The Battle Plan
2/20/2015 12:00:00 AM | General
Scholarship Honors Joy McCann Culverhouse's Legacy
Earlier this week, we announced that Hugh Culverhouse Jr. has given $250,000 to endow a women's golf scholarship at Alabama in honor of his mother, Joy McCann Culverhouse, who starred at Alabama in the early 1940s. The first recipient of the Joy McCann Culverhouse Scholarship is Lakareber Abe of Angleton, Texas, an accounting major who leads the Crimson Tide in scoring average as a true freshman. In addition to being an excellent student, Lakareber has already distinguished herself on the course as one of the top young players in collegiate golf.
Hugh approached me recently offering to help our athletics program in any way he could. In an effort to enhance development opportunities for the women's golf program at Alabama, and to expand the Crimson Tide's donor base, Hugh will double his donation to the program (an additional $250,000) if others respond to this gesture by donating gifts of their own totaling $500,000. It is exciting to me to see our endowed scholarship pool grow. I look forward to the day when we can have entire sports teams with fully endowed scholarships. Perhaps our women's golf team will be the first.
Joy McCann Culverhouse was a true trailblazer. She was the youngest golfer to win the Alabama Women's State Championship, winning the title in 1941, and she went on to capture the Alabama State Championship again in 1947 and won the Florida Amateur title in 1961. Joy actually spent her freshman year at LSU, where she was one of the first women granted a partial scholarship for athletics and played on the Tigers' men's team. Joy transferred back home to The University of Alabama after that season and continued her golfing career. Women's collegiate golf has come far since Joy first put women's golf at Alabama in the national spotlight in 1941, and it is easy to trace the steps of the great progress of the sport at the Capstone back to Joy's efforts. Alabama fielded its first women's team in the 1974-75 season and won our first women's golf NCAA championship in 2012 under the leadership of our great head coach, Mic Potter.
48 Student-Athletes (27 Football Players) Earn Place on SEC Academic Honor Roll
I was very pleased and proud to hear the recent news that Alabama placed 48 student-athletes on the 2014 Fall SEC Academic Honor Roll, including five who have already earned Capital One Academic All-America honors this season (for a complete list of honorees, click here). Twenty-seven players from our 2014 SEC champion football team were on the list, including All-America and Capital One Academic All-America offensive lineman Arie Kouandjio, All-SEC offensive lineman Austin Shepherd, tight end Brian Vogler, safety Nick Perry, center Ryan Kelly and fullback Jalston Fowler.
The soccer team placed 14 on the Honor Roll, including nine starters, led by Capital One Academic All-Americas and All-SEC players Merel van Dongen and Laura Lee Smith, who was also named the 2014 SEC Soccer Scholar-Athlete of the Year. The Tide volleyball team put seven on the Honor Roll, including starters Krystal Rivers and Sierra Wilson, both of whom were Capital One Academic All-Americans while Krystal also earned All-America and All-SEC honors.
To earn a place on the Honor Roll, a student-athlete must earn a 3.0 or better grade-point average for either the preceding academic year, or their career, and be a sophomore or better in academic standing. The Fall SEC Academic Honor Roll is based on the 2014 spring, summer and fall terms. Any student-athlete who participates in an SEC championship sport is eligible for nomination. This is a tremendous honor for our student-athletes and is a byproduct of their hard work and dedication, along with the outstanding efforts of our Academics staff.
Now You Can Get the SEC Network Anywhere If You Are a DIRECTV Customer
We learned Thursday that DIRECTV has officially announced the launch of WatchESPN for DIRECTV customers. That means that fans with DIRECTV service will now have access to SEC Network television content on computers, smartphones and tablets anytime, anywhere. In addition, fans will have access to the hundreds of digitally exclusive SEC Network + productions.
Nationally Ranked Teams This Week
At this writing, eight of our teams are nationally ranked among the top 25 in their respective sports, including three ranked in the top 10, and six are currently ranked in the top 20 nationally. Here's a glance at this week's rankings:
Men's Golf - 11th (Golfweek, Feb. 15)
Women's Golf - 23rd (Golfweek, Feb. 15)
Gymnastics - 5th (GymInfo, Feb. 16)
Softball - 3rd (USA Today/NCFA Coaches, Feb. 17)
Women's Tennis - 8th (ITA, Feb. 17)
Men's Indoor Track & Field - 11th (USTFCCCA, Feb. 16)
Women's Indoor Track & Field - 22nd (USTFCCCA, Feb. 16)
Baseball - 20th (D1Baseball.com, Feb. 16)
Sports Updates
The Crimson Tide BASEBALL team kicked off the 2015 season with a three-game sweep of the University of Maryland-Eastern Shore. The Tide shutout the visitors in all three games, marking the first time in our baseball team's history that an Alabama team has opened a season with three consecutive shutout victories. The Tide finished the weekend batting .360 as a team. Casey Hughston finished the weekend batting .846 with team highs in hits (11), doubles (3) and runs scored (6). He added a triple and two stolen bases in the three-game set. Both Casey and Kyle Overstreet recorded five RBIs in Sunday's 19-0 win. The Tide travels to Texas this weekend for a big three-game series with the highly-ranked Houston Cougars. I attended Sunday's game against Maryland eastern Shore and was very pleased with the Hoover Met. Alan Pate and his team have gone out of their way to accommodate our team, the field is in excellent shape for this time of year, and it's an easy drive to and from Tuscaloosa. We look forward to getting our Birmingham area baseball fans engaged on a regular basis this season.
