Yearly Archives: 2006

Recruiting Recap: Catching up

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It’s been a while since we looked at recruiting news. Here are some stories that include brains, baseball and Bowl games.

EAST

Daniel Guillen knows he’ll have a lot of new experiences to enjoy in his first semester at MIT. A graduate of St. Joseph Academy in Brownsville Texas, Guillen told the hometown Herald that making the move to Cambridge, Mass. should be exciting. “At first, it seems a little scary to be going so far away, but it’s also pretty nice to be going to a place with a completely different culture and way of life. I’ll be able to experience what it’s like to live in a place where it snows.”

Guillen played offense, defense and special teams at St. Joe’s. MIT Coach Dwight Smith plans to throw Guillen in the mix right away. He told the Herald, “We are hopeful that Daniel can fill our need as both kicker and punter and also compete for playing time at outside linebacker.”

Speaking of kids who are “wicked smaht,” RPI has announced its recruiting class. Incoming freshmen include DB Tim Acker who was the Wesco League Player of the Year and Arlington (Wa.) High’s valedictorian.

NORTH

Earlham Athletic Director Frank Carr will see a familiar face on campus next semester. His son Jake is staying home to attend the Richmond, Indiana college where he will play football and baseball. This Palladium Item article takes a look at Jake and his older brother Kevin who also played baseball for the Quakers.

Elsewhere on the diamond Aurora landed Cody DeGrush of Morris (Ill.) HS who plans to play baseball and football for the Spartans. DeGrush told the Morris Daily Herald, “I will be able to play both at Aurora and that is definitely nice. Both coaches have told me they want me to play both sports and agree to help me be able to do it.” Aurora has made the Division III College World Series two of the past three seasons.\

Aurora fans can get more information on the Spartans’ recruits from this full list which is hot out of the email inbox.

Anderson appears to have a pipeline with a Citrus flavor. According to the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, three players from Citrus High (Inverness, Fla) are flying north to Central Indiana this fall. Linemen Bob Severin and Chadd Malone are “likely” to join wide receiver Dane Moore in the Ravens’ recruiting class. Moore has good pedigree with a father, Dana, who played for the AFL’s Orlando Predators.

The (Monmouth, Ill.) Daily Review Atlas announced that local product Zach McLaughlin will attend Augustana after graduating from Monmouth-Roseville HS. McLaughlin accounted for 13 touchdowns as a quarterback and 56 tackles as a safety last season.

SOUTH

LaGrange continues to prep for its inaugural football season with three players from Colquitt County (Ga.) coming aboard. Ashondi Magwood and Jacolby King played wide receiver in high school while B.J. Johnson played tight end and defensive end. Speaking of the Panthers, check out their helmets — pretty spiffy.

Hunter Hobson of Fort Mill (S.C.) will join Sewanee’s program where he hopes to play in the secondary according to the Fort Mill Times. The All-Region selection is following in the footsteps of his parents and older brother who attended the University of the South.

Case Western Reserve has released its list of recruits. Incoming Spartans represent 9 different states including Colorado, Florida and Texas.

WEST

Linfield fans in the Portland, Oregon region will have a chance to check out future Wildcats at the Les Schwab Bowl on June 23. The All-Star game features a handful of recruits headed to Linfield including Westview HS (Portland, Ore.) lineman Paul Nishizaki who was third-team all-state at defensive tackle and honorable mention all-state at offensive tackle.

NOTE: Special thanks to Wildcat 11 on the heads-up here.

Since we’re equal opportunity, be sure to check out the list of recruits announced by Minnesota-Morris. These players will help the Cougars open their new stadium on September 2 against Lawrence.

Finally, while there are no Division III football teams in Florida, the Sunshine State is well represented in this year’s recruiting class. The Lakeland (Fla.) Ledger reports Polk County players will dot the map next year with Lakeland High’s Renard Ellis and Billy Johnson at Mississippi College, teammate Preston Chatmon at Olivet, Fort Meade products Jon Pickens and Brandon Rhoden at Thiel and Bartow’s Jack Edmund at SUNY-Maritime.

You can check out the full list of recruits which we are updating as we receive information that can be verified in a published story on by an athletic department. If you have recruiting news, please email Gordon.mann@d3football.com or post the published story below.

Lacrosse’s Mount Union loses

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D3sports.com’s Gordon Mann and I had the pleasure of covering one of the best Division III contests I’ve ever seen, the Division III men’s lacrosse championship game between Cortland State and Mount Union.

Whoops, I mean Salisbury. The Sea Gulls came in with a 69-game winning streak and were working on their fourth consecutive national title. They didn’t quite get there, as Mike Felice scored with 2.2 seconds left in overtime to give Cortland State a 13-12 win.

Turnstile count for the day’s games (the contest was a doubleheader with Division II at Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field) was 23,990, the largest in the history of the event.

We’ll have a photo gallery of the game up later, probably sometime Monday afternoon. Also, Gordon was here writing about a pair of Cortland State football players who played key roles on the lacrosse team. We’ll have that story as well.

Birmingham-Southern, welcome to D-III

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Birmingham-Southern fans, coaches, student-athletes:

Welcome to Division III.

We don’t harbor any delusions that you want to be here. From the outside, Division III doesn’t compare very favorably to Division I. But let’s be honest: Birimgham-Southern wasn’t a Division I power, and the trip from Division I mid-major to Division III isn’t as far as you might think.

Your school is giving scholarship money to more than 200 people solely based on athletic ability. When that stops, your institution will be able to redirect that money to award need-based or academic-based aid. That will raise the level of the student body and, in fact, will increase the value of your degree.

You may not think much of your likely new fellow conference members, but let’s be honest — it’s not like the Big South is populated by well-known names. High Point? UNC Asheville? Radford? Winthrop? Rhodes, Trinity University, Austin College, Colorado College and others have stellar reputations, and they are not based on being on the 13, 14 or 15 line every March … or by being the brainchild of a televangelist.

Coaches and administrators: I expect you have no desire to be in Division III. If you are at all conflicted about the Division III mission, I would suggest leaving. You can’t be half-hearted about Division III. It’s a challenge. But if you’ve ever faced a halfway-decent Division III program you know one thing: This is not glorified high school ball.

A further discussion of the issues is posted in our Q&A with Birmingham-Southern president David Pollick.