offer from Lottomatica Virtus Roma of the Italian league actually makes sense when you break it down.

It's the result of a perfect storm of events that culminated with Carr leading the U.S. team to a gold medal at the Junior International Tournament in Milan in late April.

Consider:
• Carr was the best player in the tournament, averaging more than 40 points per game;
• Carr's height -- or lack thereof -- actually gives him more of a professional appeal. The Italian fans literally carried him off the court after his heroics in one game;
• The pro team making the offer had great success with its previous U.S. high school import, Brandon Jennings, who used his year in Italy to improve his NBA draft status;
• Under Armour, which already has Jennings as a client, is looking for the next fresh face in the European market. Carr, who already plays on an Under Armour sponsored AAU team, could be in line for a shoe deal, too;
• And though Carr is still a sophomore, he is an over-aged one. He's already 17 and will turn 18 during the next school year.

While all of these things work in his favor, staying in the U.S. may not. Because of his height and some academic concerns, Carr actually is only considered an upper mid-level collegiate prospect here, according to Rivals.com national basketball analyst Jerry Meyer.

Carr, who first confirmed the offer to Scouts Focus chief scout Joe Davis, told Davis the offer is something he is considering right now -- and for the future.

"Yes, I would be interested in [playing abroad] one day," Carr told Davis on the video above. "It was fun over there. I had to get adjusted to how they were playing. My second, third, fourth and fifth game, I was averaging like 41 points.

"I just want to keep [the Roma offer] in mind. I don't want to make my decision so fast. But perhaps we might do that."

It's unclear how long the offer will be on the table. And while his high school coach, Harry Martin, told Prep Rally he expects Carr to return to school, he did it with some hesitation.

The terms of Carr's offer were confirmed by Martin and another person close to the Carr family, with Martin adding that Carr plans to speak with Jennings about playing in Italy in the near future.

Virtus Roma is the same Italian side that signed Jennings to a $1.2 million, three-year contract when the 18-year-old point guard decided to decline a scholarship offer to Arizona in favor of a season of professional basketball in Italy. Jennings, of course, returned to the U.S. after one season in Rome and was a lottery draft pick for the Milwaukee Bucks, for whom he has become an All-Star starting guard.

In addition to his AAU affiliation with the brand, Carr's high school program in Baltimore will also begin a two-year affiliation with Under Armour beginning next fall. Part of that athletic sponsorship will include an appearance by Patterson High at the Brandon Jennings Invitational next January in Milwaukee.

Martin said that Jennings himself plans to meet Carr and discuss playing in Italy with him in the coming months. It's clear that while Carr's current plan may be to finish high school in Maryland, he and his family will keenly consider all options on the table.

"I think he's committed to playing for Patterson for the next two years, and then he would consider all options," Martin told Prep Rally. "I think it's just him keeping his options open. …
"This time next year we'll have a better understanding what he's doing academically and what his options are."

While it is unknown if or when Carr might accept the Virtus Roma contract offer, the source close to the Carr family told Prep Rally that he expected the Carrs and the player's team of advisers to consider European options seriously. While Carr has a cult following in the Baltimore-D.C. corridor -- he scored 58 points in a victory against Forest Park (Md.) High this winter and he reportedly has a 48-inch vertical leap -- some question whether he would academically qualify to compete at the NCAA level, or whether he would be successful there given his height. Martin said he was already beginning to reach out to European contacts to see what Carr's true market value might be should he decide to play abroad.
Carr's family could make the transition to Europe slightly easier if the athlete does decide to take that option, as well. The sophomore's parents still live together in Baltimore and he has only two siblings, both of whom are already out of the house; his older brother Allen Jr. was a standout football player in the Baltimore high school football scene and his older sister Ashley will graduate from nearby Towson University in the coming weeks. It's possible that either one of his siblings -- or his father, Allen, or mother, Tammy -- could move abroad with Carr should he choose to play in Italy.

The $750,000 offer is not the first made to a pre-graduation American teenager by a European club, but it is the most lucrative. Six-foot-11 San Diego (Calif.) High star Jeremy Tyler left school after his junior season with a plan to play professionally for two years before declaring for the NBA Draft. He first signed a $140,000 contract with Israeli powerhouse Maccabi Haifa, in April 2009, but left Maccabi after just 10 games and returned to practice near his home in March of 2010. Four months later Tyler signed a contract with the Tokyo Apache of the Japanese professional league, for which he has competed in the 2010-11 season.

Many have pointed to Carr's height as the primary reason to doubt his skills. Rivals.com analyst Jerry Meyer said it will be interesting to see if Carr's skills transfer to the professional game in Europe, should he decide to accept his offer.

"The question on Carr as a high level basketball prospect is whether or not his strengths as a player are strong enough to overcome his lack of height. Evidently, Virtus Roma thinks so."

It's also instructive to ponder whether Carr's European recruitment could serve as a potential watershed moment in how Euro teams approach American prospects. The European leagues have traditionally feasted on U.S. players who wash out of the NBA or aren't able to make its initial cut, with the notable exception of Josh Childress' spell in Greece and Jennings' time in Rome, among a few others. At the same time, European soccer clubs rely on an academy system to fuel their success, acquiring and training athletes at a young age and helping to build them into stars at the club.

While it's a stretch to say that a signing of Carr alone might signal a switch to American incorporation in the academy model, a successful transition into the Italian game from the Baltimore native might open doors to such a possibility for other American teenagers.

From the experiences Carr had at the Junior International Tournament, there is little question that the pint-sized point guard enjoyed his first trip to Italy. In addition to an impromptu Aquille Carr fan club, which was pictured hanging signs in Milan at the U.S. games, Martin said Italian fans in general flocked to treat Carr and his teammates as celebrities.

"I know after one game he scored 45 points and Italian fans carried him off the court," Martin told Prep Rally. "They tell me the kids over there had him signing lots of autographs. He loved it. That's what he was looking forward to. Experience the different culture and lifestyle over there, and experience some tourist things."

Needless to say, he came back with more than just championship memories.

Life coach gives up on QB Russell

2011-05-01T13:53:00.000-04:00

Thoughts by: Coach Brown

Good afternoon! When you have a child that is developing into an outstanding athlete, it is imperative to instill a 'work ethic' in them. As we have all have seen or at least heard before, the tale of the dynamic athlete that does not fulfill his or her potential. In this case, it's JaMarcus Russell, the ultra-talented young man from Mobile, AL that played college football at LSU.

This young man has apparently flamed out in the NFL, and even though he was a number one overall draft pick to the Oakland Raiders; he is not currently on a NFL roster after only three seasons. TALENT alone will only carry you so far! As parents and coaches, we must teach our children the value of hard work, demand it and expect it! We must hold our young people responsible for their actions and work with them on making good decisions so that they know how to work hard and work smart when there is no one else around.

Work Ethic + Education + Talent = Unlimited Success in whatever a person does!!!

*Give me a young person with a great work ethic who values education & learning, and watch us go to work making something positive happen in sports and most importantly in life!

One Love!

**By Jason Cole, Yahoo! Sports

Russell played just 31 games for the Raiders. (US Presswire)

Nearly four years after JaMarcus Russell (notes) became the No. 1 overall pick in the NFL draft, his playing career may have completely bottomed out after “life coach” John Lucas asked Russell to leave Houston recently, two sources close to the quarterback told Yahoo! Sports.

Russell, 25, and Lucas had been working together since September in hopes of getting Russell into shape for a return to the NFL. The aforementioned sources say Russell, released by the Oakland Raiders last May, initially worked hard, but quickly lost motivation. Recently Lucas tired of trying to get Russell, the top pick in 2007, to respond to instruction and assistance.

Maya Moore - #1 Overall Pick in the 2011 WNBA Draft

2011-04-11T23:06:00.000-04:00

Thoughts by B. Brown (BREG)

I am very proud of Maya Moore, the awesome All-American from UConn that became the #1 Overall Pick in the WNBA Draft today! Congratulations Maya!!!

Maya is a graduate of Metro Atlanta, GA's Collins Hill High School where she dominated and won three (3) 5-A State Championships!

Maya was a beast in the classroom too! She was named CoSIDA/ESPN Academic All-America First Team in 2009.

Major props go out to her mom and the rest of her family for the love and support that they have given and continue to give to Maya!

