RightFielders Women in Sports

The Tennessee Volunteers have reportedly hired Clemson Defensive Coordinator Kevin Steele to fill the place left by Monte Kiffin who left with his son for USC. Steele has worked as defensive coordinator for Clemson for the past year while the team went 8-5 for the season and won their bowl game.

In charge of a defense that finished 27th just behind West Virginia in 2009, Steele lead the Clemson Tigers to their worst defensive rankings since 2004. How much of this was an unavoidable product of a fresh coaching switch? We’ll never know. Steele only had one year to put together and implement his defensive strategy for Clemson, and now he’ll have to do it again at Tennessee. If we’re to learn from history, it looks like we shouldn’t expect any drastic improvements in Tennessee’s defense in 2010.
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Is Fla. Coach Meyer fine? Probably not – Fla. Coach Meyer’s fine for criticizing an official was set at a whopping $30,000. Read more below.

Why shouldn’t Southeastern Conference coaches be able to express their opinion about whether or not the officials did a good job calling the game? I mean, if they did a crummy job and got a few calls wrong, in my opinion, they should be called out on it. It’s the coach’s job to win, and the ref’s job to officiate. So, why should refs be protected from scrutiny if they don’t deliver?

Photos and Video

Meet Jeremy Jarmon, an American college football player who plays for the Kentucky Wildcats as a defensive end. See photos, video and a biography of Jeremy Jarmon here.

Jeremy is in the news today as he’s been banned by the NCAA for a year, after failing to pass a banned substance test. Jarmon will now miss his senior year at the University which means that the guy who was a honorable mention to first team All-SEC last season, has now finished his college career.

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Tar Heels Help Obama Rebound in Bracket. NYT

Fake Facebook Accounts Fooling NFL Prospects. Sports By Brooks

MLB picks Aaron, Ali, Cosby for Beacon Awards. ESPN

John Calipari Continues His Dismantling Of Memphis. Deadspin

Canadians Can’t Handle Their Booze. Babes Love Baseball

Johan Santana has secret handshakes for every Mets player. (video) Ballhype

Anna Kournikova’s 7 Steps To Preparing For A Triathlon. Busted Coverage

New Zealand Tour: A job well done by professional India. Cricinfo

Yet Another Reason Football Club Tattoos Aren’t Brilliant. The Offside

Soccer Player Given Yellow Cart For Farting. Barstool Sports

Can Michael Jordan save the Hall of Fame? Game On

Top ranked North Carolina Tar Heels defeated Michigan State 89-72 to win the 2009 NCAA Championship. They were pretty much the favourites to win, right through the tournament, and helped President Obama to make a comeback in the ESPN.com bracket as he picked them as his choice to win the tournament.

Last year, the Tar Heels did not deliver, which prompted Obama to offer a plea while filling out his bracket last month on ESPN, saying, “This year, don’t embarrass me in front of the nation, all right?”

The Tar Heels did not embarrass him — or disappoint him. In the end, the presidential bracket did not look so bad, either.

Check out North Carolina Tar Heels video:

Video

Meet Wayne Ellington, an American college basketball player who plays as the shooting guard for the North Carolina Tar Heels. See photos, video and a biography of Wayne Ellington here.

Wayne was the hero in Carolina’s 83-69 semifinal victory over Villanova on Saturday night. He scored 20 points in the game, 13 of them coming in the first half which helped Tar Heels building a 17 point lead over Villanova. The will now be going to the Championship game on Monday against Michigan State at Ford Field.

“It felt great,” Ellington said after making 5 of 7 three-point attempts and tallying 20 points. “It felt like I was in the gym working out against these guys back home. You know, I see all these guys in the summertime, so it was a lot of fun.”

As a biography, Wayne Ellington was born on November 29, 1987 in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania so his age is 21. He attended The Episcopal Academy and scored 2,211 points in his high school career. The performance was enough to take the school to a 52-7 record and the Inter-Academic League Conference titles for two straight years.

Wayne averaged 11.7 points in his freshman year at the North Carolina University and was named to the 2007 ACC All-Tournament Team. His career-best performance came in January 2008, when he top-scored with 36 points against Clemson.

