Inside Hotlanta and The SIAC
March 11, 2001

MOREHOUSE'S JOHN GRANT GETS THE 'GAITHER"

The 2002 winner of the Jake Gaither award from the 100% Wrong Club of Atlanta is Morehouse College linebacker John Grant. The award was presented Saturday, March 2nd at the club's 68th annual all sports weekend jamboree.
Grant, who will return to the school as a fifth year senior, finished as the second leading tackler in the SIAC and was 9th in the NCAA Division II rankings. He was also chosen this year's SIAC defensive player of the year and was named to the 2001 Sheridan Broadcasting Network's All-American team.
The Gaither, named for the former head coach and Athletic Director at Florida A&M University, is a Heisman-like honor created by the Wrongers in 1978 and given to the most outstanding player from a predominately black college. Past winners have included two Super Bowl MVPS, Mississippi Valley's Jerry Rice and Tennessee State's Richard Dent. Grant is the first recipient of the award from either of the three football playing colleges (CAU, Morris Brown, Morehouse) of the six college Atlanta University Center.

• Willie Jefferies, the retired head coach at South Carolina State University, was cited by the 100% Wrong Club for his lifetime of achievement on the football gridiron. Jefferies also confirmed to INSIDE that he was approached by the assistant athletic director at Shaw University ,Hornsby Howell, about becoming their head football coach. He declined the offer because of the difficulty of pulling up roots in Orangeburg. Jefferies is still working at SCSU as their new director for athletic fundraising.

• Henry Frazier, the head football coach at Bowie State University, will return his Bulldogs to the south this season against Morehouse College. He told INSIDE last weekend that he'd like to schedule more games with southern schools but can't seem to get anybody to put his team on their schedule. Frazier, who attended Bowie, has turned around the program and led the Bulldogs to a 7-3 mark, their best in 12 years.

• Billy Joe, head football coach at Florida A&M University told INSIDE the story of how he came to coach from the press box and not the sidelines. When he was head grid coach at Central State of Ohio, he faced an opponent who did coach from the press box.
  "He told me before the game he might not make it down to the field for handshakes after the game was over because he worked the game from the press box. I thought that ludicrous until he beat the tar out of us. I waited until he came down out that box and I asked him why he did that. He said he got a better view of the field and circumstances."
  Joe said he then began experimenting with press box coaching and finally decided that should be his place from now on. Folks at FAMU aren't complaining. He's winning ball games.

• Tuskegee graduate Michael Sanders has launched a column for golfers. "The 19th Hole" is being carried by the Atlanta Inquirer Newspaper (www.theatlantainquirer.com). Sanders, a native of Athens Georgia and a member of 100 Black Men of DeKalb County and the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, hopes that local interest will propel the piece to national syndication.

  "Got an item or comment?
  Contact Hal at lamar95@bellsouth.net

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