Crowded club of 1,000-point scorers

March 1, 2014

Bre Berryman, Emiley Masloski, Angela Staffileno, Vanessa Hissam, Alyssa Shingle, Katie Ellzy and Brennan Czuchran are more alike than the numbers that have defined their basketball careers.All seven high school athletes surpassed the 1,000-point mark this season."Thousand point scorers always have the same things in common," said Weir High coach Bill Smith. "They're hard workers, they're great kids from great families and they're not afraid."They want the ball with the game on the line."The aforementioned standouts have been the go-to scorers and leaders for their teams. Each is a key ...

Words: ‘They’ve made me feel like a prisoner’

March 4, 2014

I am in a unique position.I get to talk to a lot of people about a lot of things.I see coaches and how they interact with our youth.I listen to how coaches interact in those same situations.And, at times, I talk to the coaches about those interactions.One things is a constant in those situations - the spoken word and how it's said.I watched Luther Vandross years and years ago tell Oprah something along the lines of, "You can make or break my day by how you tell me good morning."So, not only is it the spoken word, but the tone with which it is used.One can say "good job" with an ...

Can Pirates sustain Florida surge?

March 7, 2014

I only have four applications on my iPhone - FourSquare, Instagram, Twitter and ESPN ScoreCenter.I don't have Facebook, because I don't need to see sappy status updates from my old high school acquaintances.I don't have birds, of the flappy or angry variety, because I'm not coordinated enough to knock over eggs or navigate my way through long, green pipes.I don't even have any music on my phone. Simply because there isn't enough space.I do have more than 2,000 pictures, though, which is absurd for someone who isn't a 15-year old girl.There's nearly four years of photos on there from ...

From the seats:WVU stops KU

March 9, 2014

MORGANTOWN - As the No. 8 Kansas Jayhawks entered Morgantown on Saturday, the West Virginia basketball team needed three secondary guys to step up if the Mountaineers had any hope of pulling off an upset.Freshman big man Devin Williams did his part. Making his his 30th start of the year, the 6-foot-9 forward from Cincinnati scored 22 points, netting all of his first half attempts.Williams also grabbed 13 of the team's 37 rebounds, with six coming on the offensive end.Another key contributor was WVU student Michael Garcia. The political science major from Fairmont was named the school's ...

Acts of sportsmanship after and during a loss

March 11, 2014

Other than jumping on and whipping up on my son (which won't last much longer), I have never been a wrestler.Knew them in high school and thought they were nuts.Now, I know that's not the truth, but I just never understood it back then.I do now.On that point, I will never, for the life of me, understand why it is OK for wrestlers to not shake hands of the opposing coaches after a match.I get the five or six minutes of intensity with a win or loss riding on the match.I get all the emotion with six minutes standing between two wrestlers for a state championship.It's not quite a steel cage ...

Tall task for 2 QBs

March 14, 2014

Between them, they have some 15,000 yards of offense.Our 2013 Pigskin Preview cover boys sat down with me for about 25 minutes and discussed their careers, playing against each other, how time flies and their decisions on where to play college football.Weirton Madonna's Ross Comis and Steubenville Catholic Central's Brenton Colabella will continue their academic and athletic careers next year with an opportunity to play as freshmen.Comis is off to UMass, while Colabella heads a short distance to West Liberty.To watch the reparte, visit www.youtube.com/v/IXmvGfBcG44One thing they have in ...