FAU's Basketball coach, Mike Jarvis, has been seeking a contract extension from Craig Angelos for the entire 2011-2012 season. And now that the season is over, and Angelos is gone, the Sun Belt Coach of the year (2010-2011 season) has been granted an contract extension by Melissa Dawson, Interim Athletic Director.
"We are excited to announce the extension of Coach Jarvis' contract. He has
transformed our team and created a tremendous amount of excitement about
our men's basketball program," said Dawson (www.fausports.com).
Jarvis is excited to know he will maintain at FAU for atleast another three years and stated, "With the administration's continued commitment to the men's basketball
program, my staff and I will continue to build the most comprehensive
and successful program that we can." Jarvis has aquired one of the best acclaimed recuiting classes this year, which will be much need now that many of the former Owls are looking to transfer or go professional. With this hype, there will be much excitement for the future of the Owls Basketball team!
On the other side of campus, FAU Football Coach Carl Pelini led his Owls to their first ever Spring Game under the lights of the 'FAU Stadium.' The running game looked very impressive on both sides (blue and white) with Jonathan Wallace rushing for 104 yards and scoring three touchdowns, Tony Moore rushing for 99 yeards (17 carries) and Damien Fortner adding 60 yards in nine carries. The Owls still have some work to do, and the work will only increase when the freshman come in in the Fall and challenge the veterans.
This will be an interesting and exciting year for Pelini and the entire Owl community!
Setting aside sports for a day, the President of the United States, Barack Obama, visited FAU in the Burrow and spoke about the economy and the importance of investing in our future. While inspiring the FAU students to strive to be more educated and inspired citizens, the speech quickly turned into a campaign movement. Nonetheless, a visit by the POTUS definitely puts FAU on the map and draws national recgonition. The Owls baseball team was forced to move their originally set home game to Fort Meyers due to the visit by Obama, which led to a defeat by the FGCU Eagles (6-5).
As a follow up to the previous post regarding Owl basketball players, Ray Taylor and Kore White leaving the team, recent news has leaked the transferring of freshman guard, Omari Grier. Omari was a hot topic within the FAU community early in the season, putting up a great game against cross town rival Miami Hurricanes, and draining a three pointer in the final seconds to force the game into overtime. Omari's season then took a drop once conference play began, where he spent most of his time on the bench watching his teammates play. The reason for the benching is somewhat unknown, and Omari is now looking into four schools to transfer to help him get to the next level.
Will this affect the Owls next season? It's hard to answer considering the signing of three new players, who will be a huge presence for the Owls in 2013. Javier Lacunza is one of the players that will help the Owls, with his 6'8'' frame, Lacunza is a 17 year old from Spain who is seeking some fierce college play and a fan support that hopefully won't be let down. (Lacunza highlight video is shown to the right). Along with Javier, is 6'7'' Devonte Thornton, and 6'4'' Jackson Trapp. These are just three of the five players that Jarvis has got to sign for next season,Trivante Bloodman and Stephan Moody signed int the Fall. Where the Owls are headed is hard to tell before practice even begins, be we have huge anticipation for Midnight Madness in the fall (the annual event that kicks off the season for the Owls basketball team).
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The term "Football in Paradise" could not be more appropriate for the Spring game that is set to be played by the Owls Football team on April 14 at 6pm. Pelini has been hard at work for the past 5 months in preparing his players to represent FAU in the way everyone is hoping for. While Spring games are a large hit at other college campuses, the Owls are hoping to attract many students, fans, and the people in the community to come out and get a sneak peek of what's to come for the Fall! Pelini has brought in many new players who are challenging the veterans for their spots, so this game will hopefully put the pressure on the Owls to prove themselves to the coaches, the University, and all FAU fans in attendance. While the QB situation has been one that has been of great uncertainty for the players and fans, it seems that Wilbert will be the starter for the Spring game. Which seems ironic considering he was the only palyer who had little to no experience in the spread offense. It will defenitely be something to pay attention to, and for us Owl fans to look forward to!
While Spring football is of great importance, Spring is also the time for baseball, and our Owl team has leaped burrows in proving that they are competable not only in the Sun Belt, but also on a National level, holding a record of 20-10, ranking 30th in this week's Collegiate Baseball NCAA Division 1 poll. The Owls pulled off a ninth inning victory on Wednesday, April 3 against hometown rival Lynn University. As the Owls continue to make strides to jump into the top 25 rankings, the crowd presences has been positive for the Owls and we can expect it to continue to grow as the FAU baseball team gives their fans something to cheer about!
