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UNDER THE BANNER What's Going On In and Around Black College Sports
 BATTLE OUT AT VUU: The president of Virginia Union University
decided last week that the contract of athletic director,
James F. Battle, who has been in the position for 16
years, would not be renewed. Dr. Bernard
W. Franklin, who became president of the Richmond, Va.,
institution in 1999, has given no public reason for the decision but has
told Battle that he wanted to make a change in leadership. Battle's
tenure coincides with that of VUU head basketball coach,
Dave Robbins. Battle, 58, a graduate of Fayetteville State
University, became an assistant to Robbins in 1970 at Thomas Jefferson High School in Richmond
and remained his assistant when Robbins become head coach
at VUU in 1978. Battle moved to VUU in 1979 and
became athletic director in 1985. Under Battle's direction, the
Panthers' teams have enjoyed some highly successful
seasons capturing seven Central Intercollegiate Athletic
Association basketball championships, four NCAA Division II
regional crowns and a national championship in 1992.
The football team won two CIAA titles while Battle was AD.
© 2001 Azeez Communications, Inc.
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CASEM BACK IN THE SADDLE: Marino H.
Casem, the man who made Alcorn State
University a household name during his 20-year reign as athletics
director and football coach between 1966 and 1986, has returned to
the university on an interim basis as athletic director. He will assist
the department in its NCAA certification process during this
period. Casem will serve as Alcorn State's chief athletics administrator for
a second term until the university hires a permanent replacement
for the post which was previously held by Lloyd
Hill, who retired in June 2000. Casem, a Memphis, Tennessee native served
in this capacity from August 2000 to March 2001 while
assistant athletics director for compliance and business
affairs Robert H.J. Raines served as the athletics director
from April to June. "It feels a little strange but I'm happy to be
back here on an interim basis to assist the university,"
stated Casem, who also gained acclaim as Alcorn State's
all-time winningest football coach during his prior stint at
Alcorn State. "The program's on solid ground here. My role will
be to make sure it stays that way until a new athletic director
is brought in." When he previously worked at Alcorn
State, Casem brought national acclaim to the university. As
athletics director, he assembled a winning team of coaches
and staff members who made Alcorn State one of the
Southwestern Athletic Conference's revered powers. The
university produced an Olympic Gold Medalist, a world record
holder in the 100-yard dash, first round draft picks in basketball
and football, and built a world-class athletics complex and
arena under Casem's tutelage. As head football coach from 1964
to 1985, he captured seven conference championships,
seven national black college championships, and was named
both the National Black College and SWAC Coach-of-the-Year
a total of seven times. Casem resigned from his dual roles
at Alcorn State in 1986 to become athletics director at
rival Southern University. At Southern, he inherited a
relatively dormant program in all sports but quickly converted it
into the top overall sports program in the SWAC. Between
1986 and his retirement in 1999, Casem guided Southern to
seven SWAC Commissioner Cups, six SWAC men's
all-sport trophies, and nine SWAC women's all-sport trophies.
The various teams at Southern captured a total of 59
championships during Casem's stint at the Baton Rouge university.
He was inducted into the SWAC Hall of Fame in 1992,
the Alcorn State Hall of Honor in 1993 and the
Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame in 1994. He received the
All-America Football Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award in
1994 and the National Football Foundation and College Hall
of Fame' s Outstanding Contribution to Amateur Football
Award in 1998.