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by Hal Lamar CAU linebacker selected for East-West Shrine gameClark-Atlanta linebacker Curtis Johnson never met a football he didn’t chase. In four years with the Cardinal and Black Panthers, the Florida native could be found on the gridiron easily…just look for the oval and there he was. Johnson has been rewarded for his ability to sack quarterbacks and stop hard charging running backs by being selected to play in the East-West Shrine football classic January 19th in Houston, Texas. According to the east-west rosters posted at shrine.com, Johnson is one of only three players from an HBCU selected and the only player from a Division II school picked as well. Johnson will get a through smoke-over by the NFL (and likely the CFL too) as over 300 reps from the league are expected to attend the game. They aren’t attending for their health either.
Last year, 37 players from the game were selected in the NFL draft. Johnson was named the defensive player of the year for the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, is a candidate for the prestigious Jake Gaither trophy awarded annually by the 100% Wrong Club and is predicted a second or third round pick in the 2008 draft. If that holds out, he would be CAU’s second player drafted in a high round. In 1969, Morris Stroud was a third round pick of the Kansas City Chiefs……. -0- Alabama A&M head coach Anthony Jones is staying put. The former Morehouse College head coach has inked a pact to remain in Bulldog country through 2011. Jones was reportedly on a short list of candidates for the head coaching vacancy at Western Carolina. A newspaper reporter for the Asheville (NC) Times covering a WCU basketball game spied Jones with his family at the game and did some checking.
He wrote in the December 3 edition of his paper that Jones was being smoked over by WCU’s search committee. By December 6, the powers that be at A&M had come to terms with their sought after football pilot. It’s not the first time that attempts have been made to lure the talent away from Huntsville. INSIDE learned last year that Jones was also on a short list of candidates for the vacancy at Grambling State. By the bye, the man who got the job, Rod Broadway, has ended poker-hot speculation about his possible move to Florida A&M and said he will be staying in Tiger country. -0- INSIDE has to applaud the Jackson State fans who traveled with their Tiger elevens for the SWAC championship game with Grambling. The JSU side of Legion Field was packed with loyalists waving those white towels and roaring to anything the offense or defense did…Speaking of the SWAC championship, this writer was impressed with how well organized things seemed at Legion Field. -0- The politicos in Birmingham Alabama are attempting to assure visitors to this year’s Magic City Classic that things will be better when they return in 2008. The numerous complaints about the parking arrangement for this year’s contest which drew over 68,000 to Birmingham’s Legion Field generated a front page article in the Saturday, December 15 edition of the Birmingham News (not the sports front page but the FRONT PAGE front page) and started more than a few tongues to wagging about whether or not the 70-odd year old gridiron “do” between Alabama A&M and Alabama State has outgrown Birmingham. Many who attended the game and grumbled and groaned as they took badly scheduled shuttle bus service to the field and back to downtown parking garages wondered if maybe the two schools shouldn’t entertain moving the game east to, say…. Atlanta. Although there is no strong connection to the SWAC in Atlanta (like a member school), the two institutions involved have alumni living and working here. There is also the advantage of Atlanta as a transportation hub with MARTA, a major airport plus the Georgia Dome as a possible venue. -0- The 100% Wrong Club of Atlanta tells INSIDE that they’ve scheduled their annual sports jamboree for February 22-23rd . It will come a week after the Sheridan Broadcasting Networks blows into Hotlanta for their 34th Black College All American wing-ding February 16 at the Marriott Marquis Got an item or comment?
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