Maya, I wish you continued success in this next phase of your life in the WNBA with the Minnesota Linx!

One Love!

Maya Moore (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Maya April Moore (born June 11, 1989) is an American basketball forward for the Minnesota Lynx of the WNBA, and the winner of the 2006 and 2007 Naismith Prep Player of the Year. She was selected as the John Wooden Award winner in 2009 after leading Connecticut to the undefeated national championship. The following season, Moore led Connecticut to capture its second national championship and continued its overall undefeated game-winning streak at 78; in the 2010–11 season, she led the Huskies to extend that streak to an NCAA both-gender record (all divisions) of 90.

WNBA's Minnesota Lynx – No. 23 Forward

Born June 11, 1989 (age 21)
Jefferson City, Missouri

Nationality American

Height 6 ft 0 in (1.83 m) Weight 170 lb (77 kg)

College: Connecticut

Drafted: 1st overall, 2011
Minnesota Lynx - WNBA 2011

College Career:

College - Connecticut

Awards:

2008 USBWA National Freshman of the Year
2009 Big East Player of the Year
2009 Big East Tournament Most Outstanding Performer
2009 CoSIDA/ESPN Academic All-America First Team
2009 USBWA National Player of the Year by the United States Basketball Writers Association
2009 AP All-America first team
2009 Women's NCAA Final Four All-Tournament Team
2009 State Farm Wade Trophy Player of the Year
2009 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I State Farm Coaches’ All-America Basketball Team
2009 Naismith Trophy
2009 Women's John R. Wooden Award
2010 State Farm Wade Trophy Player of the Year
2010 NCAA Final Four Most Outstanding Player
Championships
2009 NCAA Championship
2010 NCAA Championship

Should College Athletes Be Paid?

2011-03-30T10:27:00.000-04:00

Thoughts By: Coach Brown

I've had several passionate debates about the topic of college athletes being paid, and as a former collegiate athlete, I wholeheartedly stand on the side of college athletes being paid some type of stipend.

The major argument against college athletes getting paid is that they get full scholarships to receive a free education, but this is a half-truth because the majority of college athletes do not receive full rides and do have to pay some money to attend school. Do some research, you will find the information.

Now, whatever scholarship is received definitely does not equal what the athletes generate for the school and I am basically referring to the Division 1 schools that are football and basketball factories for the most part. Don't get take what I'm saying the wrong way, I do believe it is the student-athlete's responsibility to graduate from school, but at the same time I believe there is a way to compensate these student-athletes for what they do for these institutions.

These schools literally generate billions of dollars (from TV & Radio contracts; uniform, clothing & shoe deals, jersey sales, video games, etc.) using quote on quote amateur athletes. How can this be an equal tradeoff when a college/university can continue to use a student-athlete's likeness even after that person has graduated or used up all their eligibility, and the school doesn't have to pay them a dime? That's grand theft larceny isn't it?

PBS and HBO (Tonight! 3-30-11) are doing specials on college athletes getting paid and I suggest all the parents with aspiring college athletes to tune-in to hear and see what has happened, what is currently going on and to see what might be happening by the time our children become "student-athletes."

*Checkout Jalen Rose's (ESPN/ABC Sports Analyst; former NBA player; University of Michigan "Fab Five" Basketball Team Member) article below on Should College Athletes Be Paid? (Jet Magazine; March 21-28, 2011; pg. 48)

I have a solution I believe would be helpful to the many student-athletes across the country and alleviate some of the debate about whether college players should be paid. As a former college basketball player at the University of Michigan, I have lived by the rules of the NCAA and also faced its consequences when those rules were broken.

Collegiate athletes should be paid a stipend of $2,000.00 per semester. Universities, coaches and staff benefit financially from the success of these student-athletes. For example, the NCAA just signed a 14-year, $10.8 billion contract with CBS and Turner Broadcasting to televise its men's basketball tournament.

The NCAA advocates will scream student-athletes are paid via education, but keep in mind, athletes are not only recruited for their grade point average and test scores. College athletes are recruited for their skill level and how they can help boost visibility of the university and its program. Furthermore, student-athletes spend a considerable amount of time honing their athletic abilities, though few of them will turn professional. It would be nearly impossible to maintain a part-time job even if it was permissible by the NCAA.

For those who believe the NCAA stresses education over athletics for its student-athletes, bear this in mind: An athlete's scholarship can be taken away at any time, regardless of his/her GPA. The Athletic Department has the authority to rescind a player's scholarship, no matter how well they perform in the classroom.

My solution of providing a $2,000.00 per semester stipend to student-athletes will at least offer these kids a drop in the bucket to cover living expenses and earn some well deserved money during their college career.

When losing a golf tournament really makes you a winner!

2011-03-10T22:14:00.000-05:00

*Thoughts by: Coach Brown

In today's world, it seems like everyone is selfish. It appears that a lot of young people do not have any compassion for others, but when you read the story below, you will see that we have some young people that do have their heads on straight and do think about their peers. I give a shout-out to the parents of both of these young men.

One Love!

By: Shane Bacon (Yahoo Sports)

There are times to be competitive. Moments when all you want to do is humiliate your opponent as you defeat him. It's the nature of sports, and what our internal competition meters usually read.

That, we all know, is how athletes feel most of the time. But, at times, and these are few and far between, we see acts that defy wins and losses. A moment when a girl is brought in on crutches to score a layup to break a record or someone being carried around the field after she twisted her ankle rounding the bases. Opponents coming together to transcend the game.
That is what happened between two collegiate golfers, vying for a spot in the NAIA National Championship.

Grant Whybark, a sophomore at the University of St. Francis, had locked up a spot in nationals with his team, which won the Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference Championship, but was in a playoff against Olivet Nazarene's Seth Doran for individual honors.

As championships go, both the winning team and winning individual are asked to move on to nationals, so if Whybark won the playoff against Doran, he'd be honoring both spots and Doran wouldn't be asked to move on.

What happened next is the type of stuff movies are made about. Whybark stood over his tee shot on the first playoff hole, looked down the fairway and back at his ball, and hit it 40 yards right of the fairway, out of bounds by a mile. He made double bogey, Doran made par, and Olivet Nazarene had a man in nationals.

What makes it so incredible? Whybark intentionally did it, because he felt Doran had earned a spot in the next round.

"We all know Seth very well," Whybark explains, "and he not only is a very good player, but a great person as well. He’s a senior and had never been to nationals. Somehow, it just wasn’t in my heart to try to knock him out.
"I think some people were surprised, but my team knew what I was doing and were supportive of me. I felt Seth deserved to go (to nationals) just as much as I did.

"It was one of those things where I couldn’t feel good taking something from him like this. My goal from the start was to get (to nationals) with my team. I had already done that."

Too many times we read about cheap shots or fights or cheaters, and it is stories like this that make it all seem petty. A golfer simply knew his place, was comfortable with where he was, and thought that a senior, playing in his final tournament as a collegiate golfer, had done enough to earn one more week with the game he loved.

I'm not a big believer in karma, and I'm sure the story won't end the way it should, but if Whybark somehow won nationals, it would make for a really nice screenplay.

Whybark did what most of us would never do, and although he is short a trophy in his case, he earned respect from anyone reading this story.

Nice shot, kiddo.

Inmate Football Video (*See a great act of kindness!)

2011-02-08T15:09:00.000-05:00

*Thoughts by: B. Brown

A lot of people get caught up in winning and winning only when it comes to sports, but the story below is a beautiful example of how there is a lot of great and loving people that care about young people and believe that everyone deserves to be loved!

Let's continue to teach our children great sportsmanship and how to treat other people in general.

Enjoy this awesome true story .......

Be sure to watch the video at the end.

There was an unusual high school football game played in Grapevine, Texas. The game was between Grapevine Faith Academy and the Gainesville State School. Faith is a Christian school and Gainesville State School is located within a maximum security correction facility.

Gainesville State School has 14 players. They play every game on the road. Their record was 0-8. They've only scored twice. Their 14 players are teenagers who have been convicted of crimes ranging from drugs to assault to robbery. Most had families who had disowned them. They wore outdated, used shoulder pads and helmets.

Faith Academy was 7-2. They had 70 players, 11 coaches, and the latest equipment.
Chris Hogan, the head coach at Faith Academy, knew the Gainesville team would have no fans and it would be no contest, so he thought, “What if half of our fans and half of our cheerleaders, for one night only, cheered for the other team?” He sent out an email to the faithful asking them to do just that. “Here’s the message I want you to send,” Hogan wrote. “You’re just as valuable as any other person on the planet.”

