YSU

YSU

Hockey tonight

BOARDMAN — After taking a month off, the Youngstown State hockey team will play tonight at the Ice Zone.

The Penguins (3-18-2) meet Kent State (16-7-0) tonight at 7:15 p.m.

AREA

Stoops Dinner is
set March 2

YOUNGSTOWN — The Cardinal Mooney High School Ron Stoops Hall of Fame Dinner is scheduled for March 2 at Mr. Anthony’s in Boardman. For information about the event, call Jim Cooney at Mooney High.

Rhodes Named ECAC
Div. III All-Star

NEW WILMINGTON, Pa. — Westminster College senior football player Dusty Rhodes was named an Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) 2007 Division III Southwest All-Star.

Rhodes (Niles High), the only punter selected to the team, ranked 29th in the nation by averaging a school-record 39.6 yards per punt in 2007. Rhodes’ average also led the Presidents’ Athletic Conference, earning him first-team all-PAC honors.

Rhodes punted 48 times for 1,901 yards including 14 inside the opponents’ 20-yard line and a long punt of 60 yards.

Prep tickets

CANFIELD — The Canfield High School boys team is part of the upcoming “High School Basketball at the Chevy Centre” event on Jan. 22.

Canfield meets Struthers at 6 P.M., followed by Poland playing Campbell Memorial.

Tickets are available at the athletic office of Canfield High.

Game time change

CANFIELD — The Poland High School girl’s basketball team is scheduled to play at Canfield on Feb. 9. The junior varsity teams will begin at noon with the varsity to follow.

Manningham to
turn pro?

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Rich Rodriguez does not expect to coach wide receivers Mario Manningham and Adrian Arrington or quarterback Ryan Mallett at Michigan.

Manningham and Arrington will skip their senior seasons and Mallett will transfer, according to Rodriguez.

“Those are the indications I’ve gotten,” Rodriguez told The Associated Press on Tuesday night. “I’ve talked to all three at various times recently. I talked to Adrian today, and he told me he’s leaning toward going pro.

“We wish all of them the best.”

When told what Rodriguez said, Jim Mallett insisted his son has not made a decision.

“Coach knows more than I do, I guess,” Jim Mallett told the AP.

Rodriguez later told reporters Manningham and Mallett did not attend a team meeting Monday.

Manningham (Warren Harding) might be a first-round pick after catching 72 passes for 1,174 yards and 12 touchdowns and running 19 times for 119 yards and a score last season. The 6-foot, 178-pound native of Ohio had 65 receptions for 1,136 yards and 15 touchdowns during his first two seasons for the Wolverines.

NATION

Rodriguez family
faces harassment

GRANT TOWN, W.Va. — Relatives of Rich Rodriguez have been harassed and threatened in the three weeks since his resignation as West Virginia football coach.

His mother, Arleen Rodriguez, told the Charleston Daily Mail her teenage grandson received a death threat and found other harassing notes taped to his locker at East Fairmont High School. Arleen said her 12-year-old granddaughter had to be escorted to classes.

Mountaineer fans furious over Rodriguez’s Dec. 16 decision to accept the coaching job at Michigan also vandalized his home near Morgantown, hanging signs on a fence and tossing a mailbox in the yard.

“He put seven years into WVU and now everybody thinks he’s garbage,” his mother said. “Think like a parent. That’s all I can say. Think about it. Think about what you’re doing.”

The backlash has been even more venomous on the Facebook social networking site, where dozens of groups with profanity-laced names have formed, devoted to wishing ill for Rodriguez and his family.

A similar but short-lived fury boiled up last month against Mountaineer kicker Pat McAfee, who received angry text messages and had his car vandalized after missing two field goals in West Virginia’s 13-9 loss to Pitt. The loss knocked WVU out of national championship contention.

NFL gains viewers

NEW YORK — NFL games continue to resist the general decline in viewers among the major television networks.

Games on CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN and the NFL Network averaged 15 million viewers in 2007, up 3 percent from the previous year.

On CBS, Fox and NBC, the average was 16.6 million. Prime-time programs on the four major over-the-air networks drew an average of 8.7 million for the year.

The gap between NFL games and prime-time fare on the major networks has been growing. In 2002, NFL games averaged 15.8 million viewers, compared with 10.3 million for the prime-time shows.

Vindicator staff/wire reports