With a new Football Coach, A new football stadium, and a new
Athletic Director, FAU football is in a time of change and the FAU football
brand is quite different than when football was first introduced to FAU. But
how can our FAU football 2012 program
tell the students, the parents, alumni, the community, and even the Nation they
are no longer a 1-11 team that plays 30 minutes away from its home campus?
This is a question that we hope will be
addressed in the search for the new Athletic Director, but without a doubt, the
marketing and advertising plan of our FAU Sports needs to be re-strategized and
work more aggressively to give people even a thought about the FAU team when
they drive through South Florida.
FAU Football 2012
has a chance to recreate what it means to be an Owl fan, while still giving all
respect and honor to our legend Howard Schnellenberger.While Schnellenberger laid the
foundation for FAU football, Pelini will have the opportunity to build a
franchise that can compete nationally, with our great location that attracts
recruits from all over the country, our exquisite new stadium, our unique and
‘new’ sense of school pride that grows year after year.Creating a perception that FAU Football 2012 is ahead of other schools
in all aspects of the game such as talent, motivation, pride, style, ‘swag’,
speed, and size will draw the attention that we have been seeking and craving
for years now.
In order to create this image of FAU Football 2012, many strategies can be taken into consideration.
However, starting with the basics is high on the priority list considering the
‘FAU Owl Athletics’ facebook page has less than 800 likes when the student
population is over 28,000 students at Florida Atlantic University.With that said, FAU Athletics should
first start off with a full time Sports Marketing Director, who will then
create a staff comprised of 8-10 interns that are currently enrolled at FAU and
are looking to get involved in a sports marketing career. This team would be
responsible for updating and marketing the social media outlets such as
Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and any others that can reach out to potential
fans.Also, creating and posting
signage around campus and the community about upcoming events is a great and
easy way to get the word out about games, but more importantly creates a
presence of the team within the community and informs the average person that a
team exist in the area.Again,
these are simple strategies, but are easy and have yet to be fully accomplished
therefore, they will be a quick jump start for our marketing campaign.Although I am definitely not the only
one with ideas for our Athletic Department, the more ideas the better, so by
allowing more students to be a part of the team offers great experience and
helps the overall brand awareness of FAU
Football 2012!Until a new AD
is hired, we will have to settle to dreaming and hopefully sooner than later we
can begin a marketing plan, create a notable perception of FAU Sports.
“Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars.
You have to let go at some point in order to move forward.” -C.S. Lewis
Change is in the air for the Owls of Florida Atlantic University. Over the past week, FAU Athletics has taken a turn and a profound leap in what we hope will be the right direction! Athletic Director, Craig Angelos, will not be returning to FAU next year, with FAU hoping to bring in a new face to the Athletics Dept. and a passionate voice for the Owls. While Craig has helped move FAU up to Division 1A and witnessed many great victories in his time as AD, the potential for FAU is outstanding and it is apparent that the Administration is seeking something different for the coming years. In searching for a new AD, we can only hope that a few factors are looked at that some might say have been missing in the passed few years, that is passion for FAU sports and national/local marketing of the FAU teams.
While FAU has surpassed some of its struggles over the years with regards to the student fan base, students are finally beginning to embrace their University and are proud to call them self an Owl. This is something that took much time and hard work to get the students to Rally behind the team. With Coach Howard Schnellenberger ending his coaching career last year, he is now an Ambassador for the University and is looking to take his Owl passion to the Student Body by creating an army of students to promote school pride and spread the passion throughout the entire student population. This will be further discussed in upcoming posts, but it will definitely be something to look forward to considering everything Coach has led has risen to be something great and contagious to his followers.
FAU's struggle to market to the surrounding community is another aspect that should be considered in seeking a new AD. Gathering support from local fans is crucial in meeting ticket sale objectives and creating a buzz within the cities that FAU inhabits. This has always been a struggle for FAU; however, with FAU becoming very close to the dream of having banners on Glades Road, we'll have to see just how far the city will let us claim it as the Hometown of FAU!
Jarvis and his Owls had a decent season this year, ending in a dissapointing 1st round loss in the Sun Belt Tournament. But, to look back any further and complain about our season is something not too many Owl fans want to do, especially Mike Jarvis.
Coach Jarvis and his team of assistant coaches have been working hard for the past year recruiting players for next season. Many of you might recall the 7' Baylor transfer, Dragan Sekelja, who looks to bring the Owls a 'large' prescence in the paint, but has surprised many in practice by his long range ability knocking down 4 out of 4 three's at practice the other day. The Owls are losing two seniors that will be extremely missed by the fans, Alex Tucker and Shavar Richardson. However, I don't think the Owl fans will be too sad once they see the new team take the court next year.