Some folks were confused and thought he was nuts. One player said, “Coach, why are we doing this?” Hogan said, “Imagine you don’t have a home life, no one to love you, no one pulling for you. Imagine that everyone pretty much had given up on you. Now, imagine what it would feel like and mean to you for hundreds of people to suddenly believe in you.”

The idea took root. On the night of the game, imagine the surprise of those 14 players when they took the field and there was a banner the cheerleaders had made for them to crash through. The visitors’ stands were full. The cheerleaders were leading cheers for them. The fans were calling them by their names. Isaiah, the quarterback-middle linebacker said, “I never in my life thought I would hear parents cheering to tackle and hit their kid. Most of the time, when we come out, people are afraid of us. You can see it in their eyes, but these people are yelling for us. They knew our names.”

Faith won the game, and after the game the teams gathered at the 50-yard line to pray. That’s when Isaiah, the teenage convict-quarterback surprised everybody and asked if he could pray. he prayed, “Lord, I don’t know what just happened so I don’t know how or who to say thank you to, but I never knew there were so many people in the world who cared about us.” On the way back to the bus, under guard, each one of the players was handed a burger, fries, a coke, candy, a Bible, and an encouraging letter from the players from Faith Academy.

What an incredible act of Christian witness and kindness and goodness that was. Proverbs 11:17 says, “Your own soul is nourished when you are kind.” Proverbs 3:27 says, “Do not withhold good when it is in your power to act.”

Be kind to someone this week. Be kind to every person you meet. You might be amazed at what God will do with a simple act of kindness.

Click on this link to view the video

National Signing Day for High School Football Players!

2011-02-02T23:37:00.000-05:00

By B. Brown

If you didn't know, today is National Signing Day for High School Football Players! The majority of the top players in the country signed their letters of intent today and it was hectic!

ESPNU started broadcasting live announcements and signings at 10:00 AM and the "Signing Show" lasted all day!

Today brought back memories of my high school days when I was being recruited by a lot of Division I-AA & Division II schools. I ended up signing with Presbyterian College (GO BLUEHOSE!!!) a Division II school at the time, but now they are Division I-AA (or that funny new designation).

It reminded me of one of my best friends, Andre Hastings, the number one wide receiver coming out of high school our senior year. I remember seeing Lou Holtz, Dennis Erickson, Bobby Bowden, Ray Goff and many others visiting Morrow High School to visit with Andre. It was beautiful and amazing! I also remember being followed around school by a Sports Illustrated writer and photographer that were doing a recruiting story on Andre. Andre ended up being honored as USA Today's Offensive Player of the Year! Trust me, he was one of the reasons I developed into an outstanding cornerback being only 5'8" and 146 lbs. coming out of high school. When you get to practice against the best day-in-and-day-out, hopefully you get better and I did, thanks be to God; and I ended up getting a scholarship too. God is great!

Andre went on to star at The University of Georgia and then a nine-year career in the NFL, but that is not going to be the outcome for the overwhelming amount of the young men that signed their letter of intent today. I would like to see all these young men get their degrees even if they do make it to the NFL and start understanding that they need to use football as a tool to receive a relatively free education and a better life in general.

Parents, congratulations to you for your support and love for your children. Continue to be there for them because they are starting over as the low man on the totem pole and have to earn respect and playing time all over again. There will be low times for them as freshmen, but with your love, they will make it through.

Once again, it's going down in the fall as College Football Season Kicks-Off! I can't wait, but if you are like me, visit your favorite school's website and see who will be repping your school for the next 3 - 4 years!

2011 Georgia Tech Signees

2011 UGA Signees

2011 Overall Signings

Star Bowler!!!

2011-01-18T20:17:00.000-05:00

*Thoughts from Coach Brown

From time to time, I like to highlight young athletes that excel in sports that don't get a lot of publicity. This blog is highlighting an outstanding bowler from Oswego, IL.

I went bowling 2-weeks ago and I bowled a 133 with the gutter rails up. Before you start laughing, the guards were not for me. I had a 6 year old and a 7 year old with me, so we as adults wanted to make sure they had a good experience, but none-the-less, I bowled a 133 which was the best score in our group. The young man I'm about to introduce you to should have been present to give all of us some pointers.

*Edited by Alexandra Fenwick (Sports Illustrated - Scorecard (Faces in the Crowd); Jan. 10, 2011; pg. 24)

A.J. Johnson, a senior at Oswego High, bowled four perfect games in less than a month to set a single-season state record. He rolled his fourth 300 game against Plainfield East High at Parkside Lanes in Aurora to set another state record: 857 pins out of a possible 900 in a three-game series. A.J. was on the AAU Junior Olympic team that won gold in Virginia Beach in August.

Coach Brown's Thoughts:

Now that's a baller, uhmmm, I mean a bowler!!! Keep knocking them down A.J.!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR from B. Brown (BREG)

2011-01-06T22:41:00.000-05:00

By: B. Brown (BREG)

Happy New Year!!! It is always great to start a new year and give thanks to the Most High for Blessing us with another year of life!

I am very excited about the opportunities out there that will positively impact my business endeavors in 2011, and I am looking forward to helping as many people as I can gain affordable access to the legal system and help as many people as possible protect and grow their businesses, be it an artist, a plumber, etc.!

One of the things that makes me feel very good thus far in 2011 is the Ted Williams story. Here is a man that would be considered down and out, but he continued to share his talent and gift with everyone he came in contact with and now he is receiving a second chance at life. May God continue to Bless him and keep him as he moves forward in his soberiety, re-connecting with his family and career. God is good!

Remember, "Big journeys begin with a single step!"

Have a great 2011!

One Love!

Cam Newton, what is going to happen in the near future?

2010-11-24T22:40:00.001-05:00

By: Coach Brown

When you are a top flight high school athlete and schools start recruiting you, you are going to see and hear things that normal 17, 18 & 19 year olds never see or hear. You will be treated differently and there is a possibility that you may start believing the hype, and that's where the problems may begin if your parents and/or your advisory team doesn't help keep you humble and focused on making the best possible decision in choosing the college where you will get an education and play collegiate sports, even if for only 1 year.

You've heard the stories. This kid was given cash, a car. The parents have been given a house, a job. It's all been done before and it will always continue. Why, you ask? Because all alumni and especially booster's will pay the price to make things happen! What young student-athlete do you know will turn down extra incentives when that student-athlete knows that the college/university is literally making millions off of them. The only student-athletes that probably don't take "extra" are the ones from well-off families and those student athletes most likely take their fair share of "extras" too.

The NCAA should be ashamed of themselves for what they are doing with the Cam Newton situation. I do not know if Cam or his parents received any extra benefits, but the NCAA should use this issue to put in place a payment system for these Division 1-A (FBS) football & basketball student athletes to get paid a monthly stipend ($500 - $1000). That way, these "Cam Newton" and "Reggie Bush" stories will stop happening on such a high frequency.

Coaches at these FBS schools get radio & tv shows, shoe deals & other endorsement deals to make millions for themselves and the student athlete is supposed be cool with his scholarship while everybody in their state and beyond is walking around with their jersey # on and they bought the jersey from the school. It's an insult.

Cam, here's my suggestion to you. Go ahead and declare for the NFL Draft as soon as your season is finished regardless if you are found innocent or not of these Pay-to-Play allegations. Your time at the University of Florida was marred with scandal, and now your time at Auburn University is being marred with scandal. It appears that your time at Blinn College was your most peaceful time and you won the Junior College National Championship! Don't worry about the National Championship (We need a playoff system to really determine that anyway.) and definitely don't worry about the Heisman Trophy (It's nice to win, but it is tremendously overrated). You are Blessed with outstanding football skills and it is time for you to go on to the NFL where you are supposed to get PAID!!!

Parents, be very, very, very careful about asking for extra benefits for you superstar student-athletes. It may not be worth it to jeapordize your child's education and elgibility. By far, every player is not going to make it to the Professional Level (That's an absolute fact!), but every player can graduate from college if they apply themselves!

May God Bless you Cam and your Family!

Happy Holidays everyone!

