Xavier's Kaplan Brings A-10 Fans To The NCAA's

The following blog is part of a series of entries written by Xavier Men's Soccer sophomore defender Andy Kaplan as his team enters the NCAA Tournament after winning it's second Atlantic 10 Championship Title.

Selection Show and First Practice

Monday was the selection show. I feel like it would have been slightly more dramatic if we didn’t know that we were in the tournament, but it was still interesting waiting to find out who we were going to play.

Just like last year, a ton of administrative people came out (the AD, our compliance director, the whole academic advising department, etc.) to see where we would end up and our whole team sat in front of a monitor that had the show running.

Unlike last year though, they revealed all of the teams in the beginning of the show, so we found out right away that we are heading to Morgantown, West Virginia. After we got done cheering it sunk in a bit that we were heading back to the same place to play the same team that we played last year. If we beat West Virginia, we get to head down to Maryland, which will be our third top 10 opponent of the season, and definitely an incredible experience, but first we have to focus on West Virginia.

Tuesday, we had our first practice after the 290-minute plus tournament weekend. People went out yesterday and jogged and stretched for recovery, the legs were a little bit heavy. To compensate, we had a relatively light practice. We were told after practice that we were going to be recognized at the basketball game, but some of the older guys on the team talked to coach and convinced him to hold off on that.

We’ve been out of town for three days in three out of the past four weeks, so everybody’s got more than a bit of work and sleep to catch up on. Other than that, we’re just getting packed and prepared to head out to WVU on Wednesday.

-Andy

A-10 Student-Athetes in the Community

Somewhere between the beginning school and the start of practice and games, the extraordinary student-athletes of the Atlantic 10 have found time to get involved in their respective communities in a BIG way.


League Members Honor 10th Anniversary of 9/11Terrorist Attacks

George Washington University freshman student-athletes joined up with new athletic director Patrick Nero for the Colonials' third annual Freshman Day of Service, which also marked the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The day's theme, "Beautifying Schools, Building Community," sent students to 12 D.C. public schools, two veterans' retirement homes and Fort Dupont Park, where they painted, gardened and cleaned.

Watch a video and read the full article highlighting their tireless work HERE.

Meanwhile, the 49ers and the American Red Cross hosted the 10^th Annual 9/11 Memorial Blood Drive last Thursday, September 8th.  Sponsored by Charlotte 49ers student-athletes, the blood drive was stationed in the university's Athletic Training and Academic Center /Hayward Practice Gym and attracted 96 donors, collecting 92 units of blood.

Thirty eight student-athletes from eight teams volunteered 48.5 hours of their time to help the event and also recruited 32 donors.  Student-athlete donors totaled 27 with 17 from the 49ers' baseball team and 10 from the softball team, two of the 49ers teams that are in off-season training.

See the full story HERE

Bonnies Continue an Annual Event

The Bonnies will participate in the 6th Annual GREAT STRIDES: Taking Steps to Cure Cystic Fibrosis walk, taking place this Saturday, Sept. 17.  Hundreds of St. Bonaventure student-athletes, coaches and members of the St. Bonaventure Athletic Department are expected to participate.

Started five years ago by head strength and conditioning coach Darryn Fiske, the walk has become an annual opportunity for the Bonaventure athletic community to give back. 

Last year, the walk raised $27,000, surpassing the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation’s goal of $26,000. This year, a goal of $28,000 has been set, half of which Fiske said has already been raised.

Here is Fiske discussing how he became involved in such a great cause:

Read the full story HERE

Soccer Opening Weekend

With soccer opening up this weekend, here are a couple videos from around the league to get you pumped up.

The first, representing A-10 Women's Soccer, comes from the University of Dayton and highlights their stellar defensive resume:

And the second from the University of Rhode Island Men's Soccer team during a recent outing to Gillette Stadium to watch the Houston Dynamo, and former Ram and 2007 A-10 Midfielder of the Year Geoff Cameron [#20], take on the New England Revolution.

Looking forward to getting our fall seasons underway- be sure to send us your pictures if you attend any A-10 soccer games this weekend- email them to photos@atlantic10.org

Temple's Dunphy Featured on ESPNU

NBA lock out got ya down? Counting down the days to college basketball season A-10 Nation? Here's a snippet to hold you over...

Temple Men's Basketball head coach Fran Dunphy answers questions about the landscape of college basketball and what the Owls need to do to contend for the A-10 title this year while featured on the August 17th, 2011 edition of Katz's Corner on ESPNU.

Stay tuned for more as Saint Joseph's Phil Martelli and Rhode Island's Jim Baron are both being featured on Katz's corner on ESPNU at 5pm tonight!

Flyers Keep In Touch With Fans From Abroad

The University of Dayton men's basketball team is three days into its 11-day, four-game European exhibition tour.

