UNDER THE BANNER
What's Going On In and Around Black College Sports
McPHERSON AT TSU: Former Florida State quarterback Adrian McPherson has apparently applied for admission to Tennessee State.
According to an ESPN.com news service
story Tuesday, the former two-sport high school star in Florida,
who was sentenced to 30 months probation in early July after
pleading no contest to gambling and theft charges in Tallahassee, Fla.,
is making an attempt to enroll after TSU Athletic Director
Teresa Phillips said last week that the school would not allow him
to play on the football team. A school official,
Phyllis Qualls-Brooks, said in the story Tuesday that a decision about McPherson's enrollment
will be made by Friday. TSU head coach James Reese
said "He still has to do what he has to do with the NCAA. Right
now, he's just a regular student." McPherson's eligibility to
play football hasn't been determined by the NCAA. If cleared,
he would have two years of eligibility remaining.
McPherson had faced up to 20 years in jail on charges stemming
from allegations he stole a blank check, filled it out and cashed
it from a Tallahassee business. A previous trial for
gambling which included a charge of betting on Florida State
games, ended in a hung jury. Before he joined FSU as a
freshman quarterback in 2001, as a senior McPherson was the
only high school athlete in history to be voted Mr. Football
and Mr. Basketball in Florida. He passed for 75 touchdowns
and over 6,000 yards in his high school football career
and averaged 35 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists in
basketball during his senior campaign.
ASU WINS ROUND ONE: A judge in Montgomery has dismissed the lawsuit brought by 15 Alabama State football players seeking to reinstate head football coach L. C. Cole and two assistants. Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Tracey McCooey said Tuesday in court proceedings that the players had no legal standing from which to succeed. The university had asked the court Monday to dismiss the suit because the players had not signed to play for a particular coach but for the institution. Julian McPhillips, an attorney representing Cole and his brother Johnny Cole, the team's offensive coordinator who was also removed, said he would again file a motion allowing the coaches to intervene in the suit. "This is only Round one of a ten-round fight," said McPhillips. The coaches filed a motion to join the player's suit claiming that they were denied due process. Judge Johnny Hartwick, who was scheduled to rule on that motion Saturday did not and later recused himself citing his ties to Alabama State. The Coles and Richard Freeman were removed after the school finished a six-month investigation that found the football program almost "totally out of control." Findings included that Cole used ineligible players, had grades changed for players and used strippers to entertain recruits. The Coles have denied the allegations.
SUBER PICK AT VSU: Virginia State University has appointed Stephanie Evans Suber as the new head women's basketball Coach. Suber comes to Virginia State after three seasons as Head Coach at the University of the District of Columbia (UDC). She has nine years of NCAA Division II coaching experience. Coach Suber received her Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology in 1994 and her Master of Arts degree in Counseling Psychology in 1997 from Bowie State University in Bowie, Maryland. As a student-athlete, she competed in basketball, cross-country and outdoor track and field. In addition to her part-time coaching position at UDC, she worked full-time as a Program Director at the Progressive Life Center, Inc. in Landover, Maryland where she supervised a program for teenage mothers. She is replacing Peggy Davis who resigned as head coach after being named to replace Derek Carter as VSU's new athletic director. Carter left that position to assume the athletic director's job at Bowie State.
© 2003 Azeez Communications, Inc.