Posted by John Antonik on Thursday, May 27, 2010
(12:30 p.m.)
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Former WVU pitcher Shawn Miller is now 2-0 as a professional boxer.
Submitted photo
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Shawn Miller, a starting pitcher on the 2003, 2004 and 2005 Mountaineer baseball teams, has gone back to an old Miller family profession - boxing. After more than 50 amateur fights, Miller recently turned pro and currently owns a 2-0 record in the light heavyweight division with his last fight last October being a four-round knockout.
When he’s not boxing Miller teaches physical education in upstate New York near Albany. Shawn is also the proud father of his 19-month old son Brody.
You can learn more about Shawn and his brother Shannon on their web site www.ny-boxing.com.
More Notes...
Jedd Gyorko tied a 16-year WVU record with his two-home run performance Wednesday afternoon against Louisville in the opening round of the Big East tournament in Clearwater, Fla. Gyorko now shows 19 home runs for the season, matching Charleston native Mark Landers’ home run total in 1994. Gyorko moved into a tie for first place on the school’s career home run list with 35, tying third baseman Tim McCabe (2000-03).
Gyorko’s two-HR effort couldn’t have come at a better time with loads of professional scouts in Clearwater to watch the Big East tournament.
During the 1997 Big East tournament pitcher, Chris Enochs had a similar reception when a sea of radar guns surrounded home plate to clock Enochs and Seton Hall’s Jason Grilli as they battled it out in Norwich, Conn. Enochs gave up an early home run but fought back to record a complete-game victory, solidifying his status as a first-round draft pick.
Perhaps Jedd made himself some more money on Wednesday afternoon as well.
There was one mild upset Wednesday when sixth-seeded Rutgers defeated No. 3-seed Pitt, 9-5, in the opening game of the Big East tournament. The score is somewhat interesting because it was a Rutgers-Pitt baseball game played in Piscataway, N.J., earlier this spring that ultimately cost Scarlet Knights men’s basketball coach Fred Hill his job when he went into a profanity-laced tirade after Rutgers came from behind to win a heated 9-8 decision over the Panthers. Hill’s father (also Fred) is the long-time Rutgers baseball coach.
Thinking of that brought back memories of some old WVU-Rutgers diamond tussles. Many years ago when Fred Hill, Sr. was just getting started at Rutgers I can remember watching with some amusement his wife banging a rock against a pole behind the backstop to start rallies. She would hit the pole so hard that it made your fillings rattle. Plus, it usually worked. I can’t tell you how many ninth-inning rallies Rutgers had through the years against West Virginia.
I remember one very clearly. It was 1993 at the Atlantic 10 tournament and I was a green SID sitting in the dugout with the Mountainers possessing a 7-1 lead going in to the bottom of the ninth. Being young and stupid I made the colossal mistake of yelling out “Three more outs to go fellas!” as the team took the field.
Greg Gilbert, a graduate assistant coach for the late Dale Ramsburg that year, looked at me like I had three eyeballs.
No sooner had I said that when West Virginia’s shortstop three-hopped his throw to first base, Rutgers got a few bloops and then a blast and we were all walking back to the bus trying to figure out how a six-run lead could unravel within a span of about 10 minutes.
I swear it was the fastest I ever saw a team lose a six-run lead in my life.
Of course now I know why. It wasn’t my stupid three-more-outs-to-go comment that lost it for West Virginia, but rather that crazy lady banging that big rock against the backstop that won it for Rutgers.
By the way, I sure do miss the Rammer. What a first-class guy and a first-class baseball coach he was.
You can watch the 1988 Syracuse game on ESPN Classic Friday afternoon at 3 p.m. West Virginia defeated the Orange 31-9 that year to wrap up its first undefeated regular season in school history.
Football will play four mid-week games with shortened prep time this season against Marshall, South Florida, Connecticut and Pitt. Of the four, the only one that is unbalanced is Marshall. West Virginia opens the season against Coastal Carolina on Saturday, Sept. 4 and has six days of prep for the Thundering Herd in Huntington. Marshall opens the season at Ohio State on Thursday, Sept. 2 in a night game to be televised nationally on ESPN. Marshall will have two additional days of prep for the Mountaineers.
According to our department researcher Nathaniel Zinn, this year marks WVU’s most shortened-week games since 2006 when the Mountaineers played three. WVU also played three shortened-week games in 2000.
Recent WVU Sports Hall of Fame inductee Marc Bulger has created a foundation to benefit men and women in uniform called The Marc Bulger Foundation. Specifically aimed at our armed services, as well as police and fire personnel, Bulger’s foundation recently was responsible for a completely remodeled USO area at Lambert St. Louis International Airport at a cost of more than $300,000.
One piece of news has come out of the Big East meetings in Ponte Vedra, Fla.: the league coaches voted to banish the double-bye for the top four teams in the Big East men’s and women’s basketball tournaments. They propose the top four seeds playing the bottom four seeds on the opening day with the middle eight seeds playing the second day. The remaining eight teams would play the third day with the semifinals and finals taking place on the fourth and fifth days of the tournament.
The athletic directors say they will now take a closer look at the proposal submitted by the coaches.
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Yelena Leuchanka |
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Yelena Leuchanka is back in the WNBA with the Atlanta Dream, signing a free agent contract on May 19 after Chamique Holdsclaw was waived. Yelena also played for the Washington Mystics in 2007 and the Charlotte Sting in 2006.
Leuchanka is the only former Mountaineer player in the WNBA this year; Olayinka Sanni was waived by the Tulsa Shock just before opening day.
West Virginia assistant coach Billy Hahn has a little more bounce in his step these days. His son Matt was hired to fill one of two vacancies on coach Andy Tolle’s Robert Morris coaching staff. The younger Hahn spent the last five years at Vermont.
LSU’s Craig Pintens has compiled a list of the 52 college football coaches that presently have Twitter accounts, including our own Bill Stewart. Coach Stew recently passed the 9,400 mark in followers and resides just outside the top 10 among the most popular twitter coaches in the country.
No. 1 on the list is Stanford’s Jim Harbaugh with a whopping 329,752 followers, followed in second by Florida’s Urban Meyer with 20,645 followers.
Harbaugh doesn’t even come close to the No. 1 tweeter in college sports, though. Kentucky coach John Calipari owns that distinction with 1.1 million followers.
After reading some of these tweets put out by the football coaches I am convinced that many of them are treating Twitter the same way they treat their Top 25 ballots.
Continuing with Twitter, WVU’s official twitter site, WVUSportsBuzz, ranks 17th among BCS conference schools, according to a similar survey conducted by LSU.
It looks to me like the folks down in Baton Rouge have some serious time on their hands.
I wonder what my soon-to-be 75-year-old father’s reaction would be if I told him I spent part of my day tweeting. My guess is he would probably tell me to go to the doctor and get that checked out.
I once came up with the bright idea of giving a social media presentation to a bunch of 70-year-old Rotarians. Talk about hearing the crickets. I knocked those poor people out – literally! When I was done with my speech one guy came up to me afterward and said, “Hell, I thought you actually did something over there at WVU!”
I know you guys are interested in getting basketball practice facility updates so I will give you one: It seems to be coming along nicely. Then again my construction experience consists of one summer working on the hydroelectric power plant over in New Martinsville, W.Va., during my college days. I had the all-important job of counting nuts and bolts in the procurement office for the multi-billion dollar Bechtel Corporation.
Until next week!
