Former JCSU / DB Tries To Make It In Carolina

View My CountDown Page Create My Own CountDown Page

Former Johnson C. Smith safety Reggie Sullivan is home for a chance at the NFL.

Sullivan, a 6-2, 218-pound cornerback signed with the Carolina Panthers on May 26. He is the second Golden Bull in school history to sign with Carolina, joining receiver Greg Clifton, who joined Carolina in 1995, the franchise’s inaugural season.

Sullivan, a Miami native who played at Hopewell High in Huntersville, transferred to JCSU from Winston-Salem State and played safety in 2007 for the Bulls. He recorded 21 tackles (14 solo), a sack and one interception in nine games. He'll compete for a job as a backup cornerback, where Richard Marshall inherits one position after the Panthers cut Ken Lucas in the offsesaon. Chris Gamble is the incumbent opposite Marshall.

“Reggie is hard working, mild-mannered, and a great team player,” said JCSU head coach Steve Aycock, who was the Bulls’ offensive line coach when Sullivan played there. "He’ll be an awesome fit for the Panthers’ organization. He’s smart, and he takes it off the chalkboard onto the playing field.”

Aycock lobbied the Panthers to give Sullivan, who played with the Tennessee Valley Vipers in the Arena 2 League last year, a tryout. Sullivan also relied on a higher authority.
“Reggie has been steadfast in prayer for this opportunity and I know he’ll make the most of it,” Aycock said.

Carolina has 29 rookies under contract on its roster, excluding seven college players drafted in April.

ARTICLE IS COMPLETE

Q&A With DeAngelo Williams

View My CountDown Page Create My Own CountDown Page

Despite sharing the workload with then rookie Jonathan Stewart, Carolina Panthers running back DeAngelo Williams broke out in 2008, rushing for 1,515 yards and scoring 20 total TDs in his third NFL season.

At the end of the Panthers' organized team activities session on Wednesday, Williams talked to SportingNews.com's Vinnie Iyer and other reporters about the new combined nickname for Stewart and himself, how he hopes to build on last year and why he likes the Orlando Magic over LeBron James:

CLICK ON STORY TITLE FOR CONTINUATION

Why The NFL Is Losing Respect & Toughness

View My CountDown Page Create My Own CountDown Page

When the NFL started in the early 1890s, players wore shirts and rubber helmets. Players played with broken bones, tackling as low as the knee was permitted, and the only thing that players cared about was scoring.

It was the toughest, meanest sport in the country, and by the time it became the NFL and players like Dick Butkus played, it became the most popular sport.

When you mention the best defenses of all-time, the 1985 Bears are the first team that comes to your mind, and it's because the referees let them play the game. The players could hit and not worry about a flag being flown.

However, times have changed, and it's getting a bit ridiculous.

FOR CONTINUATION CLICK ON STORY TITLE

It's More Than A Three Day Weekend / Restore The Traditional Day Of Observance For Memorial Day

View My CountDown Page Create My Own CountDown Page

Memorial Day used to be a solemn day of mourning, a sacred day of remembrance to honor those who paid the ultimate price for our freedoms. Businesses closed for the day. Towns held parades honoring the fallen, the parade routes often times ending at a local cemetery, where Memorial Day speeches were given and prayers offered up. People took the time that day to clean and decorate with flowers and flags the graves of those the fell in service to their country.

"Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic." -- General Logan - May 5, 1868

We need to remember with sincere respect those who paid the price for our freedoms; we need to keep in sacred remembrance those who died serving their country. We need to never let them be forgotten. However, over the years the original meaning and spirit of Memorial Day has faded from the public consciousness.

"If it is considered a holiday, why is it so? I consider it to be a national day of mourning. This is how we observe this day in our home. Because of what that day represents the rest of the days of the year are our holidays." -- F L Lloyd West Chester, Pa USA - February 26, 2000

On Memorial Day we need to stop and pay with sincere conviction our respects for those who died protecting and preserving the freedoms we enjoy, for we owe those honored dead more than we can ever repay.

People of other nations sometimes show more of the true spirit of Memorial Day more than we do here. For example, a 2001 U.S. Memorial Day Guestbook entry from a citizen of the Netherlands states:

CLICK ON STORY TITLE FOR CONTINUATION

Eliminating The Coin Flip Would Solve NFL's Overtime Issues

View My CountDown Page Create My Own CountDown Page

You're playing a game of football with your friends, when one of them gets a call saying that they have to leave soon, which will break up the game. The game is currently tied and you want to determine a winner.

Do you: a) keep playing until one team scores or b) flip a coin and then kick the ball off to the team that won the coin flip?

If you think that option b) sounds strange, you're not alone.

