Cha, Cha, Cha, Changes

The women’s soccer team will be reporting in one week for pre-season training.  As we are getting ready for the team to arrive on campus, I am thinking about all of the change that has happened that will impact our 2012 team.

The first change is the most obvious.  A new freshman class will be added to our roster.  Ten new faces will be eager to prove that they are ready to play college soccer and will want to help our team succeed.  The particular biographies of each player can be found in the release from signing day, but the important thing is that all of these players have been successful in their high school and club teams.  We always want to include players who expect success on the soccer field and are willing to sacrifice in order to achieve it. 

We have a new assistant coach with our program.  Meredith Flaherty had been a volunteer assistant for about one and a half years and is now our assistant coach.  She helped Florida win a NCAA National Championship in 1998 and was part of the U.S. Women’s National Team pool.  She has been going full force on recruiting and helping me get prepared for my fifth year at Sam Houston State. 

Prichett Field is undergoing a facelift with the laying down of a field turf surface.   Unfortunately, delays have pushed back the completion date to around September 1.  This means that we will have to move the site of our three August home games.  As soon as that site is confirmed, we will let everyone know.  Moving from grass to a field turf surface will bring some changes to how we play, but most all of our players are used to this type of field from high school.

I was excited to see that www.allwhitekit.com (a website dedicated to promoting women’s soccer) ranked our 2012 recruiting class as #1 in the Southland Conference.  

I am very excited about the possibilities that this season holds.  There have been lots of changes, positive changes, and we will start anew on August 1^st.

-- Tom Brown
Head soccer coach

Football video project

We are in the process of creating a video to commemorate the the 2011 Sam Houston football season and want you to be part of it.

If you have photos or videos that capture the excitement of this past season, send them to us. They can be of anything during the season, tailgate photos, group pictures at games or videos of the games themselves.

We are looking for different reactions to the biggest moments of the year. Do you can cell phone video of the Flanders Flip? How about the 4th-and-one play against Montana? There were a lot of fans who stormed the field after the semifinal win over the Grizzlies. We want to see that video.

If you have something you would like to share to be included in this video that will help all Bearkat fans relive the 2011 run all the way to Frisco.

Submissions can be e-mailed to shsufanvids@gmail.com If your video or picture is chosen, you will receive a complimentary copy of the video.

We are having a lot of fun going back and seeing the season again from our cameras, now we want to see it from your point of view.

Thanks,

Jason Barfield
Bearkat Sports Network

Root for fifth-year seniors

This is the biggest game, so far, in Sam Houston football history. With a likely win today, this year's group of Bearkats are the first to ever grab the undisputed Southland Conference title.

Sam Houston shared it in '91, '01 and '04. There won't be any sharing in '11. While Northwestern State is sure to be a respectable opponent, the Bearkats just have too many weapons.

Timothy Flanders usually runs for 100 yards on the ground and scores a couple of touchdowns at will. It shows in his 856 yards rushing and 17 touchdowns this season. Flanders also just so happens to lead the team in receiving yards with a touchdown through the air as well.

Of course we know about the multi-threat Richard Sincere, Torrance Williams' speed and the pleasant surprise of guys like running back Keyshawn Hill and wide receiver Keith Blanton.

We fully expect to see all of them give Northwestern's defense a fit today.

Don't forget the fact that Sam Houston's defense is in fact an offense, because they've picked off 18 passes for 235 yards and recovered 12 of their opponents' fumbles for 31 yards.

Just play archived videos of the offensive players telling us how easy the defense is making their job, with takeaways and the field position they've been given. They'll tell you about it.

But I've said all this to really say one thing: Root for the fifth-year seniors.

See, it's not always easy to recognize Travis Watson and Chris Crockett on the offensive line, even though you might recognize Eddie Decambre, Kash David and Randy Stewart making plays on the other side of the ball.

But these, you should know, are the fifth year seniors. They were here when Todd Whitten was the coach, toiling in obscurity in '08 and '09.

These players experienced losing more Southland Conference games than winning during that period.

Today's outright Southland Conference championship is sweetest for the players who have been here the most, if they win it, which they should.

"Really, '09 was a season I'd really like to forget," Crockett said in an interview last month. "You know, that was the year we lost Whitten, we didn't do well in Conference. It was just a bad year."

This is a good year, and today is a good day. We'll see a lot of young guys scoring touchdowns. The Bearkat quarterback Brian Bell doesn't look a day over 18.

Still, that's what we'll probably pay attention to because let's face it, it's easier. But somewhere within you, root for the fifth-year seniors. Seek out numbers 73, 57, 90, 47 and 5.

