New Facebook Page and Staff Shuffling at McMurry

Summer brings a lot of things for college athletic departments, and one thing that is almost always constant is that people come and go. This holds true at McMurry this summer, and if you haven't caught up on what's going on, here's a release on the new men's and women's basketball coaching assistants, and here's a release on a change within the baseball and sports information departments. We will also be announcing very soon a new women's soccer coach as well as some minor shuffling within the football staff, so keep checking back for that.

In addition, we added social networking as an emphasis at the beginning of last school year, adding this blog, the Twitter page and the YouTube channel. Well, now you can add our athletics Facebook page to the list. It's another avenue for us to get information out and it will help us also with the student body as we are able to send out invitations to events and games through Facebook. Check it out, and also take advantage of the discussion board to voice your opinions and thoughts.

No vuvuzelas for McMurry soccer; alum Rich gets a job in sports information; other notes and what's going on this summer

BREAKING NEWS: Good news from the soccer arena at McMurry. New men’s coach Paul Tate has assured me that absolutely no vuvuzelas (pictured) will be passed out to McMurry soccer fans for the upcoming season. The horns, which make the 2010 World Cup in South Africa sound like a giant behive hovers over the top of each stadium, will not be making appearances at Edwards Field.

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Often people ask me “What do you do in the summer?” “Do you have to work in the summer?” Much like many coaches will say that your in-season is made in the off-season, the summer time is crucial for me to get ahead for the fall, so that when it comes, I don’t get snowed under. Last year, I took this job in July for the second time after returning from a year of full-time graduate school at ACU. I didn’t have much of a summer, and dealt with the transition of picking up where my predecessor left off.

So, this summer, I’m especially excited to have a summer where I can “work.” Now, yes, the summer time hours are more lax than that 70-80 hour weeks that August and September bring, or the 60+ hour weeks when basketball concludes and baseball begins. However, Thomas Beckham and I are about to go into full swing in preparation for fall sports. First, I am completing a recruiting guide for the track and field program who had another successful season, and then we’ll turn our focus to the 2010-11 school year. Speaking of Thomas Beckham (McMurry alum and baseball-ex), we are lucky enough to keep him around for another year. He has been promoted to assistant sports information director and he will also serve as an assistant coach on the baseball team for the 2011 season.

Also, through Facebook, I learned that McMurry alum and former football player Coby Rich (pictured) has joined the business. The business of sports information that is. I’m extremely happy for Coby for a lot of reasons. Obviously, it’s great to see former McMurry players excelling in the business, but also, without a journalism department or a communications department at McMurry, it is very impressive that Coby was able to crack in to the field. He was recently named the graduate assistant at NCAA Division II Delta State University in Mississippi. He will serve as the primary media contact for a couple of sports there and will also be involved with video and broadcasting production. Congratulations to Coby.

Tidbits

• If you missed the article on Jeremie Hart and Jonathan Walker and their experiences playing basketball in Ecuador together, check it here. Walker was the ASC West Division Newcomer of the Year in 2008-09 and Hart earned the same award in 2009-2010. They didn’t play together on the floor at Kimbrell Arena, but they have joined the Naval club team in Guayaquil, Ecuador. They are preparing for an eight-team tournament that begins June 25 and both hope to catch on professionally in South America or in the European leagues.

• Former all-American Symbri Tuttle entered her Allen High School junior varsity team into McMurry head coach Veronica Snow’s team camp this week. I spoke briefly to Tuttle who is entering into her second year as the varsity assistant for the girls’ basketball team at Allen High School. She said that she will be taking over the JV team for the first time and she said she was “extremely fired up” about it.