What a terrific win by our MEN'S BASKETBALL team at Auburn on Wednesday! It was a great rebound victory after a tough home loss to Vanderbilt last Saturday. This weekend, the Tide begins a stretch of three of its next four games at Coleman Coliseum when we host the Georgia Bulldogs on Saturday night at 7 p.m. CT on ESPN2. Alabama will remain in Tuscaloosa for its next game, as it hosts South Carolina on Tuesday night at 6 p.m. CT on The SEC Network. With the 79-68 victory at Auburn in front of a sellout crowd last Tuesday night, we swept the season series from the Tigers for the first time since the 2011-12 season. The win also marked our second consecutive SEC road victory. Rodney Cooper became the latest 1,000-point career scorer at Auburn, joining Levi Randolph, who achieved the feat earlier this season. Our tough junior guard, Retin Obasohan, scored a season-high 16 points at Auburn and, over our last six games (two of which he was sidelined due to a right hand infection) is averaging 12.3 points, 3.8 rebounds and 2.0 steals per game, while shooting 48 percent from the field and 50 percent from beyond the arc. Sophomore forward Shannon Hale also has stepped up in the absence of Ricky Tarrant, who has missed the last six games with a lower leg injury. Shannon has scored in double figures in each of the six games. I think we may have played our finest basketball of the season in the second half at Auburn. I look for this team to finish strong. They have worked extremely hard since last season's end. With home games against Georgia, South Carolina, and Ole Miss coming up, I hope our students and fans come out and provide the home court advantage these players deserve.
Our WOMEN'S BASKETBALL team stands 13-15 overall, 2-11 in the SEC, after a pair of road losses at No. 15 Texas A&M and No. 6 Tennessee. Sophomore Ashley Williams was a standout for us in both games, scoring 15 points, all in the second half, with seven rebounds against the Aggies on Monday, and following up with a game-high 18 points and seven boards in the loss at Tennessee on Thursday night. Ashley has scored double figures in 18 games this season and 39 times already in her young career. The Tide has two more games at home starting this Sunday, Feb. 22, vs. Mississippi State and next Thursday, Feb. 26, vs. Florida. The game against the Bulldogs this Sunday is our annual "Power of Pink/Play 4Kay" game supporting breast cancer awareness. At the Florida game we will announce the winner of the Tuscaloosa Toyota Crimson Camry giveaway. Four finalists were drawn at random last night and were announced this afternoon. They are Ginnye Capps, Roy Ezell, Jenna Cook Madison and Mandy Thomas. Good luck to all four finalists! We have a good young team that is taking its lumps this year, but I am confident in the direction Kristy Curry and her staff have our program headed. Help is on the way in our 2015 recruiting class and I think our future is bright.
The GYMNASTICS team beat Boise State last Friday night in Coleman Coliseum to go to 5-1-0- overall (3-1-0 in the SEC). The Boise State meet also was our 11th annual Power of Pink meet, raising awareness in the fight against breast cancer, and more than 85 gymnastics alumni returned to campus to celebrate the career of Sarah and David Patterson. David also was honored with the 2015 Distinguished Alumni Award, presented annually by the gymnastics team's booster organization, The Medalist Club. It was a very special evening and a fitting tribute to two people who have created a coaching legacy that is almost unmatched in the collegiate ranks. Tonight, the Tide travels to Georgia to take on the 11th-ranked Bulldogs in Athens. Our team moved up to No. 5 in the national rankings after posting a season-best score of 197.800 last Friday. Oklahoma remains in the No. 1 spot this week followed by No. 2 Florida, No. 3 LSU, and No. 4 Utah. Alabama took over the No. 5 spot this week followed by Michigan, which fell to No. 6. Nebraska, Auburn, UCLA and Oregon State round out the top 10. I continue to be amazed at the beauty and grace of gymnastics as a sport. We have a terrific team and Dana, Brian, and Bill are doing a fine job taking up where Sarah and David left off. If you haven't seen an Alabama gymnastics meet, do yourself a favor and come out to see the talent and energy our ladies bring every week.
