Doris Robinson, the wife of legendary Grambling football coach Eddie G. Robinson, passed away last Wednesday morning at the age of 96.
Eddie Robinson, who was Grambling’s head coach for 56 years, retired as the winningest coach of all time in NCAA Division I and was the namesake of the FWAA’s Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year Award.
Click here to read the entire story in the Monroe (La.) News Star.
FWAA member Joe Christensen of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune writes about two-time FWAA All-America Bobby Bell (1961 and 1962). Bell won the Outland Trophy in 1962.
Click here to read the entire story at startribune.com.
After beating cancer, Arthur Ray’s odds-defying journey back to football will finally take him to the NFL.
The former Michigan State offensive lineman agreed to terms with the Miami Dolphins and will join the team’s rookie mini-camp that begins Friday in South Florida, his agent Paul Sheehy said Tuesday.
Ray, a Chicago native who is 6-foot-3 and 300 pounds, is expected to be either a guard or center at the pro level. He started 14 games over the past two seasons at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colo., after being granted two extra seasons of eligibility by the NCAA in January 2013. He last played for MSU in 2011.
In Miami this week, Ray will rejoin former Spartan teammate Tony Lippett, a cornerback/wide receiver taken by the Dolphins in Saturday’s fifth round. Former MSU tight end Dion Sims and punter Brandon Fields also are on the Dolphins’ active roster.
The camp will be a foot-in-the-door tryout for Ray, who went undrafted in the NFL draft over the weekend.
“I’m on the phone with my main man Dion Sims all the time. … Dion Sims is truly one of my best friends from Michigan State,” Ray said last week before the NFL draft. “We always talk about me and the process. We were just joking the other day about me possibly coming down to the Dolphins. I was just laughing with him, telling him, ‘Yeah, I wouldn’t mind backing up (starting center Mike) Pouncy’ and going down there and playing with Dion.”
It’s been a long and sometimes rocky path to the NFL for Ray, who turns 26 next month.
Ranked as one of the nation’s top offensive guards as part of Mark Dantonio’s first full MSU recruiting class in 2007, he was diagnosed with cancer in his right tibia in April of his senior year at Mount Carmel High in Chicago.
Ray underwent nine surgeries on his lower right leg and chemotherapy, battling bone infections and countless hours of rehabilitation on his leg while spending more than two years on crutches. He deferred his enrollment and didn’t begin classes at MSU until 2008. Dantonio and his staff honored their scholarship commitment.
In the spring of 2011, Ray was finally cleared to practice. During the Spartans’ opening game that August against Youngstown State, a tearful Ray received the starting assignment at left guard. He went on to play against Florida Atlantic and Indiana and received his only varsity letter at MSU, receiving the team’s “Biggie” Munn Most Inspirational Player Award at the team banquet.
Conquering cancer also earned Ray the Discover Orange Bowl/Football Writers Association of America’s Courage Award and was the Most Courageous Performance by the Big Ten in 2011.
Dantonio left Ray off MSU’s 2012 roster. Ray received a medical disqualification and finished his degree in communications that December before transferring to Division II Fort Lewis College, where he was a two-time captain and tore his meniscus in his right knee during the 2013 season. He returned to the field last fall and was a second-team All-Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference selection at left tackle.
DALLAS — The Football Writers Association of America has selected its sixth “Super 11” group of sports information departments deemed the best in the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision for the 2014 season.
The winners: Auburn (SEC), Bowling Green (Mid-American Conference), Colorado (Pac-12), East Carolina (American Athletic Conference), Iowa State (Big 12), Nebraska (Big Ten), Pittsburgh (ACC), Rice (Conference USA) Rutgers (Big Ten), UNLV (Mountain West) and USC (Pac-12).
USC is a five-time winner of the award and Auburn, Bowling Green, Colorado, East Carolina, Nebraska, Pittsburgh and Rutgers are multiple winners. The committee honored Rutgers because of the exceptional work of former football Sports Information Director Jason Baum, who consistently provided exemplary service when he worked with the school’s athletic department.
New winners of the award are Iowa State, Rice and UNLV. Over the six-year period, the FWAA has honored 45 different schools.
Brandon Scherff of Iowa with his 2014 Outland Trophy.
Brandon Scherff, the 2014 Outland Trophy winner from Iowa, was taken by the Washington Redskins with the No. 5 overall pick in the NFL Draft on Thursday.