Jarvis has a few surprises for the Owl community bringing in probably 5 new players, plus Dragan (as mentioned above). Starting some buzz on the web, a 5'9'' guard from Orlando is Stefan Moody. Moody has amazed many coaches from around the country, and after some confusion in thinking he was committed to the University of Florida on a football scholarship, Moody is very interested in the Owls and Jarvis looks to rap him up very soon.
With the students at FAU beginning to follow the Owl team over the past few years, the hype and excitement grows as a new organization called "the 6th Man Club" will look to get the student attendance 'up up and away' in the Burrow. SG Coordinator Mike Burdman has volunteered to be the faculty advisor and has very large hopes of the organization, and continuing the traditions of FAU Basketball success. With the Student Section in the Burrow still yet to be named, "the 6th Man Club" is definitley an attractive possibility. Looks like we have something to look forward to for the 2012-2013 season!
While the major sports at FAU are continuing to strive for excellence in their conference and in the nation, the FAU Men's Golf team has been rep'n the FAU letters quite well!
FAU started off the season with a 16 stroke! win over Army on Feb. 19 at the Polo Club of Boca Raton. Leading the pack for the team was junior, Clint Wilhelm, who scored a 73 for the round, ending with a 1-over-par for the Equestrian Course at the Polo Club.
This momentum continued through the
week, when the team played their second tournament of the season at the Gary Freeman BCU Spring Invitational at the LPGA's International Championship Course. After two rounds of play, the Owls managed a team score of 3-over-par (579) to lead Bethune Cookman by 1 stroke. Again, junior, Clint Wilhelm, led not only the Owls, but managed to put him self into first place for the entire tournament with a score of 212 (4-under-par) on the par 72 course. The team's co-captain, Justin Thompson, had an outstanding tournament as well, tying him for sixthplace with a 218 for the tournament. The Owl fell short of first place as a team, finishing third place overall in the tournament. However, the FAU Golf team is showing the fans and community that they are here to stay and will be nudging for the top spot in the next round of play starting on March 4 for the three-day South Florida Invitational in Dade City, at the Lake Jovita Country Club!
The time has come for the FAU Baseball team to hit the field, and boy did they 'hit it'! FAU started off the season against SEC's University of Alabama with Coach McCormick in search of his 100th win. The team didn't wait long to get Coach this win as they dominated the Crimson Tide in a three game sweep in Tuscaloosa, FAU's first sweep since 1999 when they played the Wildcats of Kentucky. FAU was the first team in 11 years to sweep Alabama, and the first in 113 years to sweep the Tide at home. Also, the Owls forced Alabama to start the season 0-3, which hasn't happened since 1952. If that's not enough significancy for you, the Owls also brought home some national recognition from this sweep!
Florida Atlantic players won two Sun Belt honors given out on Tuesday for this past weekend's performance. Alex Hudak, outfielder, was awarded with the Sun Belt Player of the Week as he went 6 for 12 with 7 RBI's against the Tide. Hudak concluded the series with two home runs and 5 RBI's, which helped the Owl's leap to victory for the final game of the series. Pitcher, Ryan Garton, was awarded the Sun Belt Pitcher of the week while winning the first game (5-2) of the 2012 season for the Owls. Garton kept the Tide to just three hits and one earned run, while striking out 7 and only walking one. Garton earned the number one starting spot in the rotation and it looks like he will stay there for awhile.
The Owls baseball look to impress the FAU fans as they come home on Friday as they play Manhatten in their stadium that was just recently fixed up and looks much better, thanks to some new exterior banners. With this great start, we hope to see another winning season by Coach McCormick and his boys this year!
Is it time to say 'good bye' to the beloved Sun Belt Conference for the Owls?
We can only hope so! With a new 'Mega' conference beginning in the 2013-2014 academic year, teams from Conference USA and Mountain West have been plucked to be in an 18-24 team conference. Teams ranging all the way from Hawaii to East Carolina, this conference is undoubtedly the largest conference geographically speaking. But would this be a smart move for the FAU Owls?
The conference (yet to be named) would be split into a West and East conference to help the travel aspect and could potentially create great conference rivalries within. As of now, the West division consist of UTEP, Tulsa, Rice, Wyoming, UNLV, New Mexico, Nevada, Hawaii, Fresno State, Air Force, Colorado State; and the East contains Tulane, UAB, Marshall, Southern Miss and East Carolina. Adding FAU and FIU would contribute great competition to the smaller eastern division, as well as adding two teams from Florida which the conference is currently missing.
