Sports Information Blog #36
Deciding on the lead item for this blog was easy.
A HUGE shout-out to former Rock women’s lacrosse student-athlete and sports information video guru Brianne Dishong, who literally and loudly rang the ceremonial bell last Monday to signal the end of chemo treatments after being diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma last November.
We're happy for and proud of her. She met the challenge head-on, “fought like a girl” (to borrow her theme throughout treatments) and reminded us all how the little day-to-day “problems” are just blips on the radar screen of life.
Bri let us all ride alongside her on the road to recovery through her web site,
www.thatgirlwithcancer.com. We invite you, if you haven't already done so, to go back and read her updates. They came from the heart.
Best wishes for the summer, Bri. We miss seeing your smiling face and look forward to having her back on campus in the fall as the women’s lacrosse graduate assistant.
• Shout-out, too, to Rock Assistant Sports Information Director
Jon Holtz for running in the Pittsburgh Marathon in early May to honor Bri and, in the process, raising over $1,750
for the Mario Lemieux Foundation for cancer and neonatal research.
Other news and notes on my radar screen:
• Congrats and best wishes to 2010-12 Rock sports information graduate assistant
Tyler McIntosh on being hired as the sports information director at Concord University in West Virginia. He coordinated our women's field hockey, women's volleyball and softball coverage and was a secondary contact for women's basketball as well as men's and women's cross country and track and field programs and has truly earned the opportunity to "run his own shop."
• Welcome aboard to
Steve Esposito, a student worker on our staff last year who is our newGA. We look forward to working with him. He has some big shoes to fill in succeeding Tyler, but we know he'll do a great job.
• Kudos to former student assistant
Matt McCollester (SRU Class of 2003), the new SID at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. Matt has been an assistant director of athletics media relations at Ball State for the last six years after serving two seasons as an assistant SID at Arkansas State and one year as an intern at Harvard.
(Can you tell I am very proud of the students with whom I have had the privilege of working?)
• Congratulations to Rock assistant football coaches
Phil Longo and
Jason Makrinos for volunteering their time to work the Lauren’s First and Goal ninth annual football camp earlier this month at Lafayette College in Easton. The one-day camp for high school student-athletes raised more than $85,000 brain tumor research and cancer services, offering financial and emotional support to families living with pediatric cancer, and increasing awareness of the disease. Created in 2004 by John and Marianne Loose in honor of their 15-year-old daughter Lauren, a pediatric brain tumor survivor, LFG has donated more than $1 million toward the fight against pediatric brain tumors and cancer.
• Congrats to 1991 SRU graduate and former Rock football All-American
Jeff Lang on his induction June 3 into the Berks County (Pa.) Football Coaches Hall of Fame. A 20-year assistant coach at Governor Mifflin High School, Lang helped the Mustangs to six Inter-County League and Berks Football League Section 1 titles in the last eight seasons. The 1990 recipient of the Ken Grauer Memorial Award given to The Rock’s Offensive MVP, Lang has coached five BFL Offensive Lineman of the Year award winners and nine All-BFL performers in the last six seasons.
• Shout-out to former Rock men's basketball graduate assistant
Michael Gibbons, who will serve in the same capacity at the University of Southern Mississippi. He joins former Rock assistant coach
Jareem Dowling and former Rock student-athlete
R.J. Rush on head coach Donnie Tyndall's staff. Jareem is Tyndall's second assistant, while R.J. is a GA.
• A salute to the late
Arlene Stooke, a 1958 Slippery Rock graduate recently selected for induction into the Marshall University Athletic Hall of Fame. Stooke resurrected the Marshall women’s track and field team in 1976 and coached the Thundering Herd until 1985. Prior to joining the Marshall staff, Stooke coached track and basketball at Meyersdale and Brookville high schools in Pennsylvania. While at Brookville, she was involved in a pilot study that later became the President’s Council on Physical Fitness, and was a member of the first national non-smoking conference concerning youth.
• Best wishes to former Rock student-athlete and coach
Doug Zimmerman, who recently stepped down as Director of Student Living at Gannon University in Erie. A 1972 Rock graduate and 1998 inductee into the SRU Athletic Hall of Fame, Zimmerman earned NAIA All-America honors as a Rock men’s basketball student-athlete. He also excelled on the baseball diamond and was drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates. His pro baseball career was cut short by a knee injury in his second season with the Pirates. As SRU’s Head Men’s Basketball Coach from 1975-79, Zimmerman guided the Green and White to their first-ever NCAA tournament appearance in 1978.
That’s all for now. Until next time …
GO ROCK!!
Bob McComas
Sports Information Director