He had also represented the country at the 2007 Pan American Games.

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Meet John Calipari, who is the current head coach of the University of Kentucky Men’s basketball team. Calipari is currently said to be the best college basketball coach in the country and he has just moved from Memphis to Kentucky. See photos, video and a biography of John Calipari here.

Calipari started seriously considering a move to the University of Kentucky, after they offered him the position just a week back. UK’s previous basketball coach Billy Gillispie was recently fired after the Wildcats missed their first NCAA Tournament after 1991. Gillispie had a 40-27 record with the school.

He was introduced as the Wildcats’ new head coach on Wednesday and he said that he was “humbled and excited” for being asked to lead the team. According to ESPN, the eight-year contract is estimated to be worth $31.65 million, making Calipari as the highest-paid coach in the country.

“I’m a regular guy, folks,” Calipari said. “I do not walk on water; I do not have a magic wand.”

“This decision was extremely hard. It wasn’t coming here, this was easy. It was leaving Memphis. The support that my family and I received over the years there … to walk away from that was very difficult.”

Calipari is surely enjoying a celebrity status in the college basketball coaching corridors as he led Memphis into the Sweet Sixteen in style, topping off a 27-game winning streak and a fourth straight 30-win campaign.

As a biography, John Calipari was born on February 10, 1959 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania so his age is 50. He attended Clarion University and graduated from there with a degree in Marketing. He played as the point guard for the school.

Calipari started out as the assistant coach at the University of Kansas. He later coached the University of Massachusetts, New Jersey Nets and then spent most of his time at the University of Memphis. His coaching style has been different from the traditional ones and he was the person who popularized the concept of Memphis Attack offense style. John revamped the coaching program at the university and led them to their first National Conference game in 2008. He was named the Conference USA Coach of the Year in 2006, 2008 and 2009.

The move to Kentucky comes at a time when the Wildcats missed their first NCAA Tournament since 1991. Although, Memphis had proposed a counter-offer, but Kentucky had the last laugh. Memphis will certainly miss their best-ever coach going out of the school premises.

In his personal life, John is married to Ellen Calipari and the couple have two daughters and a son.

Video

Meet Gary Waters, who is the current head coach of the Vikings basketball team at Cleveland State University. See a video and a biography of Gary Waters here.

Waters was a happy man today when the No.13 Cleveland State Vikings beat No.4 Wake Forest 84-69 in the first game of the Midwest Regional in the NCAA tournament. The upset was widely applauded and the Vikings are now concentrating on their second round game with No.12 Arizona.

“What we did was we surprised them,” Gary Waters said. “It took them a while to realize what was occurring out there.”

The coach was quite optimistic about the win, before the game and he also said that he wasn’t at all surprised by it afterwards. What he was happy about was that the margin of the win was 15 points. Point guard Cedric Jackson started the game with two 3-pointers and gave the Vikings the lead that never let go. He ended the game with 19 points and 8 assists. Norris Cole top-scored with 22 points.

The win is being remembered as being equal to the one that came in 1986, over Bobby Knight’s Indiana team. Wake Forest is considered to be one of the best teams and they were No.1 for a week in January after winning their first 16 games. Everyone had better expectations.

“It’s very disappointing,” Jeff Teague said. “We expected to do damage in this tournament. To lose in the first round is hard to take.”

As a biography, Gary Waters was born on August 15th, 1951 in Highland Park, Michigan so he is 57 years old. He played for Ferris State University for two years in 1972 and then started his coaching career as an assistant coach at the same college.

Waters also coached at Rutgers University, guiding the team to the final of the NIT Tournament in 2004. He resigned from the college in March 2006 and was hired by the Vikings in April.

He has been named as the Mid-American Conference Coach of the Year in 1999 and 2000. Just last year, he was named as the Horizon League Coach of the Year.

Video

Meet Eric Devendorf, an American college basketball player who plays as a guard for the Syracuse Orange. See a video and a biography of Eric Devendorf here.

Devendorf finally got his ‘last shot’ recently as he shot a 3-pointer just three seconds off the half-time during Syracuse’s semi-final game against West Virginia. His team led Virginia with 36-29 at half-time.