FAU is desperately seeking some excitement in their competition, since playing teams like the Louisiana sisters, North Texas, Ark. St., and the others aren't the most entertaining events for fans to watch. Therefore, playing teams like Southern Miss and ECU could attract more fans and fill the brand new Stadium that is still seeking a truly sold out crowd. Not to mention, the potential TV opportunities for FAU could bring in a significant amount of dollar signs for the Athletic Department which is currently underfunded and desperately in need of a larger budget. But with that said, being in this new conference would challenge the Owl's differently than the Sun Belt and a 1-11 season would not be welcomed by any Owl fan in South Florida. But just like we said with our new stadium, our new football coach, and now a new conference, only time will tell!
Coming off a tough loss to cross town rival FIU, the Florida Atlantic team faces two crucial games this week that will either make or break the Owls for the Sun Belt Tournament. The Owls (9-14, 5-5 Sun Belt) are struggling to stay consistent in their gameplay as well as bringing in fan support to the Burrow. As usual, the student section was pumping loud and proud for the game against Florida International, but getting the students to the games this week against Denver and North Texas might be a little more difficult.
Home court advantage is definitely something that has grown immensely in the past three years at the burrow, and the students are finally starting to act like they are proud to be an Owl. Although the Burrow can barely fit over 2,000 fans, the need to expand is sometimes desired and sometimes neglected. For games against rivals such as FIU and WKU, the students always find a way to get there. Whether it's because of the free shirts or simply because they want to watch a good competitive basketball game is hard to tell. Regardless, the fan support of FAU is picking up and the team cannot be happier with the help of the 6th man.
If the FAU students can get out to the games this week, then the Owls would definitely have a good chance in receiving a bye in the first round of the Sun Belt Tourny. This would indeed help the team get to the long desired NCAA tournament, but they need to first prove that they can win at home and be a contender in the tough games to come. Only time will tell, how quickly it will take FAU to be a national contender for the 'Oh so beautiful' NCAA Championship title.
FAU Football fans have been burrowed away this Spring ever since the ending of a
1-11 season last fall. With a new coach in the office and a glimpse of sunlight on the horizon, the future of FAU Football is looking quite bright!
With many questions for Coach Pelini and his staff regarding the plans for this program, I believe a simple list will help answer and resolve many of the conversations Owl fan's and media reporters might have. With the help of many, such as Assistant Coach and FAU Football Alum Jared Allen, Coach Pelini has brought in 28 commitments via NLI (National Letter of Intent) to the FAU program. Six of them were mid-season recruits that were brought on in January.
(Above: Adrian Burton, DB from Pompano Beach-Ely signs his NLI with FAU at his high school ceremony - Photo Credit: OWL ACCESS)
The list is considered one of the best recruiting seasons yet for the Owls (Chris Nee, a Florida writer from Rivals.com) and Carl looks to capitalize and turn these recruits into Sun Belt Champions. Watch Coach Pelini's Press Conference regarding Signing Day here
One of the most exciting commitments is a quarterback from Pearl River Community College (Poplarville, Mississippi). The 6'3'' 195 lbs. Melvin German lll is a triple threat quarterback who looks to bring strong competition to the QB position, and not to mention some overall 'swag' that has lacked in the past. German lll completed 65% of his passes for over 2,700 yds and 17 touchdowns with only 6 interceptions last season. His size and speed will put the defense on their toes and change the game of Sun Belt play. But only time will tell, and for now we can only depend and trust in Pelini's staff that with the right training and practice, German lll will lead this Owl's team back to the top and hopefully out of the Conference.
For those that are interested in sports, this blog is for you. For those that are interested in FAU, this blog is for you. For those that are interested in FAU sports... welcome to the world of the FAU Sports Informer!
As FAU embarks on it's second season of having a true 'home field advantage'... a new coach (Carl Pelini) that is faced with the pressure of following a legendary Coach Schnellenberger... a defending regular season Basketball Sun Belt Championship... and of course a nationally ranked top 25 baseball team... the anticipation continues to rise as this young athletic program attempts to jump conferences and recieve national recognition.
The FAU Sports Informer is a weekly publication to inform FAU fans and friends of the top news that will bring this collegiate enterprise to it's desired destiny. Stay tuned for more...
Jarvis is excited to know he will maintain at FAU for atleast another three years and stated, "With the administration's continued commitment to the men's basketball
program, my staff and I will continue to build the most comprehensive
and successful program that we can." Jarvis has aquired one of the best acclaimed recuiting classes this year, which will be much need now that many of the former Owls are looking to transfer or go professional. With this hype, there will be much excitement for the future of the Owls Basketball team!
