Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Rozum set to return as Campbell coach
CAMPBELL
For the fourth time, Ed Rozum will be head coach of the Campbell Memorial High football team.
Rozum, an assistant principal, was approved on Tuesday by the board of education. The Red Devils were 3-7 last fall.
College athletes take first step toward union
CHICAGO
Calling the NCAA a dictatorship, Northwestern’s quarterback and the United Steelworkers announced plans Tuesday to form the first labor union for college athletes — the latest salvo in the bruising fight over whether amateur players should be paid. Quarterback Kain Colter detailed the College Athletes Players Association at a news conference in Chicago, flanked by leaders of the Steelworkers union that has agreed to pay legal bills for the effort.
Colter said the NCAA dictates terms to its hundreds of member schools and tens of thousands of college athletes, leaving players with little or no say about financial compensation questions or how to improve their own safety. That college football generates hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue only bolstered the argument for a union, he said.
“How can they call this amateur athletics when our jerseys are sold in stores and the money we generate turns coaches and commissioners into multimillionaires?” Colter asked.
CAPA’s president, former UCLA football player Ramogi Huma, said a union would help ensure that scholarships, at minimum, cover all living expenses as well as tuition. Currently, he said, scholarship athletes come up thousands of dollars short each year. A union would also push for full medical coverage that could carry over past college.
Steelers hire Saxon as running backs coach
PITTSBURGH
The Pittsburgh Steelers have hired former Minnesota Vikings assistant James Saxon as the team’s running backs coach. Saxon replaces Kirby Wilson, who left the Steelers to take the same position in Minnesota earlier this week. Saxon will try to help revitalize a running attack that ranked 27th in yards and 29th in yards per carry in 2013. Pittsburgh hired former Tennessee Titans coach Mike Munchak earlier this month to coach the offensive line.
OSU’s Smith named VP, extended to 2020
COLUMBUS
Ohio State has given athletic director Gene Smith the additional title of vice president and has extended his contract through June 2020. His base salary is now $940,484 a year. Smith came to Ohio State in 2005 as AD and has seen the athletic department weather NCAA probation in its two big-money sports, football and men’s basketball.
Under his new job description, in addition to continuing his role with the athletic department he also will oversee trademark and licensing deals and Ohio State’s Schottenstein Center and several other buildings. In a statement, Ohio State said that in fiscal year 2013 the athletic department transferred nearly $30 million in assessments to the university, including more than $16 million in grant-in-aid reimbursement.
Mich. expels ex-kicker in 2009 sex case
ANN ARBOR, Mich.
A published report says the University of Michigan has expelled ex-Wolverines kicker Brendan Gibbons for violating the school’s sexual misconduct policies. A story in The Michigan Daily says the student newspaper reviewed documents that showed the Ann Arbor school “permanently separated” Gibbons from the university effective Dec. 20, 2013.
The 22-year-old was Michigan’s starting kicker for the past three seasons. His eligibility to play ran out at season’s end. The newspaper says Gibbons was a graduate social work student. It says the university’s Office of Student Conflict Resolutions acted on the basis of a Nov. 22, 2009, incident.
The newspaper says university officials declined comment on the case. The Associated Press left a phone message Tuesday night for Gibbons at a listed phone number in Wellington, Fla.
Staff reports/Associated Press