Today is five years in the making and the author knows because he too stepped on the SHSU campus for the first time as a student in 2007.

Eat 'em up Old Kats.

- Brandon K. Scott

Time to move on

Most Bearkat fans know about the history of the Battle of the Piney Woods (it has been pretty well documented over the last two years on GoBearkats.com) and the Bearkat football rivalry with Texas State. Both are historical, standing as the two longest running FCS rivalries in the state of Texas. Not many fans however understand that 25 years ago, the Lamar rivalry with the Bearkats was just as fierce – albeit mostly one sided toward the end.

The Bearkats and Cardinals have met 32 times since 1935 with the Kats holding a 22-9-1 record against the rivals from Beaumont. The series came to a screeching halt following the 1989 season when the Cardinals dropped football.  

During the Kats championship runs in the 80’s, the Bearkats won five straight from 1984-88. It is the last game in that run that anyone ever wants to talk about. Known as the “Game of the Black Roses” or the “Black Rose Bowl” or countless other names, the signature event of this rivalry stems from a very ugly moment in Sam Houston State football.

Following a 16-14 win at Bowers Stadium (then known as Bearkat Stadium) a Sam Houston fan presented Lamar head coach Ray Alborn a bouquet of black roses. That act led to an ugly brawl and is the lasting memory of Lamar football for many Bearkat fans.  

It has been 23 years since that incident and for the first time, the Cardinals will make a return to Bowers Stadium. Naturally the talk of the Black Roses is kicking up again.

Before we start romanticizing about the past, let’s take a look at what the Black Roses actually signified. When Bearkat Stadium opened in 1986, the Kats were dominant at home. They had won the first 13 games at the new stadium and had an overall win streak of 15 in Huntsville.

The Black Roses essentially marked the “death” of the dominance. The Kats lost a week later at home to arch rival SFA and then the following week to North Texas. In the final home game of the year, Southwest Texas took advantage of the Kats new found inferiority at home and clipped the Kats 10-3.

From the moment those black roses hit the turf, the Kats went nearly a year before posting a “W” at home. The ship was not righted however. The Kats went on to lose three of five at home in 1989, giving them a 2-6 record on their home turf following the Black Roses. Not to mention the five-game win streak over Lamar was snapped in 1989 as well, with a 41-0 thumping in Beaumont.

The win over Lamar in 1988 elevated the Bearkats record to 20-8 overall following the opening of the stadium. They won a conference championship in 1986 and posted an 8-3 record in 1987. The Kats started the 1988 season with a 3-2 record, dropping only road games to Boise State and Southwestern Louisiana (now Louisiana-Lafayette).

In the aftermath of the Black Rose Brawl, the Kats went on a tailspin. They lost the final six games of 1988 and the first three in 1989, finishing the year just 3-8. 1990 wasn’t much better, mustering only a 4-7 mark. While the first 28 games following the opening of the new stadium were nothing but successful, the 28 following the Black Roses were an exercise in futility. The Kats went just 7-21 over the same stretch to the end of the 1990 season.

While many Bearkat historians like to jubilantly talk about the 1988 game against Lamar as a badge of honor for the program, it actually was anything but. It truly marked a dark period for Bearkat football and one Sam Houston didn’t recover from easily.

I don’t think the Cubs have missed a return to the World Series because they refused to let a goat in the stadium in 1945. I don’t believe the Rex Sox suffered the massive World Series drought because of Babe Ruth. I don’t believe the Bearkats went on a two-and-a-half year slide because one fan took it upon himself to storm the field and present a visiting coach with a bouquet of spray-painted flowers.

But with the Kats sitting at 7-0 and No. 6 in the country, I’m not willing to take any chances. Leave the roses at home on Saturday and move on. The last thing this team needs right now is another ugly incident to mare what has been a thrilling resurgence for Bearkat football.

-- Jason Barfield

Hooten: New look 2011-12

It has been a long time since I have posted for you all to read. First and foremost, I would like to apologize for not keeping you all more up to date with the happenings of our program.  

If you haven’t been able to figure it out yet, I am not much on social networking. I don’t Tweet, and I check my Facebook about once a month if that. So from time to time I just forget to put something together for Jason Barfield, so please don’t be mad at him it’s not his fault.

A lot has taken place since the last time I posted.  Our first season was probably an overall success. I will always be my toughest critic, but I felt like coming in and taking over a team full of returners that were used to doing things a certain way ended up being pretty darn good.

