VOORHEES TABS SIMMONS:
Voorhees College Athletics Director Willie Jefferson has named Francis E. Simmons the head coach for the men's basketball team. Simmons, a native of Walterboro, S.C., is a 1971 graduate of Voorhees.

"Simmons is very well known," Jefferson said. "Through his work with intercollegiate athletic programs, I am confident that the changes he will bring will enhance the status of our basketball program."

With 33 years experience as an educator and coach, Simmons served 17 years at South Carolina State as the assistant men's basketball coach and four years as head women's basketball coach at Bethune-Cookman.

"I want to bring a sense of success to the program," Simmons said.

Simmons began his coaching career at Walterboro High School as the boy's varsity basketball coach from 1975-1985 and went on to work as a sports specialist in the Carribean Islands, where he taught fundamentals to international basketball athletes.

Simmons currently resides in Irmo, S.C. with his wife, Fanni. He holds a Bachelor of Science in elementary education and is currently pursuing a master's degree in education at the University of South Carolina.He is a member of the National Association of Basketball Coaches and the Black Coaches Association.

ALLEN NAMES ASSISTANTS:
University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES) head men's basketball coach Frankie Allen has announced that assistants coaches G. Jamal Brown and Mike Blaine with Nicholas Robinson coming on board as the graduate assistant will join him leading the Fighting Hawks for the 2008-09 season.

"Jamal is an excellent assistant coach," said Allen. "He has outstanding people skills, which I think are first and foremost, but he is also a very knowledgeable basketball coach." With 10 years experience coaching at the Division I level, Brown brings a wealth of knowledge to the program. His coaching career began at his alma mater South Carolina State where he was a standout player before becoming assistant coach and the recruiting coordinator from 1997-2003. He then moved on to become the assistant coach and recruiting coordinator for Tennessee State for two seasons starting in 2003-04 where he worked closely with the team's Academic Advisor in ensuring 80 percent of the team had a GPA of 2.5 or higher. Brown then returned to S.C. State to fill the head coaching roll for the 2006-07 season before joining the UMES team this year.

Blaine was a standout athlete at Johns Hopkins University having been nationally ranked in field goal percentage defense for three straight years. As a competitive player with a team whose four year record was 67-34, he was a part of the monumental win over Navy, the first time in school history.

Upon graduating from Hopkins, Blaine continued his involvement with basketball by accepting positions as the director of men's basketball operations with James Madison and then the United States Military Academy. He jumped into coaching by taking on assistant coach responsibilities at Radford University and Hampden-Sydney College before signing on with UMES.

WEST VIRGINIA STATE MOVES INTO DIV. II TOP 25
Undefeated West Virginia State (4-0) has joined Tuskegee and Albany State out of the SIAC as ranked teams in the NCAA based on the d2football.com poll.

The Yellow Jackets, who defeated Charleston Saturday 24-21, are out of the West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WVIAC) and were ranked 24th in the poll released Sept. 23. They join 3-0 Tuskegee, who is 11th, and 3-0 Albany State, who is 20th, in the poll.

© 2008 Azeez Communications, Inc.

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