The shot was reviewed by officials — a decision that was met with a mixture of laughter and groans by the crowd — was deemed to have gotten off just in time.

Eric was denied a very good similar shot in the quarter final game against Connecticut when it was revealed in the replays that the ball hadn’t left his fingers before the time was up. Syracuse had to go through a classic six -overtime game to beat Conn.

As a biography, Eric Devendorf was born on April 21, 1987 in Bay City, Michigan so his age is 21. He was named to the Big East All-Rookie team in the 2005-06 season after he led his school to the Big East Championship.

Eric looked pretty strong in the next season when he averaged 16.6 points in the BCA Invitational and was named the MVP. He also scored his career high of 34 points against South Alabama in the National Invitational. He was injured in the 2007-08 and made it through the next season only to be suspended due to an assault incident involving him and a female student.

He returned to the starting lineup of Syracuse on December 30th last year.

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Meet Shea Ralph, a former professional basketball player who is now the assistant coach for the University of Connecticut Huskies women’s basketball team. Shea is a former All-America player and was the captain of the 2000 NCAA National Championship Team. See a video and a biography of Shea Ralph here.

Shea was named as the first-year assistant coach of the University of Connecticut Huskies in July last year. She is certainly enjoying her job as the Huskies captured the Big East title, defeating second-placed Louisville 75-36 recently.

“I am really excited about the opportunity to return to my home and to further my career at the University of Connecticut,” Ralph said. “As a player and a student, I invested everything I had into the program and I am honored to have the chance to continue that as a member of the coaching staff.”

As a biography, Shea Ralph was born on 12 March 1978 in Fayetteville, North Carolina so her age is 30. She was named as the Athlete of the Year by the North Carolina High School Athletic Association and got the 1995 Dial Award for her performances in general sports and basketball in particular. She held as many as 17 state records in the sport.

Shea attended the University of Connecticut and earned a degree in Exercise Physiology. She won the Big East Rookie of the Year in her first year at UConn. During her four seasons with the Huskies, the team amassed an unbelievable 66-2 record. They made it to the Final Four in two of the seasons and Shea captained the team winning the 2000 NCAA Championships. She was named the Most Outstanding Player of the tournament. Her later career suffered heavily from a knee injury.

She was drafted as the 40th overall pick in 2001 by Utah Starzz but due to her knee injury, her WNBA career couldn’t start. She was inducted into the Fayetteville Sports Club Hall of Fame in 2008.

Video

Meet Rick Pitino, a former college basketball player who is now the head basketball coach at the University of Louisville. Pitino is the only coach to have the distinction of leading three different colleges into the Final Four. See photos, video and a biography of Rick Pitino here.

Pitino led his team to the conference regular season title with a 16-2 record after they defeated West Virginia 62-59. They were ranked sixth and needed a win over Virginia and a loss by number one Connecticut for the Big East title.

To their joy, Pittsburgh drowned Connecticut 70-60 before their win.

“Whatever shakes down, we’ve had a great regular season, that’s the way we look at it,” Pitino said before the match.

As a biography, Rick Pitino was born on September 18, 1952 in New York City so his age is 56. He was the captain of the St. Dominic High School basketball team and then attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst with a superb record which led him to be inducted into the school HOF.

Pitino, who is an Italian American by origin, has coached Boston University, Providence College, and the University of Kentucky before coming to Louisville. He has also coached the New York Knicks in 1987 when they marched to their first division title in almost 20 years. he also coached Boston Celtics from 1997 to 2001 with a 102-146 record.

In 2005, Pitino led Louisville to their first Final Four in almost 19 years.

“Pitino is considered by many to be one of the first coaches to promote fully taking advantage of the 3-point shot, first adopted by the NCAA in 1987. By exploiting the 3-point shot, his teams at Kentucky in the early 1990s were known as Pitino’s Bombinos, as a significant portion of the offensive points came from the 3-point shot.”

Apart from basketball coaching, Pitino is also an accomplished author, writing the very successful motivation book Success is a Choice and his autobiography Born to Coach in 1988.

In his personal life, he is married to Joanne Minardi since 1976 and they have five children. Check out his official website here.

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