Many NFL fans dislike the current overtime setup where the team that wins a coin flip can elect to receive the ball, move down the field and score, thereby ending the game without allowing the other team a chance to touch the ball on offense.

The most equitable solution to this problem is also the simplest:

Skip the flip,Just keep playing...First team to score wins.

CLICK ON STORY TITLE FOR CONTINUATION

Small Town Boy Brown Now Living Large

View My CountDown Page Create My Own CountDown Page

CHARLOTTE (MCT) — The soccer games were finished that Saturday for Everette Brown and his younger brother, Tobias. Now it was time for their weekly treat: lunch at McDonald's on the way home.

But as their father, Odell, started the car for the short drive from Wilson to Stantonsburg in Eastern North Carolina, he turned to the boys. He was angry about what he thought was a poor effort given by Everette and Tobias — both still in elementary school — in their games that morning.

"If you can't go out there and push yourselves on the soccer field, you don't deserve McDonald's today," he said. "If you're going to lay back like that, you can spend your Saturdays at home cutting the grass and working in the yard."

Instead, Odell took the boys to a field next to their grandmother's house.

"Y'all ain't tired," he said. "So get out there and run!"

CLICK ON STORY TITLE FOR CONTINUATION

Adapt & Overcome / Iraq Veteran Trying To Earn A Job With Denver

View My CountDown Page Create My Own CountDown Page

There are many Broncos players who, after their freshman season of college ball, began to realize the NFL was not just possible, but probable.

Others may have been focusing on earning a promotion from backup to starter. Some may have been dealing with other issues, such as grades and girls.

Rulon Davis went off to fight in the Iraq war

Fight for his country, a far cry from the sports world, where Davis is currently competing, as an undrafted 25-year-old free-agent defensive end, for a spot on the Broncos' roster.

Adapt and overcome !

CLICK ON STORY TITLE FOR CONTINUATION

Flutie’s Words For Graduates Have Meaning Far Beyond Sports

View My CountDown Page Create My Own CountDown Page

If you are about to graduate from college, what better commencement speaker than Doug Flutie?

If you are about to go out into the world, what better person to hear from than someone who defied every odd there was?

What better person to hear from than someone who went to Boston College because it was the only Division I school that gave him a scholarship and went on to win the Heisman Trophy, arguably the best New England individual sports story we’ve had in the past half-century?

Or as Flutie told the more than 1,000 graduates of New England Institute of Technology on Sunday in the Convention Center, “I’m living proof that anything’s possible.”

Yes he is.

So there was Flutie the other morning, and he didn’t sugarcoat anything, starting off by telling the graduates in their dark blue gowns that they were about to enter a world that can seem bruised and battered, one where it often seems that we’re all waiting for someone “to throw a Hail Mary and have somebody catch it in the end zone.”

His message was both simple and forthright, all built around the premise that we all can control our lives, even in times when everything can often seem so out of control. We can control our lives by our passion, our attitude, our creativity, and our ability to both work with others and lead them, too.

And what better message than that, whether you’re a college graduate, a high school graduate, or just any of us trying to get by in a world that’s changing and swirling all around us?

So here are five Flutie-isms:

CLICK ON STORY TITLR FOE CONTINUATION

Marshall Is Hoping To Capitalize On Opportunity

View My CountDown Page Create My Own CountDown Page

CHARLOTTE -- The Richard Marshall who finally owns a starting position sounds quite a bit different than the one who originally assumed he would get one.

The day the Carolina Panthers drafted the talented cornerback from Fresno State, he said he intended to come to Charlotte and win a starting job — even though the team had just invested a first-round pick and big money on corners Chris Gamble and Ken Lucas the previous two offseasons.

“I honestly feel like I'm better than a lot of those guys who were drafted in front of me,” Marshall said after watching seven corners go before him in 2006. “Now I've got to go in with a chip on my shoulder.”

CLICK ON STORY TITLE FOR CONTINUATION

Martin Looks To Make Impact With Panthers

View My CountDown Page Create My Own CountDown Page

Sherrod Martin tried to pre­pare himself for the unexpected, but it's doubtful he was ready to become the next great experi­ment for the Carolina Panthers.

The Troy free safety was the second pick of the Panthers in last weekend's NFL draft, 16 picks after Carolina had taken a chance by trading up to get Flor­ida State defensive end Everette Brown. The Panthers took an­other chance on Martin, finding a hard-hitting safety they thought they could convert to cornerback.

"He's very explosive," Caro­lina general manager Marty Hurney said. "A tough kid, a hard hitter. Everybody at school has great things to say about him. We think he can come in and be in the mix at corner."

FOR CONTINUATION CLICK ON STORY TITLE