Sharp Recognized

Posted by John Antonik on Thursday, July 16, 2009
(3:06 pm)
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	Senior Associate Athletic Director Russ Sharp, pictured with his son Matthew. All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo

West Virginia Senior Associate Athletic Director Russ Sharp received the highest honor in his profession last month when the Collegiate Athletic Business Management Association presented Sharp with the George Eldridge Distinguished Service Award.

The George Eldridge Distinguished Service Award is given to members or former members of CABMA who have demonstrated outstanding service to the organization and to the field of intercollegiate athletics. Recipients must be an active or former member of the CABMA for at least 10 years.

Sharp, a 2006 inductee into the West Georgia Athletic Hall of Fame – his alma mater, is beginning his 10th year of service with West Virginia University.

On behalf of the entire WVU Athletic Department, congratulations Russ!

This Week's Notebook

I would like to thank all of our Mountaineer buddies out there for vaulting the WVU Vault near the top of sales for football books on Amazon.com.

Sales rankings are updated hourly and for a couple of hours yesterday, the Vault was actually No. 1 ahead of Tony Dungy’s books Uncommon: Finding Your Path to Significance and Quiet Strength: The Principles, Practices, and Priorities of a Winning Life.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/16378/ref=pd_zg_hrsr_b_1_3_last

Way to go Mountaineer football fans!

By the way, the Vault is also available at ShopWVU.com as well as bookstores on campus. Because the Vault is officially licensed, a portion of each sale benefits the WVU Department of Intercollegiate Athletics.

Center Eric Jobe made an interesting observation last week talking to reporters when he mentioned that he is planning on playing more than normal this year because of a lack of experience behind him.

“None of the guys behind me have really played, but we’ve got two strong guys behind me in (redshirt freshman) Joey Madsen and (true freshman) Jordan Weingart,” Jobe said. “They have both been working hard this summer and they can both shotgun snap. But it will be interesting to see how they will perform when they get in there for the first time.”

Gino Gradkowski, Jobe’s backup last spring, transferred to Delaware after the completion of spring drills.

West Virginia University was mentioned in Pat Forde’s recent story on ESPN.com about schools tightening their athletic budgets:

West Virginia has a private booster fund to help finance private planes for recruiting, but it will bus this football season to Cincinnati – with a stop for lunch with an alumni group in Zionsville, Ohio, along the way.

“We’re going to use it as an opportunity to connect with some of our fans,” said Bill Stewart.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=forde_pat&id=4324690&sportCat=ncb

ESPN blogger Brian Bennett was asked to rank the Big East’s top football stadiums from one to eight. Bennett put Milan Puskar Stadium at the top of his list.

“To me,” Bennett wrote, “this is the one place in the Big East that feels like it would be at home in the SEC or ACC. It’s a true on-campus stadium surrounded by throngs of tailgaters before the game and filled with dedicated fans during the action. It just fees like college football here.

http://myespn.go.com/blogs/bigeast/0-6-43/My-favorite-Big-East-stadiums.html

Mitch Vingle reported earlier this week in the Charleston Gazette that guard Will Thomas is planning to transfer to West Virginia State after completing summer school. Last month, center Dee Proby had decided on NAIA power Oklahoma City University.

Those two departures put West Virginia at 13 scholarships for the 2009-2010 season.


	Jennifer Garner and Leonardo DiCaprio sporting the Flying WV. Internet photos

You can find the flying WV just about everywhere these days, including Hollywood. Last week Charleston’s Jennifer Garner was photographed wearing the trendy logo and this week, it’s Leonardo DiCaprio, pictured here in London.

For that, I might just go out and rent Titanic or Catch Me If You Can and then watch them when I'm really tired.

Here is an example of how a bad economy can sink a good idea.

According to the Bergen Record, Rutgers had just a 35-percent sales rate for its 12,000-person season ticket waiting list for football's stadium expansion set to be completed before the 2009 season opener.

New athletic director Tim Pernetti said the school will aggressively market the remaining seats, offering mini-season packages and other incentives to try and make up the difference. Otherwise, a good number of those new seats being constructed at Rutgers Stadium will remain empty.

Meanwhile, sales at Louisville are also sluggish, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal. The Cardinals had sold 27,218 season tickets by its June 12 priority deadline, its lowest total since 1998.

Louisville’s streak of seven consecutive years of selling 30,000 season tickets is in serious jeopardy.

However, the picture is much brighter at West Virginia where Sports Marketing Director Matt Wells said the school had an 87-percent season ticket renewal rate. And nearly half of the approximately 2,500 season tickets that were made available to the general public earlier this week have already been sold, according to Wells.

Those interested in purchasing football season tickets can do so by calling the Mountaineer Ticket Office at 1-800-WVU GAME.

Fox Sports.com college basketball editor Josh Herwitt lists his Top 10 players returning for 2010 and West Virginia’s Da’Sean Butler made his list of other notable returners.

The word out of Milwaukee is that the Bucks have cleared room on their roster to give forward Joe Alexander more of an opportunity this season.

During yesterday’s summer league game against the Bulls, Alexander scored a team-high 18 points to lead the Bucks to an 87-72 victory. Alexander is averaging 16 points and six rebounds through four summer games so far.

Last year in 59 games as a rookie, Alexander averaged 4.7 points and 1.9 rebounds per game.

I got a chance to watch Casey Mitchell playing some pickup games recently and there is only one word to describe his shooting range: phenomenal.

Speaking of great shooters, I was talking to former WVU assistant basketball coach Gary McPherson the other day and he said that the best pure shooter he has ever watched play in person is Wil Robinson.

Incidentally, McPherson will be joining a contingent of WVU personnel attending Robinson’s induction into the Fayette County Hall of Fame at the end of this month. Robinson joins an inaugural class that includes Johnny Lujack and Chuck Muncie.

Tara Curtis from the Alumni Association passes along that spots are still available for the 67th annual WVU Alumni Association Golf Tournament being held Friday, July 31, at Lakeview Golf Resort and Spa.

The cost is $150 per golfer and proceeds from the tournament will benefit the Marmaduke H. Dent Society, which provides funds for enhancement of alumni facilities and programming.

The Alumni Association is also seeking additional hole sponsorships.

Those wishing to sponsor a hole or register a team can do so by contacting Gregg Cave, director of outreach for the Alumni Association, by emailing gregg.cave@mail.wvu.edu or by calling (304) 293-4731.


	Phil Caskey, taking the big jump. Submitted photo

In addition, the Gold and Blue On-line Auction runs through August 3rd. Alumni and friends can bid on numerous items including a life-sized autographed Bob Huggins cutout, items autographed by Brad Paisley and Jerry West and more. All proceeds from the auction benefit the Loyalty Permanent Endowment Fund of the WVU Alumni Association which provides more than 300 scholarships each year to deserving students.

I don't know about you, but I could sit for hours and listen to BBC golf analyst Peter Alliss read the phone book.

And finally, Associate Sports Information Director Phil Caskey figured it was high time to take a flying leap. Last weekend, Caskey and some of his buddies went skydiving for the first time in Ocean City, Md.

Personally, I see no reason to jump out of a perfectly good airplane unless it’s out of gas or being shot down. And no, Phil's jump instructor pictured to the right is not Johnny Knoxville.

At any rate, you can read all about Phil’s big leap in today’s Fairmont Times-West Virginian:

http://www.timeswv.com/wvu_sports/local_story_197014829.html?keyword=topstory

Have a great weekend!

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