Our men's and women's SWIMMING & DIVING program has made tremendous strides under the leadership of head coach Dennis Pursley. This week the Tide is at Auburn for the SEC Championships and the team is rewriting the school record books in impressive fashion at the time of this writing. Through three days of competition in the meet that runs through Saturday, our swimmers had set school records in 10 different events with two days of competition remaining. The highlight of the meet may have occurred on Wednesday when the Tide took the first relay victory by an Alabama foursome at an SEC meet since 1994 by winning the 200 freestyle relay and breaking a 12-year SEC win streak by Auburn in the event, handing the Tigers their first loss at the meet since 2002. Sophomore Kristian Gkolomeev led off the relay, combining with sophomore Alex Gray, freshman Luke Kaliszak and junior Brett Walsh. Kristian got things started with a very fast 50 and Brett brought home the victory on the tense final leg. Earlier that evening, Kristian had a dominant victory in the men's 50 freestyle, setting a school record. This season, the team has broken numerous school records, indicative of the type of team that Coach Pursley and his staff are building.
Coach Patrick Murphy's SOFTBALL team is off to an 11-1 start after a successful weekend at the Stanford Nike Invitational in Palo Alto, Calif. The Crimson Tide split its two contests against Stanford, defeating the Cardinal, 15-6, on Friday before falling, 4-1, on Saturday. As a team, Alabama hit .346 over the week's six games and had a team earned-run average (ERA) of only 2.03. For the season, the Tide is hitting .357 and has a team ERA of 1.51. Freshman pitcher Alexis Osorio capped the weekend with a no-hitter against Pacific on Sunday, the 24th no-hitter in program history and already the second this season for the Tide following sophomore Sydney Littlejohn's perfect game on Feb. 6 vs. Eastern Kentucky. Alexis' no-hitter is the fourth in program history by a freshman. Junior Haylie McCleney is this week's SEC Player of the Week after leading the Tide offense with a .571 batting average, 12 hits and 11 RBI last week. The Tide remains in the top five in both national polls, ranking third in the USA Today/NFCA poll and fifth in the ESPN.com/USA Softball poll. Alabama continues action this weekend by hosting its first home contests of the season with the Easton Bama Bash at Rhoads Stadium this Friday through Sunday. Three teams that joined Alabama in the 2014 NCAA Tournament will be competing as fifth-ranked Michigan, James Madison and Lipscomb come to Tuscaloosa. The Tide has five games slated over the weekend, two on Friday (4 p.m. vs. Michigan; 6 p.m. vs. James Madison), two on Saturday (1:30 p.m. vs. Michigan, 4 p.m. vs. James Madison) and one on Sunday (1:30 p.m. vs. Lipscomb). All of our games are broadcast on the radio and the internet via 95.3 FM, except for the Saturday game vs James Madison which will be aired on 790 AM in Tuscaloosa. All the games will be streamed online via SEC Network + on ESPN.com.
Another of our programs on the rise is our TRACK & FIELD program under the direction of fourth-year head coach Dan Waters. For the first time this season, both the men's and women's teams are ranked in the top 25 of the national team rankings as the Tide men rose four positions to No. 11 while the women are ranked 22nd. Three Alabama athletes and one men's relay team have produced performances than rank among the top 20 in the world this year - senior Alex Amankwah has the third-fastest men's 800-meters time in the world (1:46.86) while senior Remona Burchell (7.14, tied for 8th in the women's 60) and junior Steven Gayle (1:18.29, 18th in the men's 600) also rank among the world's top 20. Last Saturday, the men's 4x400-meter relay unit of Steven Gayle, Cameron Hudson, Marlon Humphrey and Alex Amankwah broke a nine-year-old school record by more than a full second (3:06.05), a time that is currently fourth on the world list. Last weekend at the Tyson Invitational in Fayetteville, Ark., the team produced eight personal bests (six women, two men) in seven events, including one school record and nine performances that rank among the Alabama all-time top 10 in eight events. Alabama will send a men's distance medley relay team to compete at a meet at Notre Dame this Saturday while the remainder of the team will take the weekend off as the Tide prepares for the SEC Indoor Championships slated for Friday-Saturday, Feb. 27-28, in Lexington, Ky.
