It was just revealed that Bill Belichick addressed the RU football team a few weeks ago. I never really cared about Spygate, so this was pleasant to hear about. Apparently Coach Schiano is a frequent visitor to New England minicamps. Keith Sargeant also reports that Marcus Witherspoon is undergoing shoulder surgery.
It sounds like Natale isn't going to play much this weekend.
Jerry Carino was at BE media day yesterday.
For Rutgers, Hamady N'Diaye and Anthony Farmer attended. They, along with Fred Hill, were bombarded with questions about the freshmen. It wasn't as crowded as the UConn or Louisville tables, but it was the most reporters I've seen hovering around the Scarlet Knights here.
I forgot to mention this a few days ago, but Paul Franklin recently published an interview with C. Vivian Stringer.
If anyone was watching Devils hockey last night, during the second intermission, there was a NJ HS football segment, and the announcers had a lot of praise for LB recruit Steve Beauharnais.
Rutgers has received a $2.3 million grant to research antipsychotic medications.
Paul Franklin has a feature today on the end of Mike Tranghese's tenure as BE commissioner. Of course, he will be remembered more fondly on the basketball side of the conference. A few key details:
A search committee is expected to announce the new commissioner next month.
Coming in from the outside is Kevin Weiber. A long-time associate commissioner of the Big 10 and later commissioner of the Big 12, he is currently based in Chicago working for the Big 10 Network.
For all the demands of the Big East, he seems like the likely choice.
Riding the rail is senior associate Big East commissioner John Marinatto, who joined the conference in 2002. Previously he had been director of athletics at Big East member Providence College. Despite rumors that the conference wants to remain in-house, his lack of experience in many areas would seem to hurt his chances.
...
Tom McElroy worked in the conference for 20 of those years before leaving in 2001 as senior associate commissioner."It sounds corny to say it, but it's almost impossible to describe Michael's impact, and I think it reflects how he operates as a quiet leader, a quiet consensus-builder," McElroy said. "He recognized early on that the key to the league long-term was football, at a time when schools didn't understand that or didn't want to deal with it, I remember him at a Big East meeting at Logan Airport, saying "We will rue the day we didn't take Penn State (as a member).'
"He saw the inevitability. Ultimately you get to the issue of, "what is it that the membership defines,' not what the (new commissioner) defines. That is the one thing that is the challenge of the Big East. It is not a homogeneous group. When (ACC, SEC, Big 10) schools go to work every day they all look the same. And I think that's the challenge now, not for commissioner but for the membership."
A very charitable piece, but it has some very good information regardless.