Today the Flyers posted a video of Luke Fabrizius' comments after UD's win over the Dutch U23 team:

Additionally, members of the team are writing player diaries during the team's trip to Europe.  Here are three entries that have been written so far:

BRIAN VONDERHAAR (Aug 9)
We arrived in Amsterdam around 11:45 pm, which would have been 5:45 AM our time back in Ohio.  We then hopped on a bus and immediately stopped off to see a small town / village to see the windmills.  The weather here in the Netherlands is surprisingly chilly and windy, which helps to power the windmills for various tasks (sewing, churning cheese, etc.).  After that, we checked into our hotel and we all took a nap because of the lack of sleep on the plane.  I am rooming with Matt Kavanaugh.  For dinner, Kav, Mitch, Fab, Alex, JP, CJ and I walked to a pizza / pasta bar.  We learned very quickly that it is not cheap here!  The average price for an entrée is about 10 Euros (just over $14).  After dinner we walked around downtown Amsterdam to see the city and the canals.  It is a nice city, however it is a little dangerous walking around due to the bike paths.  They blend in with the sidewalks and the people use bikes as a major source of transportation.  These bikes stop for nothing and have frequently hollered at us to get out of their way.

MATT KAVANAUGH (Aug 9-10)
Upon landing in Amsterdam, I immediately recognized several cultural differences while being in the airport alone!  Walking around on the first day was definitely fun.  Day two was another very fulfilling day starting with the Anne Frank House.  It was amazing to actually be in the same rooms where those eight people had to cram together and hide for over two years.  I could not imagine anything that horrid happening during my lifetime.  My teen years were some of the best years of my life so far and I just cannot imagine what Anne Frank and her family had to go through.  From there we walked back to the hotel to rest up for the game.  We started out slow in the first half, but picked up the intensity in the second and won 70 to 66.  Now it is dinner time and then we will walk around to take in Amsterdam for awhile, then it is to bed.

JOSH PARKER (Aug 10)
This has been a very exciting day for us…well I know for me it has!  To start it off, we went to the Anne Frank House.  Having read the Diary of Anne Frank, it was very interesting to me to actually see the house they lived in and hid inside for over 700 days.  It was amazing and sad to see the way they lived and how they survived for the amount of time they did. My favorite part of the house was seeing Anne’s room.  Her room was extremely small and she tried to decorate it to make it feel more home-like even though it was truly a hiding space.  All of the pictures she clipped and put on the wall were still there and it was interesting to see.  I really enjoyed my visit.  Additionally, our first game here was fun and interesting.  There are many different rules compared to our rules in the U.S. including timeouts, calls…everything seemed different!  I really enjoyed playing with the guys.

 Sounds like the team is taking in the sites and having a great time- any recommendations of places they should visit in Amsterdam, Belgium or France?

Be sure to follow the team as they continue their trip on www.daytonflyers.com

St. Bonaventure's Adegboye Featured with Snoop Dogg, Warren G in Olympics Ad

Courtesy of GoBonnies.com 

LONDON - In advance of the London 2012 Olympics, former St. Bonaventure men's basketball player Ogo Adegboye '11 is featured with rap stars Snoop Dogg and Warren G in an Adidas advertisement for the Games.

Adegboye (wearing No. 6 in blue), a two-year member of the Bonnies, was called up to the Great Brittain senior men's team last summer, where he earned a starting spot in helping GB qualify for this summer's Eurobasket Championships in Lithuania. He led the nation in minutes per game (39.0) in his final season at St. Bonaventure and averaged 11.2 points per game to help SBU to its first winning record and postseason appearance since 2001-02.

The advertisement features a 3-on-3 pickup game with members of the national team squaring off against the rap stars and reigning world-champion triple jumper Phillips Idowu.

Marketing Director for Adidas UK, Nick Craggs said: "To celebrate one year to go we wanted to give the consumers a glimpse of what to expect from adidas over the next 12 months and capture the imagination of those who are perhaps not yet engaged by the Olympics."

A-10 Commissioner McGlade Weighs In On Pay For Play

In a recent ESPN article, columnist Dana O'Neil discusses the ever-growing issue/debate/conundrum of whether paying collegiate student-athletes is a realistic possibility and the potential effects that would have on college athletics.

Commissioner McGlade spoke to O'Neil for the column and the excerpt is as follows:

On the football field a financial disadvantage may not make such a big difference. So what if someday Ohio State is able to offer a COA stipend and Ohio University doesn't? The two schools aren't recruiting the same athletes anyway.

But what about basketball, where the talent gap continues to shrink despite monstrous budgetary chasms?

"In the Atlantic 10, it's absolutely critical to be able to offer cost of attendance if the schools we're competing against do,'' said conference commissioner Bernadette McGlade. "We want to be able to continue to recruit the same student-athletes as those other schools.''

Thanks to the regular successes of Xavier, Temple and Richmond, the A-10 has positioned itself as a basketball conference to be reckoned with. The league annually bumps one of the top six conferences from among the ranks as the most competitive in college basketball. 

But it relies on basketball almost entirely for its revenue. There is no BCS football or any of the accompanying bells and whistles -- big television contracts, for example -- in the A-10. McGlade understandably doesn't want her conference being passed over by recruits who might someday base their college decisions on who does and does not offer that extra stipend.

But she also realizes that, however important such a commitment is, it will also require difficult choices.

"It's going to come down to an individual institutional decision,'' she said. "Schools already say that they're going to be nationally competitive in one sport and fund it accordingly and regionally competitive in another and fund that to a lesser degree. It will be up to the individual institutions to make those decisions and figure out how to make it work with Title IX.''

There is no magic remedy. For cash-strapped institutions, even for those that desperately want to keep up with the Joneses, where is the money supposed to come from?

 What are your thoughts on the issue?  How do you think it would affect college athletics and the A-10?  Leave your thoughts in the comments section of this post!

Click here for the ESPN Column in its entirety.