Youth Soccer - Concorde Fire Soccer Club

2010-11-03T20:31:00.000-04:00

By: Coach Brown

I must give major props to the Concorde Fire Soccer Club (Atlanta, GA) and in particular the coaches on the southside, Brian Moore & Jeff Golston. These gentlemen are tireless coaches that represent the game of soccer and teach the game of soccer with the passion and knowledge that makes the game exciting and fun for the young people in their program.

Along with the coaches of the Central Area & North Area, Concorde Fire is Ranked #28 in Soccer America's Top Boy's Soccer Clubs in America.

I have personally seen some awesome talent that is being developed from as young as six (6) years old, and I can't wait to see how this talent continues to develop!

Congratulations to Concorde Fire and keep up the great work!

If you would like to get more information, please visit:

http://www.concordefire.com

Congratulations to Bria Sanders!!!

2010-06-19T13:34:00.000-04:00

Thanks to all of Bria's hard work and your vote,.... Memphis City School student Bria' Sanders (Cordova Middle School), won the inaugural Golf Digest Scholars Program contest, and has been awarded a four year scholarship to the Hank Haney International Junior Golf Academy (IJGA). Way to go Bria'! Scholarship includes tuition, room and board for the academic year.

Hank Haney IJGA is the only academy in the
world to combine training, academics, and competition for serious junior golfers. The primary
focus of the Hank Haney IJGA is to prepare students academically and athletically for the next
stage in their career. In 2009, 94% of students received a college golf scholarship.

Thank you for your help, and look for Bria' in the upcoming issue of ESPN Women Magazine. Thanks again for your support!

B. Brown
Business & Entertainment Consultant
Bar-Red Entertainment Group (BREG)

2010-02-16T23:48:00.000-05:00

--- B. Brown

The letter below is from my niece, Bria Sanders. She is one of the outstanding Female Junior Golfers in the United States! I am very proud of her academic & golf achievements thus far in her young life, and I am very excited to see her develop even more during her high school career.

I take my hat off to her parents, Michael & Sharon, because they have worked very hard & sacrificed tremendously to propel Bria to a championship caliber level!

I cannot leave out Khia, Bria's younger sister, who supports and cheers for her older sister without fail! It is sibling love at its best!

Bria, Uncle Barry loves you and wishes you continued success in golf & life!

Now, a letter from Bria Sanders . . .

I am Bria’ Sanders and have the opportunity to be trained at an excellent Junior Golf Academy. Golf Digest has been searching for two highly-motivated junior golfers - one male and one female - with the drive and passion to excel in a highly competitive and unique private golf boarding school environment, known as the Hank Haney International Junior Golf Academy.

I have entered into this competition to attend the academy and am asking for your support with your vote. The contestant with the most votes wins this great opportunity.

I have loved and been playing golf since I was three years old. In addition, I am a Memphis City Schools honors student and the first African American to receive Player of the Year Awards on the Tennessee Golf Association Junior Tour and the United States Junior Golf Tour.

Hank Haney International Junior Golf Academy (Hank Haney IJGA) is the only academy in the world to combine training, academics, and competition for serious junior golfers. The primary focus of the Hank Haney IJGA is to prepare students academically and athletically for the next stage in their career. In 2009, 94% of their students received a college golf scholarship.

Your vote in helping me reach this goal would greatly be appreciated!

The Voting period is between February 24 - March 24, 2010

Please visit http://www.golfdigestscholars.com to cast your vote.

Thank you!!!

Sincerely,

Bria J. Sanders

visit me at http://www.briasanders.org

In Support of Earthquake-Torn Haiti!!!

2010-01-27T00:00:00.000-05:00

By: B. Brown

I would like to take my hat off to the people of the United States of America!!!

We have supported Haiti in record-breaking fashion and I am very proud of that fact.

We have Wyclef's "Yele'" Organization, The Red Cross, The Clinton-Bush Fund, etc. That is what has really tripped me out, Former Presidents Clinton & Bush have united for a cause. Unbelievable! President Obama has made it clear that his administration is going to help Haiti through its tragedy and help it rebuild. As one of the strongest countries in the world even during our recession, we are still committed to helping an ailing country that desparately needs help. I am very proud of that committment!

I have personally supported Haiti by donating to Wyclef's organization and you can too by texting YELE to 501501 to donate $5.00. Let's continue to show our compassionate side and do what we would want someone to do for us.

God Bless the people of New Orleans, LA & Mississippi that experienced Hurricane Katrina and God Bless the people of Haiti and all the workers who are there helping!!!

God is good!!!

One Love!

Sportsman of the Year!

2009-12-30T14:15:00.001-05:00

By: Tom Verducci (Sports Illustrated; Dec. 7, 2009; pg. 60)

"He (Derek Jeter; Shortstop for the New York Yankees) was brought up to respect his environment and respect himself," Dorothy (Derek Jeter's Mother) says.

"When you like who you are, you're going to respect others. It's very simple."

"You've got to have strong values because there are people who don't want to see you attain or achieve," Charles (Derek Jeter's Father) says. "I don't think you magically get those values when you're successful. If you don't have it by then, you're going to be in a lot of trouble."

"I would be the same person regardless of what I was doing or where I was playing," says Jeter, who still talks to his parents each day. "It's not like I'm trying to act a certain way to make people happy. I'm just who I am. But again, it's something that I learned at a young age."

Coach Brown's Thoughts: Derek Jeter has always appeared to be a man of integrity and after reading this article, now I know where he got his wonderful values from. His Mother & Father made sure that their son & daughter received the love, knowledge & discipline to become strong, conscious & humble young people that would Prayerfully grow into successful adults. From what I have seen, it has worked. It is a beautiful thing!

Congratulations to Derek Jeter on being chosen as the 2009 Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year!

Joe Peterno - Still has something to teach!

2009-11-27T18:52:00.000-05:00

By: Joe Posnanski (Sports Illustrated; Oct. 26, 2009 pg. 61)

"I'm not going to embarrass this university," he says, not angrily but with an edge in his voice, as if he could not imagine how anyone could miss the point: He still has something left to teach these kids. Times have not changed that much. "I think kids today, they are confused," Joe says. "They long for some kind of discipline. They want something bigger than themselves, something bigger to be a part of. We can still offer that here [at Penn State University]."

Coach Brown's Thoughts: Joe Peterno is a coaching icon! At 82 years old and about to turn 83 around x-mas time, his coaching legacy has long been secured & established.

Young scholar-athletes today want to show-out as soon as possible. I went to two (2) recreation football Super Bowls last weekend and these young men were in the sixth (6th) to eighth (8th) grades. I actually saw them doing the same celebratory things that I see in college & in the pros. Now, I am the 1st person to celebrate and get pumped up, but I don't remember jumping around and showing out during my recreation, junior high & high school playing days; and trust me, I made a lot of plays during my career. I started show-boat celebrating when I got to college. Joe Peterno's teams are usually classy, respectful and play a hard-nosed brand of football. His teams usually exemplify a very disciplined group of young men that win in the classroom as well as on the field! That's why he is the winningest coach in the history of Division I-A College Football with 389 wins and counting.

Coaches, let's strive to be men of integrity & instill discipline in our players and let's continue to make a positive difference in the lives of young people that they can carry with them for the rest of their lives and start a positive cycle that will continue for a very long time!!!

Happy Holidays!!!

Levi Michael - New UNC Baseball Star!!!

2009-11-06T06:54:00.000-05:00

By Andy Gardiner, USA TODAY (Spring 2009)

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Levi Michael dreamed of playing baseball for the University of North Carolina from the time he was a boy. When the opportunity arrived to turn that dream into a reality in unprecedented fashion, Michael grabbed it.
Michael has done something rare at college baseball's elite level. He graduated from high school in January, enrolled at UNC three days later and was the Tar Heels' starting second baseman by the time the season began the third week of February.
With a week left in the regular season Michael, 18, has become a mainstay on a North Carolina team that has made three consecutive trips to the College World Series and is No. 1 in the USA TODAY/ESPN coaches' poll. Without a transition period, the switch-hitting freshman flourished.

"I probably shouldn't be, but I'm shocked at how this has turned out," said UNC coach Mike Fox. "I'm amazed when I watch what this kid has done. "
Freshmen have become increasingly important to the nation's top programs. Because many premier players sign pro contracts after their junior seasons, there is a constant need for schools to restock quickly.