We won 9 out of our last 12 and that’s always a sign of a pretty good team! We lost 3 very good student-athletes and they will be hard to replace in more than one way. BUT, I will try and make this the last time I speak about what we’ve lost and try to concentrate on what we have coming in. It’s not fair to our young guys and returners to compare them all year long to Clavell, Crow and Pevehouse. Just like it wasn’t fair to those guys getting compared to Ashton and Corey all year long.

I have heard a lot of you had questions about why so many of the guys besides those 3 are not returning this season. I am a person that tells it how it is, and will not sugar-coat or hop around a question. If you have not seen our roster yet, we return 6 players from last year’s team: Two walk-ons (Cameron Sadler, Wes Fritz), Konner Tucker who was sitting out last season and Antuan Bootle, Aaron Thompson and Marcus James. That is approximately 11.5 ppg and 12.3 rpg. Again, we are more focused on what we have back than what we have lost.

This will also be the last time I discuss another topic. Off last year’s team, we have 5 young men that are not returning. Two of them were staff-coaches decision, while the other three decided they may fit better somewhere else.  Here at Sam Houston State, our basketball program has and always will stand for student-athletes who take care of their business in the classroom as well as on/off the court (period).

The last issue I’m discussing for the last time is Tra’Vaughn White. Tra’Vaughn has decided to attend Independence Junior College in Kansas. It is not an academic issue, it is just simply the coach there continually recruited him all summer long even though Tra’Vaughn had signed an NLI with us. Tra’Vaughn feels he can go to a bigger school after JC, so we wish him the best of luck.

Everything happens for a reason, that’s why we are extremely excited about the new guys that are here on campus and looking forward to a great year on the court and in the classroom. Obviously we started class two weeks ago, and we started working out on August 29^th.  Our roster has changed so much that it would take another couple of pages to talk about each one of our guys.  I will save that for another day.

Not sure how good we will be due to the youthfulness and inexperience, but I have a pretty good feeling that this group will bring it every day and work extremely hard! Usually that in itself can be a sign of success! Also, I believe last year I predicted that my Rangers would make it to the World Series? 

GO BEARKATS!!!


-- Jason Hooten
Head basketball coach

Former Kat lands assistant gig

JACKSONVILLE — Who better to fill the spot as assistant women’s basketball coach at Jacksonville College than someone who knows what it is like to play junior college basketball while at the time aspiring to one day attain a hoops scholarship at a four-year institution and then reaching that goal as a player?

That someone is Leasa Ailshie.

Ailshie was recently hired to fill the spot as Lady Jaguar assistant, a slot that became available earlier this summer when former assistant coach Amber Taylor was promoted to head women’s basketball coach at Eastern Oklahoma State College (NJCAA, Region II).

Ailshie brings an experienced-packed resume with her, dating all the way back to her prep playing days as a Lady Zebra at Claremore (Okla.) High School.

While at Claremore, Ailshie led her team to three Class 5A state championships and was a two-time (2004, 2005) All-State Tournament choice.

From Claremore,  she then spent two years at Conners State (Okla.) College (NJCAA, Region II) where she averaged nearly 9 points a game and led her squad in three point baskets (38).

Ailshie finished up her college playing days as a member of the Sam Houston State University (NCAA, Division I) Bearkats women’s basketball team.


Read the entire story:


http://jacksonvilleprogress.com/sports/x177910514/Ailshie-named-women-s-basketball-assistant-at-JC

Head baseball coach candidate: Randy Mazey

Randy Mazey has been an assistant coach at TCU for five years and last season, Mazey was promoted to Associate Head Coach. He was previously the head coach at former Conference USA-foe East Carolina for three seasons and, prior to that time, spent six seasons as the recruiting coordinator at Tennessee, East Carolina and Georgia.


Since Mazey's arrival in 2007, the Frogs have continuously progressed. In each of his previous four seasons, the Frogs have tallied 40 or more wins, been to four NCAA Regionals, including hosting two, two NCAA Super Regionals and one College World Series. The Frogs are 186-65 during his tenure and have claimed seven conference championships (four regular season and three conference tournament titles). Ten pitchers have been drafted in the last four years, three of which have already made their Major League debuts (Andrew Cashner, Chicago Cubs; Jake Arrieta, Baltimore Orioles; Sam Demel, Arizona Diamondbacks).


Under Mazey's tutelage in 2010, the Horned Frog pitching staff had one of the best season's in school history. In addition to setting new school records in innings pitched (607 2/3) and strikeouts (553), the staff produced two All-Americans in Steven Maxwell and Matt Purke.