These pictures were taken at the Outland Trophy presentation banquet on Jan. 15 at the Doubletree Hotel in downtown Omaha. Brandon Scherff became the fourth Iowa player to win the award and the second under Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz. Ross Browner, the 1976 winner at Notre Dame, received his trophy, and former Nebraska offensive line coach Milt Tenopir was honored with the inaugural Tom Osborne Legacy Award for contributions to line play.
There photos by Melissa Macatee were shot at the FWAA’s annual meeting and breakfast on Tuesday Jan. 13, 2015, in Dallas.
Robert Abrahamson, a senior at Chadwick Prep School in Palos Verdes, Calif., was named the 18th winner of the Volney Meece Scholarship on Tuesday.
The scholarship is awarded annually by the Football Writers Association of America and is named for the late Volney Meece. Meece served 22 years as the FWAA’s executive director and was the organization’s president in 1971.
The scholarship is a $1,000 annual grant for four years. It is awarded to a deserving son or daughter of an FWAA member.
The 18-year-old Abrahamson is the son of long-time FWAA member Alan Abrahamson.
Robert has compiled an impressive list of academic achievements and extracurricular activities. A National Merit finalist who scored a perfect 2400 SAT score on his first attempt, Robert has maintained a 4.44 weighted GPA while taking a strenuous load of advanced placement classes throughout his high school career.
At FWAA Past Presidents Dinner on Friday night at the Dallas Country Club, the National Football Foundation’s Steve Hatchell (left) was surprised with the word he was the 2015 FWAA Bert McGrane winner. FWAA Executive Director Steve Richardsonl (center) and Ivan Maisel, an FWAA Past President, look on. (Melissa Macatee photo)
DALLAS — The Football Writers Association of America announced Tuesday that National Football Foundation President and CEO Steve Hatchell has been named the 2015 recipient of the FWAA Bert McGrane Award.
“Steve Hatchell has been a great friend of the FWAA for a number of years,” said FWAA Executive Director Steve Richardson. “The National Football Foundation has sponsored a Past Presidents Dinner for the Association for several years and now is a co-sponsor of the Grantland Rice Super 16 Poll, which had a successful first-year run. The two organizations have partnered to stage a Football Forum in the past. That’s not to mention the association the FWAA has with several awards in the College Football Hall Fame, for a long time in South Bend and now in Atlanta, and the NFF Annual Awards Dinner at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City.”
The official announcement was made during the annual FWAA Annual Awards Breakfast at the Renaissance Dallas Hotel in front of the FWAA members and the national media that had assembled to cover the College Football Playoff National Championship Game, which had taken place the previous day.
“We have a small but powerful team at the National Football Foundation that has been together for more than eight years and cares deeply about the sport, including Matthew Sign, Ron Dilatush, Hillary Jeffries, Philip Marwill, Will Rudd and Sue Tuggle,” said Hatchell. “The success of the Foundation has only been possible because of the support and vision of a great board of directors, and they have has allowed us to keep the staff together and make it happen.
“I am deeply touched by this honor. I have watched the presentation of this award since the early 1970s working at the Big 8 Conference, and never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I would be recognized alongside some of the greatest writers and advocates in college football. My appreciation of this honor is beyond words. All I can say is thank you, and I feel blessed to be able to count many of the football writers among my dear friends.”
DALLAS –Veteran Columbus Dispatch reporter Tim May has been named the winner of the 2014 FWAA Beat Writer of the Year Award for his superb coverage of the Ohio State Buckeyes, who played in the first College Football Playoff Title Game here.
The FWAA’s Beat Reporter of the Year Award is based on a comprehensive look at the way a person covers the beat and encompasses all categories of coverage over a period of time. May was recognized at the FWAA’s Annual Awards Breakfast at the media hotel in Dallas on Tuesday, the morning after the Buckeyes faced Oregon in the title game at AT&T Stadium in nearby Arlington.
May has been a sports writer at the Columbus Dispatch since 1976, covering all manner of events from a few Super Bowls to a few national Putt-Putt tournaments. He has been on the Ohio State beat since 1984.
“I’m honored and humbled to receive this award,” May said. “Most of us local guys just bang away, day to day, but covering Ohio State football for 31 seasons has been quite the rollercoaster ride, from the Rose Bowl to the toilet bowl and back up again. As I’ve always said, I’d have the greatest job in the world if I didn’t have to write.”
The Fifth Down 