Second-ranked California-Irvine starts three freshmen. No. 4 Rice's top hitter is first-year player Anthony Rendon. Daniel Hultzen is 6-1 on the mound and batting .338 as a first baseman for 14th-ranked Virginia. But all had a semester to become acclimated to college life and become familiar with new teammates and coaches.

Michael went from taking five final exams in high school on a Friday to moving into his dorm on Saturday and sitting in freshman English on Monday. Formal practice began three weeks later. "I thought it was going to be very challenging, and it has turned out to be even more difficult than that," Michael said. "But Coach Fox offered me the opportunity of a lifetime."

Early love for the Tar Heels --- Michael grew up in Welcome, N.C., a town of 3,500 just south of Winston-Salem and 90 minutes west of Chapel Hill. The youngest of Tony and Rhonda Michael's three children, he attended North Davidson High in nearby Lexington. His sister, Keeli, starts at second base on the Campbell University softball team. Rhonda, a technology specialist at North Davidson, said the family has always been UNC fans, and Levi was determined to become a Tar Heel from the time he began attending Fox's summer camps as an 8-year-old.
"When Levi sets his mind to something, that's it," she said.

Fox followed Michael's career closely. "We had seen Levi play more than any player we've recruited, and he accepted a scholarship on the first day possible," Fox said.
But that was based on a traditional timetable of Michael entering North Carolina in the fall of 2009 and beginning his baseball career in the spring of 2010. He still had his senior season at North Davidson. That schedule began to shift in late summer when six UNC recruits signed pro contracts.

"Going into the fall, we saw we only had one infielder at each position, Fox said."
A Tar Heels assistant coach wondered whether Michael was ready to play now. "It was said jokingly, but then we began to think about it seriously," Fox said.
Fox felt hypocritical for even broaching the idea.

"We talk a lot here about living in the moment and enjoying the journey," he said. "I had a ball my senior year and I don't think any kid should miss that.
"I visited Levi and his parents. I spent most of my time listing all the reasons why he shouldn't come early. Levi looked right at me and said, 'Tell me what I have to do to make this happen.' "Fox told Rhonda Michael he spent hours rehearsing his recruiting speech. It didn't take Levi 10 minutes to say yes," she said. "I was a little apprehensive, but Levi never was."

Move blessed by UNC players Fox polled his players on how they felt about a freshman joining the team at mid-year. "All we asked was whether he could help our team," said junior first baseman Dustin Ackley, a career .400 hitter expected to be among the first 10 players taken in the June draft. "Once practice started we saw right away that he could. But I can't imagine doing what he's done."
Michael struggled during the early weeks of practice, in part because he was shifted from shortstop to second base.

"I was so nervous I couldn't stand still. I was shaking the whole time out there," he said. That disappeared in the first intrasquad scrimmage. Michael homered, beat out an infield hit and played with poise. "It was clear to the coaching staff after a week of practice that Levi needed to be in the lineup somewhere right out of the gate," Fox said. "After that first scrimmage the rest of the team saw that he belonged."

Michael has started 51 of UNC's 52 games (he sat out against East Carolina after oversleeping and arriving late for the team bus) and is hitting .297 with 12 home runs, 45 RBI and a .574 slugging percentage. "He's hit some clutch home runs from both sides of the plate and done everything we've asked at second base," Fox said.

Michael is still a little startled at the turn his life has taken. "Last year at this time I was just playing high school ball," he said. "I never imagined being in this spot." Michael missed his senior prom, missed formal graduation. He came to UNC behind the rest of the team with no guarantees. "I did think, what happens if I come in and don't perform and have to sit my freshman year?" he said. "That wasn't too big of a deal for me because I felt that whatever happened, I would be part of the team. "I would learn more about the game being here than playing my senior season. Ultimately I would develop and become a better baseball player. But I'm blessed and grateful for how things have gone."

Coaches say they don't expect a wave of Levi Michaels. "Typically the jump and transition for a freshman is not an easy one, and it would be more natural that they not be a big success their first year," said Cal-Irvine coach Mike Gillespie. "You magnify those hurdles if you're talking about a mid-year freshman.

"I think Levi Michael is a case of a good player playing well. There is no reason to say this can't happen more frequently, but I don't see it as a trend."
Even with how well things have gone, Fox is still conflicted. "It has to be a perfect storm of conditions for this to work," he said. "You have to have the blessing of the parents and the high school coach. You have to have the right mix of maturity and leadership on your team. The kid has to have the maturity to make the jump. "I don't expect to see this happen again in my coaching lifetime."
Michael avoids thinking about all this too much. "It is a unique situation, but now I think of myself as just another college baseball player, no different from anybody else," he said. "It's definitely a lot to undergo, but once you make the decision, you can't second-guess yourself. Deal with what you have and stick with the process."

Castor Semenya - Gender Testing

2009-09-10T23:00:00.000-04:00

Embattled track star Caster Semenya gets new coach, new look.
By Chris Chase (Yahoo Sports!)

It's been a week of change for Caster Semenya, the South African runner at the center of a gender controversy at last month's world track championships.
First, one of her South African coaches quit the team in shame for not telling Semenya that she was being subjected to gender tests. (Semenya had thought she was taking a doping test.) Then, Semenya appeared on the cover of South Africa's You magazine with a complete makeover designed to silence critics who insist she is a man.

For the shoot Semenya sported a less ambiguous hair style, a designer black dress, jewelry, makeup and nail polish. Despite what you think about the whole situation, it's safe to say that this is the first time that Semenya has truly looked like an 18-year old woman.

She says she likes the look too. Semenya told the BBC:
"I'd like to dress up more often and wear dresses but I never get the chance.
I am who I am and I'm proud of myself."

Let's hope this is what she wants though.

Nothing Semenya has done in the past month has suggested that she likes to wear dresses, get manicures and let down her hair. After the controversy broke, she kept her cornrows, wore baggy clothes and pounded her chest in victory like a college football cornerback. When she returned to her hometown, she was dressed the same way. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. That seemed to be Semenya's natural inclination. This feels forced.

Hopefully I'm wrong. But if Semenya was pressured to do this to silence her critics, then this is a sad story rather than one of retribution. The opinions of a few jealous coaches shouldn't have an effect on how an 18-year old carries herself. If Semenya wants to wear dresses then she should. But if she wants to run around in track suits, what's the problem with that?

The coach who resigned wasn't Semenya's personal coach, but a middle distance supervisor on the South African team who was ashamed that Semenya was kept in the dark about the growing controversy. Wilfred Daniels said he was told the issue was supposed to stay private.

B. Brown's Thoughts: I wish Caster Semenya all the best as she awaits the results and decision from the World of Track & Field. I do believe that she is a female and I hope this type of testing doesn't start a witch hunt. When we as a people start testing for different chromosome combinations to determine gender for sports, bathroom usage, etc.; then we are headed into dangerous territory! Good luck Caster, and I hope to see you back on the track soon winning women's track events!

#1 Player in the Country!!!

2009-08-16T21:30:00.000-04:00

Written by: Jerry Meyer

The recruiting process has been excruciating for John Wall, but late Monday night the 6-foot-4, 184-pound point guard from Raleigh (N.C.) Word of God Christian Academy decided he will play college basketball at Kentucky.

Wall headlines Kentucky's mega-recruiting class.

Wall is Rivals.com's No. 1 prospect in the nation, and he has been for more than a year.

"In the end, I just felt I wanted to play for Coach Cal," Wall said. "Coaches give different visions of what they can do for you when they talk to you. And all of those are impressive, but my long relationship with Coach Cal and what he can do for me in his program was the main thing."

There was concern in Wall's camp, primarily from advisor Brian Clifton, because Kentucky had already signed a quality point guard in five-star prospect Eric Bledsoe. Regardless of that fact, the Dribble Drive offense Calipari employs can accommodate two primary ballhandlers.

Wall actually relishes the opportunity to compete for his position.

"Being able to play against Eric (Bledsoe) is a big plus," he said. "I told Brian and my mom that I've always had to fight for my position. That's what I had to do when I first played for Brian. I'm used to fighting. It's another challenge for me to come to Kentucky and fight for my position."

Clifton felt the positives of the Kentucky situation outweighed the negatives.

"We had an at-length conversation last night," Clifton said. "[Wall] felt that the risks that were at Kentucky were acceptable risks for him."