Upcoming Action
Here's a summary of athletic events over the next several days (times listed are for the location of the event: CT is Central Time):
Saturday, Feb. 21
| Time | Sport | Opponent/Event | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1:30 p.m. CT | Softball | Michigan | Rhoads Stadium |
| 4 p.m. CT | Softball | James Madison | Rhoads Stadium |
| 6:30 p.m. CT | Baseball | at Houston | Houston, Texas |
| 7 p.m. CT | Men's Basketball | Georgia | Coleman Coliseum |
| All Day | Men's Tennis | Blue Gray Classic | Montgomery |
| All Day | Women's Tennis | Blue Gray Classic | Montgomery |
| All Day | Swimming & Diving | at SEC Championships | Auburn |
| All Day | Track & Field | Alex Wilson Invitational | South Bend, Ind. |
Sunday, Feb. 22
| Time | Sport | Opponent/Event | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12 p.m. CT | Baseball | at Houston | Houston, Texas |
| 1:30 p.m. CT | Softball | Lipscomb | Rhoads Stadium |
| 2 p.m. CT | Women's Basketball | Mississippi State | Foster Auditorium |
| All Day | Men's Golf | at Puerto Rico Classic | Rio Grande, P.R. |
| All Day | Men's Tennis | Blue Gray Classic | Montgomery |
| All Day | Women's Tennis | Blue Gray Classic | Montgomery |
Monday, Feb. 23
| Time | Sport | Opponent/Event | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| All Day | Men's Golf | at Puerto Rico Classic | Rio Grande, P.R. |
Tuesday, Feb. 24
| Time | Sport | Opponent/Event | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 p.m. CT | Baseball | Savannah State (DH) | Hoover |
| 6 p.m. CT | Men's Basketball | South Carolina | Coleman Coliseum |
| All Day | Men's Golf | at Puerto Rico Classic | Rio Grande, P.R. |
Wednesday, Feb. 25
| Time | Sport | Opponent/Event | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 p.m. CT | Softball | at Jacksonville State | Jacksonville |
Thursday, Feb. 26
| Time | Sport | Opponent/Event | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 p.m. CT | Women's Basketball | Florida | Foster Auditorium |
Friday, Feb. 27
| Time | Sport | Opponent/Event | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 p.m. ET | Women's Tennis | at Florida | Gainesville, Fla. |
| 5 p.m. CT | Men's Tennis | Mississippi State | UA Tennis Center |
| 6:30 p.m. CT | Softball | Louisiana | Rhoads Stadium |
| 6:30 p.m. CT | Baseball | Louisiana | Hoover |
| 7:30 p.m. CT | Gymnastics | LSU | Coleman Coliseum |
| All Day | Men's Golf | at John Hayt Collegiate | Jacksonville, Fla. |
| All Day | Track & Field | at SEC Championships | Lexington, Ky. |
(DH) - Doubleheader
Catch Alabama Athletics on the SEC Network
Here's a summary of our athletic events to be televised over the next week on The SEC Network and its platforms. Read this schedule closely as some events can be seen via SEC Network +, which is available online via ESPN3 here. If you can't make it to our games in person, catch us on radio or TV.
(All times listed are Central Time)
Saturday, Feb. 21
| Time | Event | Network |
|---|---|---|
| 12 a.m. | REPLAY: Gymnastics at Georgia | SEC Network |
| 1:30 p.m. | Softball vs. Michigan | SEC Network + |
| 4 p.m. | Softball vs. James Madison | SEC Network + |
Sunday, Feb. 22
| Time | Event | Network |
|---|---|---|
| 11 a.m. | REPLAY: Gymnastics at Georgia | SEC Network |
| 1:30 p.m. | Softball vs. Lipscomb | SEC Network + |
| 2 p.m. | Women's Basketball vs. Mississippi State | SEC Network + |
| 9 p.m. | REPLAY: 2011 Men's Basketball vs. Auburn | SEC Network |
Monday, Feb. 23
| Time | Event | Network |
|---|---|---|
| 2 a.m. | REPLAY: Gymnastics at Georgia | SEC Network |
| 9 a.m. | REPLAY: 2011 Men's Basketball vs. Auburn | SEC Network |
| 11 a.m. | REPLAY: Gymnastics at Georgia | SEC Network |
| 8 p.m. | REPLAY: Gymnastics at Georgia | SEC Network |
Tuesday, Feb. 24
| Time | Event | Network |
|---|---|---|
| 7 a.m. | REPLAY: Gymnastics at Georgia | SEC Network |
| 2 p.m. | Baseball vs. Savannah State | SEC Network + |
| 5 p.m. | Baseball vs. Savannah State | SEC Network + |
| 6 p.m. | Men's Basketball vs. South Carolina | SEC Network |
Thursday, Feb. 26
| Time | Event | Network |
|---|---|---|
| 6 p.m. | Women's Basketball vs. Florida | SEC Network |
Friday, Feb. 27
| Time | Event | Network |
|---|---|---|
| 6:30 p.m. | Softball vs. Louisiana | SEC Network + |
| 6:30 p.m. | Baseball vs. Louisiana | SEC Network + |
| 8 p.m. | Gymnastics vs. LSU | SEC Network |
Our teams need your support, so please plan to attend to do your part! A rising tide lifts all boats and it's up to all of us to Keep the Tide Rising!
Roll Tide!
