Browsing: Sports

    The last two years, basically the SWAC title for football has been decided on Labor Day, for all practical purposes.  FAMU and Jackson State played in the Orange Blossom Classic in 2021 and 2022 and both ended with the Rattlers losing and being on the outside looking in for the rest of the season.

     The Eagles’ defense made a goal-line stand on Jackson State’s first possession in overtime to preserve the win. Tight end Hayden Hagler’s drop on third down from the 1 set up an incompletion by Jackson State quarterback Shedeur Sanders to end the game.

Last week’s column covered the myriad successes achieved by the Dillard girl’s cross country team under the dynamic leadership of Coach Davidson Gill. In an effort to highlight, educate and create more interest in a sport surely deserving, I wanted to chronicle the successes of the women’s and men’s championship teams: North Carolina State University (women) and Northern Arizona University (men).

     In May 2022, Florida A&M’s star football player Isaiah Land considered leaving the HBCU for a school in a Power Five Conference. Land, an NFL prospect heading into his senior year, had the talent to play at any school in the nation and wanted to test the waters in the transfer portal. His top choices were Texas, UCF, Auburn, LSU, Memphis, and UGA, who won the College Football National Championship last season and are currently the No.1 team in 2022.

     After 294 days in Russian custody, including the past several weeks in a dreaded and dangerous penal colony, WNBA star Brittney Griner is free.

The casual high school sports fan has probably never even given cross country a passing thought-  understandable but nevertheless disappointing. While hundreds of students and parents eagerly attend Dillard football games, the same attention and enthusiasm falls woefully short when speaking of cross country, a sport that demands courage, endurance, sacrifice and commitment sans the physicality, immediate excitement and anticipation inherent in football or other traditional sports . I continue to draw the comparison because both are fall sports held at similar times. However, on many high school and college campuses, the sport’s popularity has skyrocketed. For example, who knows or has ever heard of Katelin Tuohy or Charles Hicks? Allow me the privilege of sparing you the aggravation. Katelin led the Atlantic Coast Conference North Carolina State University Wolfpack to the 2022 NCAA Division I XC championship,  winning her first individual title in 19:27  while garnering the team’s second consecutive title. Stanford’s Charles Hicks won the men’s individual XC title, setting a course record at Oklahoma State University with a time of 28:43, one second ahead of pre-race favorite Nic Young of Northern Arizona, NCAA men’s XC ‘22 champs.