Admitting that he took about as long as he could to make a decision, Wall acknowledged that his personal confusion and his desire to have everyone around him on the same page contributed to the lengthy decision-making process.

"I liked Memphis when Coach Cal was there, but the situation really opened up when he went to Kentucky," Wall said. "I had to look at the situation there and the people there. Plus I loved the other coaches and what they had to say to me.

"It came down to where my heart was, though. Every time I talked about schools, Coach Cal was the first thing that I always talked about."

Wall was also seriously considering Duke, Miami and Florida.

"Coach [Frank] Haith (of Miami) has been great. He did a great job recruiting me," Wall said. "And then the two coaches at Duke and Florida came in late, but made up a lot of ground in recruiting me. But mainly, it was Kentucky and Miami."

Kentucky adds its fourth five-star prospect to its 2009 recruiting class. Wall joins No. 2 ranked prospect DeMarcus Cousins, No. 22 ranked prospect Daniel Orton, Bledsoe (No. 23 overall) and four-star prospects John Hood and Darnell Dodson.

Wall is expected to receive his standardized test results next week, and he is hopeful that he scored a qualifying mark. At this point, he and Bledsoe are not qualified. It is also unclear at this point if Cousins has met the necessary requirements to play next season.

If all three players qualify, it could make the group one of the best - if not the best - recruiting classes off all time.

John Wall scouting report:

Blazingly fast with the basketball, Wall is an impeccable ballhandler with court savvy. The right-hander has a penchant for beating defenders with his left hand and can then counter with a terrific left-to-right, behind-the-back dribble. Finding teammates on the move is his forte, but he is also an excellent finisher at the rim. His jumper is still a work in progress, but it is good enough to keep the defense honest.

LeBron James!!!

2009-06-10T23:45:00.000-04:00

Thoughts By: Coach Brown

First, let me congratulate LeBron James on his NBA MVP Award for this season! He is truly the premier player in the NBA, and he is in position to be the face of the league for many years to come.

Now, I do have something to say about LeBron not immediately congratulating the Orlando Magic after the Magic defeated them in the Eastern Conference Finals last week. As a Little League Baseball Coach and a former Collegiate Athlete, I am very big on Sportsmanship and LeBron definitely displayed poor sportsmanship following the game in which the Cleveland Cavaliers were eliminated from this years NBA Playoffs.

I believe LeBron was very distraught after being hyped up so much & himself anticipating playing against Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers. But that is no excuse for not shaking hands with the other team after the game and the series is over. Win or Lose, SPORTSMANSHIP is the one thing that can be consistent. We must all strive to conduct ourselves in the proper manner win or lose and that is exactly what we expect from arguably the NBA's best player.

Not only did LeBron not congratulate the Magic right after the game, but his comments stating that he does not believe in congratulating "someone" that just beat you up. Well, NBA Basketball is not a fight, it's a sport and LeBron should know better than to make that statement. That was his opportunity to admit that he was emotional about the loss and that he wished Orlando and Los Angeles the best in the NBA Finals and that would have been acceptable to almost everyone.

My challenge to all young players in any sports and the coaches and parents is this: "We all make mistakes and we all will lose at some point and time, but it is what we do in defeat and how we conduct ourselves after defeat that will define our character and integrity!"

Florida State --- There is Good News too!!!

2009-03-29T21:10:00.000-04:00

Thoughts by: B. Brown (BREG)

I've wanted to write about this young man for a minute now, and today I said that I am definitely going to get it done, so here I am.

If you have been paying attention to the college sports world lately, you have probably heard about the academic scandal at Florida State University. Several Teams including the Football Team were involved, and heavy penalties may be forthcoming. One of those penalties may be Bobby Bowden having to forfeit several victories that will drop him even further behind Joe Peterno as Division I-A's Winningest Coach.

Ironically enough,there is a tremendously shining star that has emerged out of Tallahassee, FL this past football season. As Mothers & Fathers, we should send our children to college to achieve at a very high level & Florida State's Myron Rolle is that exemplerary example!

Written By: Andy Staples (Sports Illustrated; Dec. 1, 2008 Issue)

"After a grueling interview and a two-hour wait last Saturday, the real torture began for Myron Rolle. The Florida State Safety was sitting in an office in Mountain Brook, AL, waiting to hear if he had been awarded a Rhodes Scholarship. Drayton Nabers Jr., chairman of the District 7 selection committee, was announcing two winners chosen from the 13 finalists interviewed that day. Nabers paused after fthe first name, Havard's Parker Goyer. The three-second wait, says Rolle, 'felt like an eternity.'

For Rolle, a junior from Galloway, N.J., who finished his pre-med degree in 2 1/2 years and received a grant for cancer research last summer, the wait was worth it. When Nabers announced him as one of the 32 U.S. Scholars who can study at Oxford, Rolle bowed his head and thanked God-briefly: He had a plane to catch. In 2 1/2 hours his team would face Maryland in College Park, and Rolle wanted to help keep the FSU's ACC Atlantic Division title hopes alive.

A Ford Excursion carried Rolle to Birmingham International Airport, where a jet on loan from Outback Steakhouse co-founder Bob Basham awaited. (The NCAA allowed Basham to give the flight as an in-kind donation to FSU's booster club). Rolle settled in and discussed this Rhodes interview with a small group of reporters. Then he clicked on his iPod and allowed Frank Sinatra and Ice Cube to sing/rap him to sleep. By the time the jet touched down in Baltimore, the Seminoles and the Terrapins had kicked off. Rolle hopped into a University police pick-up bound for Byrd Stadium, and FSU fans gave him a standing O when he appeared late in the first half. After Rolle's third play, back judge Tommy Pace walked over and shook his hand.

Rolle made two tackles, and FSU cruised to a 37-3 win. Afterward Rolle-still chilly from the Gatorade bath his teammates gave him-had a hug-heavy reunion with his parents and four brothers. 'Myron,' he said, 'has always been exceptional. Always."

Great Sportsmanship!!!

2009-02-22T17:53:00.000-05:00

By: Associated Press

The coach never considered any other option.

It didn't matter that his DeKalb, Ill., High School basketball team had ridden a bus two and a half hours to get to Milwaukee, then waited another hour past game time to play. Didn't matter that the game was close, or that this was a chance to beat a big city team.

Johntel Franklin scored 10 points in the game following the loss of his mother.
Something else was on Dave Rohlman's mind when he asked for a volunteer to shoot two free throws awarded his team on a technical foul in the second quarter. His senior captain raised his hand, ready to go to the line as he had many times before.
Only this time it was different.

"You realize you're going to miss them, don't you?" Rohlman said.
Darius McNeal nodded his head. He understood what had to be done.
It was a Saturday night in February, and the Barbs were playing a non-conference game on the road against Milwaukee Madison. It was the third meeting between the two schools, who were developing a friendly rivalry that spanned two states.
The teams planned to get together after the game and share some pizzas and soda. But the game itself almost never took place.

Hours earlier, the mother of Milwaukee Madison senior captain Johntel Franklin died at a local hospital. Carlitha Franklin had been in remission after a five-year fight with cervical cancer, but she began to hemorrhage that morning while Johntel was taking his college ACT exam.
Her son and several of his teammates were at the hospital late that afternoon when the decision was made to turn off the life-support system. Carlitha Franklin was just 39.

"She was young and they were real close," said Milwaukee coach Aaron Womack Jr., who was at the hospital. "He was very distraught and it happened so suddenly he didn't have time to grieve."

Womack was going to cancel the game, but Franklin told him he wanted the team to play. And play they did, even though the game started late and Milwaukee Madison dressed only eight players.

Early in the second quarter, Womack saw someone out of the corner of his eye. It was Franklin, who came there directly from the hospital to root his teammates on.
The Knights had possession, so Womack called a time out. His players went over and hugged their grieving teammate. Fans came out of the stands to do the same.

"We got back to playing the game and I asked if he wanted to come and sit on the bench," Womack said during a telephone interview.
"No," Franklin replied. "I want to play."

There was just one problem. Since Franklin wasn't on the pre-game roster, putting him in meant drawing a technical foul that would give DeKalb two free throws.
Though it was a tight game, Womack was willing to give up the two points. It was more important to help his senior guard and co-captain deal with his grief by playing.

Over on the other bench, though, Rohlman wasn't so willing to take them. He told the referees to forget the technical and just let Franklin play.
"I could hear them arguing for five to seven minutes, saying, `We're not taking it, we're not taking it," Womack said. "The refs told them, no, that's the rule. You have to take them."

That's when Rohlman asked for volunteers, and McNeal's hand went up.
He went alone to the free throw line, dribbled the ball a couple of times, and looked at the rim.

His first attempt went about two feet, bouncing a couple of times as it rolled toward the end line. The second barely left his hand.
It didn't take long for the Milwaukee players to figure out what was going on.
They stood and turned toward the DeKalb bench and started applauding the gesture of sportsmanship. Soon, so did everybody in the stands.
"I did it for the guy who lost his mom," McNeal told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "It was the right thing to do."

They may not remember our record 20 years from now, but they'll remember what happened in that gym that night.
? Dave Rohlman, head coach of the opposing DeKalb team on what his players will take away from this experience.

Franklin would go on to score 10 points, and Milwaukee Madison broke open the game in the second half to win 62-47. Afterward, the teams went out for pizza, two players from each team sharing each pie.
Franklin stopped by briefly, thankful that his team was there for him.
"I got kind of emotional but it helped a lot just to play," he said. "I felt like I had a lot of support out there."

Carlitha Franklin's funeral was last Friday, and the school turned out for her and her son. Cheerleaders came in uniform, and everyone from the principal and teachers to Johntel's classmates were there.

"Even the cooks from school showed up," Womack said. "It lets you know what kind of kid he is."
Basketball is a second sport for the 18-year-old Franklin, who says he has had some scholarship nibbles and plans to play football in college. He just has a few games left for the Knights, who are 6-11 and got beat 71-36 Tuesday night by Milwaukee Hamilton.
It hasn't been the greatest season for the team, but they have stuck together through a lot of adversity.

"We maybe don't have the best basketball players in the world but they go to class and take care of business," Womack said. "We have a losing record but there's life lessons going on, good ones."
None so good, though, as the moment a team and a player decided there were more important things than winning and having good stats.
Yes, DeKalb would go home with a loss. But it was a trip they'll never forget.

"This is something our kids will hold for a lifetime," Rohlman said. "They may not remember our record 20 years from now, but they'll remember what happened in that gym that night."

What are you going to do in 2009?

2009-01-26T21:18:00.000-05:00

Thoughts By: B. Brown

It’s 2009 and it’s time for your goals and aspirations to manifest into reality!!!

Barack Obama is the 44th President and the 1st African-American President of the United States! It is an exciting time to be an American! We as Americans are embarking on a new adventure and it sure feels great!

I am personally very excited about the history that has been made with Obama leading the U.S. into a new positive direction. I am truly grateful for my parents, grand parents and the rest of the generations before me that paved the way for this great moment to take place. If you go and ask any person white or black that is over fifty (50) years old, the majority of them will tell you that they did not expect to see a black man in the White House in their lifetime. Oh, what a wonderful time it is right now!

A lot of different things have been put out there in regards to Obama being President, but the fact is that he has a tremendous appeal to people all around the world and that his appeal along with his economic and political strategies have a great chance of pulling the U.S. out of one of it’s most challenging economic downturns ever! I believe we as a nation are going to be ok in the near future.

What ever you aspire to be and whatever your goals are, there is no better time than now to actually write them down, visualize them and move forth with action to achieve your goals. Action is the key! It is just like Faith. Faith without action is dead. The time is now for each and every one of us to improve ourselves and make a difference. The time is now for us to take advantage of education and use that education to parlay ourselves into new fields of business and new opportunities. Focusing on your goals everyday and actively working towards them will allow you to have a drive and desire that can be unstoppable and that day will come when you realize that your life has changed and beautiful things are happening to you! Close your eyes for a moment … isn’t that a beautiful vision?

Your goal may be to spend more time with your family --- do it!
Your goal may be to lose weight --- do it!
Your goal may be to get a better paying job --- do it!

Whatever your goals and aspirations --- there’s now better phrase to use than Nike’s awesome slogan --- just do it!!!

“The will to win is not nearly as important as the will to prepare to win.” – Bobby Knight

It’s 2009 and it is truly your time!!!

North Henry Tigers - 2008 V103/Frank Ski Bowl Champions!!!

2008-12-15T14:49:00.000-05:00

By: Coach Brown

It is a beautiful thing to see when young men come together for a common cause and fight through adversities to accomplish their goals! It is just a beautiful thing to witness!

I want to congratulate the North Henry Tigers (140 lbs.) Football Team for winning the 2008 V103/Frank Ski Bowl. These young men have won an astounding 72 straight games and were scored upon for the first time in 5 seasons this past season. That is amazing!

What is even more commendable is the way these young men carry themselves. Their Coach was speaking on V103 (103.3fm WVEE Atlanta, GA) before the Frank Ski Bowl Tournament started and instead of selling "woof" tickets, this Coach spoke about playing for God and having character and he told Atlanta, GA that if they wanted to see a God-fearing, well Coached, hard-hitting team that plays hard and gets after it, they need to come check out the North Henry Tigers. Their cheer was, "who do we play for, GOD!!!" Then Wanda Smith, Frank Ski's Co-Host said, "God is good, and then the team said, "all the time!" Wanda said, "oh-yeah, these boys are ready!"

The 140 lb. North Henry Tigers took care of business and brought home the big trophy! Congratulations once again to their Head Coach, Assistant Coaches, Team Moms, Parents, and other supporters that have obviously been teaching these young men how to play football the right way and how to carry themselves in even a better way!!!

A major shout-out to Frank Ski and V103 for putting this great youth football event together and definitely a big thank you to all the sponsors involved.

May God continue to Bless each and every one you!!!

Proud Soccer Moments!!!

2008-11-11T12:36:00.000-05:00

By: Michelle Wilson (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution; Thurs., Nov. 6, 2008/C9)

Girls Club Defends U-13 Soccer Title

The Tophat Soccer Club Under-13 God Girls soccer team won the prestigious Washington Area Girls Soccer Tournament in Washington, D.C., for the second year in a row.

Tophat went unbeaten in pool play, then beat Match Fit United (N.J.) 3-1 in the semifinals and TNFC/Impact (Tenn.) 3-0 in the final to win the A flight in the 13-and-under division. Team members are Grant Wilmer, Teresa Durham, Rebecca Schoen, Anne Boydston, Sheridan Nulty, Stella Gardner, Elyse Ensor, Kaitlyn Orman, Evelyn Hobbs, Lydia Katrin, Stephanie Krouskos, Apolline Duchamp, Kirby Retherford, Kimberlin Rogers, Liza Linginfelter, Rachael Western and Coach Ted Colburn. "These girls are very competitive and have really jelled as a team over the past year," Colburn said. "If they continue to improve as they do, I expect them to be a nationally ranked team within the next few years."

Washaun Ealey-Georgia Touchdown Record Holder!

2008-10-27T14:45:00.000-04:00

By: Todd Holcomb
(Atlanta Journal-Constitution; D10 - Sat. Oct. 18, 2008; http://www.ajc.com)

Washaun Ealey remembers his first touchdown. It was his first high school game. "It was when I was in the ninth grade against Atkinson County," Ealey said. "It was more like a pass. I broke a couple of tackles. They had it in the newspaper: 'Ealey sheds tacklers.'"

Three years later, Touchdown No. 112 will make a few newspapers, too.

Ealey - who is averaging more than 2.5 touchdowns per game for Emanuel County Institute (ECI) since the first one - holds the state record for career touchdowns after scoring three Friday night against Johnson County in a 35 - 12 victory. Ealey has 113, breaking the record of Pacelli's Matt Dunham, who had 111 during the 2001 - 04 seasons.

"All I ever wanted was to get better so I could get a scholarship to Georgia," he says.

With Ealey scoring a Georgia single-season record of 58 touchdowns, ECI won its first state title in 2007 in Class A.

Ealey is one of just five state players to surpass 100 touchdowns in a career. Herschel Walker, who played at Johnson County in the late 1970's, had 86.

"The record, it's not really on my mind," he said. "It's a good thing, but we're just trying to win another state championship."

Coach Brown's Thoughts:

It is always great to see a young person accomplish something great! Washaun Ealey appears to be a humble young man along with having been Blessed with great athletic ability. I Pray that his college career is as successful as his high school career! Congratulations Washaun!!!

GA Monarchs Baseball 12u

2008-10-08T22:26:00.000-04:00

On August 2, 2008, The GA Monarchs 11u Baseball Team was honored at the Clayton County Back to School Rally at Lovejoy Regional Park in Lovejoy, GA. The team was recognized by New Birth South Metropolitan Church. The GA Monarchs 11u Baseball Team finished their 2008 Season with a record of 36 wins & 16 Losses. They won two (2) Tournaments including a District Tournament Championship and finished third (3rd) in the State. The GA Monarchs were also invited to Brooklyn, NY for the AABC World Series which signified their third (3rd) year in a row to qualify for a World Series Birth. Their best finish was in 2007 in Panama City, FL for the Grand Slam Sports World Series with a fourth (4th) place finish!

This past weekend, Oct. 4th-5th, 2008, The GA Monarchs 12u Baseball Team kicked off its Fall Ball Season with a Championship at the 2008 Henry County Fall Slug Fest Tournament (USSSA) in Hampton, GA!!!

Congratulations GA Monarchs!!!

Georgia Stars Youth Basketball Program!!!

2008-09-09T10:19:00.000-04:00

By: Coach Brown

This report is very close to my heart because my little cousin, Milz Tatum, and the rest of his GA Stars 10u Basketball Team (Coach Thompson) won the 10u Black YBOA National Championship in Orlando, FL in August 2008. The GA Stars are one of the Elite Youth Basketball Programs in the country and they are continuing to produce College-Bound Student Athletes and NBA Players!

Along with their 10u Team (Coach Thompson) bringing home the big trophy this year, Patrick Ewing, Jr. of Georgetown University was the 43rd pick in this year's NBA Draft. Ewing, Jr. is a GA Stars Alumnus.

Current GA Stars and College-Bound Players include Kenny Hall (Tennessee), Glen Rice, Jr. (Georgia Tech), Kammeron Holsey (Georgia Tech) & Jordan Callahan (Tulane).

Visit http://www.gastars.org to receive more information on the Georgia Stars!!!

I would like to congratulate all the parents, coaches and businesses that support these young men and contribute to their success!

It is our job as adults, parents, teachers, coaches, etc. to help position our children for success!

One Love!

Brett Favre - It's a New Day!

2008-08-22T09:22:00.000-04:00

Thoughts by: Coach Brown

I intentionally waited to write this blog in reference to Brett Favre. I have mixed feelings, but at the end of the day, I needed to write about it and get it off of my chest.

There is no doubt that when Brett Favre does actually retire that he is going to be a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer. Absolutely no doubt, that's why it's hard for me to understand why the Green Bay Packers would not welcome him back as their starting quarterback after he led them to the NFC Championship game last Season. That is one game away from the Superbowl! Amazing!

I do understand the business side of the NFL and since the Packers invested in Aaron Rodgers several years ago to take over for Brett when he was finished on the playing field. Obviously, the Packers felt like the time was now for Aaron to take over.

I believe that Brett & the Packers Organization have been going back and forth about his retirement or stepping away for the past couple of seasons and that there has been a great miscommunication between the two parties. Of course, there is a selfishness issue on both sides. Brett believes he can still play at a very high level and the Packers believe it is time to give Aaron a shot and build for the future. It would seem like they could work this out, but apparently they could not. I must give credit to the Packers for at least offering Brett 20 Million Dollars to stay retired and not play for another team. However, Brett wanted to still play and he basically forced a trade to the New York Jets.

Here's the deal from my point of view. We all have to respect the history of the game and Brett is a living/playing legend. He has earned the right to decide when he wants to retire. The Packers and Brett should have communicated better and made a solid decision. Brett should have taken the business side of the game into consideration and realized that once he retired, the Packers had no choice but to move forward and prepare Aaron to take over as quarterback. It hurts both sides when one or both of the parties are wishey-washey.

At the end of the day, Brett gets a chance to continue to play and the Packers move forward with Aaron Rodgers as their starting quarterback which is what both sides actually wanted to do. Prayfully, everything works out for both Brett and the Packers.

Jeremy Tyler - Top Basketball Player in Class of 2010

2008-07-24T00:18:00.000-04:00

From: Sports Illustrated (Double Issue; July 14 -21, 2008; pg. 140)

JEREMY TYLER - 16 yrs. old (6' 11'; 245 lbs.)

Position: Forward
Hometown: San Diego, California (San Diego High School)

Achievements: Rivals.com's top player in the class of 2010, Jeremy averaged 18.0 points, 14.5 rebounds and 7.7 blocks while leading San Diego High to its first section title in 33 years.

Reminiscent of: Amare` Stoudemire. Jeremy (6' 11', 245) is about the same size as his idol, and he's keen to match Stoudemire's intensity. "He's intimidating as much as athletic," says Jeremy. "Everyone's scared of him."

Coach's comment: "Tyler brings a dominant presence to the court," says Cavers coach Kenny Roy. "He was more of a post player, but now he's getting outside and hitting the 15-foot jump shot and still attacking the glass."

Next step: Jeremy has been trailed by a film crew since last season for a possible documentary about his life. Though even college is still two years away, he's a worthy subject. "The best player to come out of San Diego is Bill Walton," says Roy. "Here's a young man with the opportunity to shatter [that notion]."

*SPORTSKID OF THE YEAR
If you know someone from age 7 to 15 who excels in sports, does well in school and gives back to the community, go to http://www.SIKids.com/sportskid to nominate him or her by Sept. 1, 2008. Sports Illustrated will announce the 10 finalists on Sept. 15, 2008 and the winner will appear on the December 2008 cover of SI Kids.

Welcome to Brown Youth Sports

2008-07-05T12:17:00.000-04:00

*Welcome By: Barry M. Brown (Coach Brown) - GA Monarchs Baseball

Hello everyone and thank you for visiting the Brown Youth Sports Blog! I am very excited to be writing a blog about youth sports because I am a direct product of youth sports and if my parents didn't introduce me to sports at an early age, I really don't know what direction my life would have gone. So I am very thankful to God to Bless me with outstanding parents that supported me throughout my athletic career to be the best playcr I could be, but just as important or more important is the fact that they emphasized being an excellent STUDENT and PERSON as well!

Just to give you a little bit of background on me, I am an Atlanta, GA native that moved with my family to Washington, DC when I was five (5) years old. My mom and dad signed me up to play soccer when I was six (6) years old and my sports career blasted off. My family moved back to Atlanta, GA when I was seven (7) years old and I continued playing soccer at the SouthWest YMCA for two (2) more seasons. When I turned eight (8) years old, I was introduced to Little League Football and started playing football at Ben Hill Recreation Center. The next spring, I was introduced to Little League Baseball and I started my baseball career at Sandtown Park. My soccer career was officially over, but I found the 2 sports that I would play all the way up through high school (Morrow High School; Morrow, GA) and the one (1) sport I would play in college (Presbyterian College; Clinton, SC) which was Football.

Here are the Youth Sports Organiztions that helped develop me and that I owe a lot of love to:

1. Montgomery Soccer - Black Cougars (Washington, DC)
2. SouthWest YMCA (Atlanta, GA) - Soccer
3. Ben Hill Recreation Center (Atlanta, GA) - Football
4. Sandtown Park (Atlanta, GA) - Baseball & Football
5. Adams Park (Atlanta, GA) - Baseball
6. Jim Mitchell Golden Falcons (East Point, GA) - Football
7. Boys & Girls Club (Savannah, GA) - Football
8. Morrow-Lake City Park (Lake City, GA) - Baseball

Thank you!!!

I currently coach the GA Monarchs Baseball Team (11u and moving to 12u next spring) and we play out of Hidden Valley-Fairview Park in Henry County. We had another great season this year by winning our Henry County League, The Rumble in the Valley Tournament, The AABC District Tournament and we finished third (3rd) in the State. We've had five (5) of these young men since they were 5 years old and it has been a pleasure and honor to coach & teach these young men. It is an awesome feeling watching these young men develop and grow!

When you visit and/or subscribe to the Brown Youth Sports Blog, you will receive information about different topics that pertain to youth sports like safety, fundamentals, education, success stories, training, recruiting, team acknowledgements and so on. Please make comments on the different blogs and let's get into some great discussions that will help our children.

One Love!