“Kids Classic Festival brings dozens to uptown” plus 1 more |
| Kids Classic Festival brings dozens to uptown Posted: 11 Sep 2010 07:27 PM PDT BECKLEY (WVVA)-It was a day of celebrating kids in uptown Beckley beginning with a parade this morning. Dozens of kids, and their parents, took part in the annual kids classic festival, an event for local families. Today local businesses and area vendors provided entertainment. Marching bands and children from the community paraded down main street this morning. For some, the festival was so fun it was hard not to be excited. "I climbed that wall over there, and I got lots of candy," said an enthusiastic Alexis Richmond. "This is a great event for kids of all ages even up through adults there are many games you can partake in at the arcade," said Ashley Barton, Mrs. Beckley Kids Classic Queen. The fair today was part of the week long festivities. Kids classic ends tomorrow with a hamster and turtle race in Beckley. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
| Games in Florida serve multiple purpose for Schiano, Rutgers Posted: 11 Sep 2010 09:17 PM PDT If you're wondering why Rutgers agreed to a rare home-and-home series with Sun Belt Conference-member FIU, look no further than its 107-player roster. On it you will find seventeen players who call Florida home, including seven who grew up in the shadows of FIU's Miami campus. Throw in the fact that Rutgers has offered more than a dozen scholarships to recruits currently playing their senior seasons at Miami-area high schools and the Scarlet Knights' meeting at FIU here Saturday night made perfect sense. "I think (games like this) are great for a couple reasons," Rutgers coach Greg Schiano said before his team's non-conference showdown with FIU. "One, they are great because our Florida kids get to go back home and have their families come watch them. "It is also important for recruiting. We are always going to have a presence in the state of Florida recruiting-wise and we have had great success in that south Florida area, so to be able to go down there and play in south Florida early in the season and then to go back and play in Tampa in the middle of the season, I think is good." Rutgers' roster includes players from 10 different states. Not surprisingly, New Jersey leads the pack by a large margin with 48 players, but Florida's 17 ranks second. Mike Bakas, as much as anyone, understands why Florida's soil has been so fertile for Rutgers through the years. "What I've seen is you have schools that come down here and recruit different tiers of players down here," said Bakas, the Florida recruiting analyst for Scout.com. "The first-tier kids are the ones everybody wants, and you know Florida, Florida State and Miami will be in the mix with them. Then you have the second-tier kids that are being looked at by the Big 3, but might not be at the point where they're ready to get an offer. You'll see those kids in with Clemson, South Carolina, Georgia, maybe a couple other ACC schools. "And then you have the third-tier schools like Rutgers, Pitt, West Virginia, Illinois, Purdue. All BCS schools, all good programs, but in a typical situation all those program are not going to come down and go head-to-head with any of the Big 3 and they're really not going to come down and get the kids that SEC or ACC schools really want." (2 of 2) Still, Bakas said that's no slight to the "tier" of players Rutgers generally recruits. "You get second- and third-level kids, some people say that's a knock," said Bakas, Scout.com's lead Florida recruiting analyst since 2003. "But getting second- and third-level Florida kids, a lot of schools have proven over the years that they're better than the first-tier kids in most other states. And Greg Schiano, with his strong ties down here, he's done a really good job of that. He's built a pretty good program with a lot of those types of kids." Because NCAA rules restrict schools from "hosting" recruits when they're playing on the road, Rutgers coach Greg Schiano wasn't allowed to have contact with the Miami-area players who may have chosen to attend Saturday night's game at FIU Stadium. "It's unfortunate we're not allowed to talk to them," Schiano said, "so seeing them (in the stands) is all we can do." But the lack of contact hardly took any of the luster from what Schiano tried to accomplish in playing in Miami, according to Bakas. "Any time you can get games where you recruit, whether it's a home-and-home or just a one-time thing, it makes a difference," he said. "Because not only do the kids hear about it from their coaches but then they start reading about it in the newspapers, or on Facebook, or on TV. It's just like anything else in life — you sit there and talk with somebody by phone, you email back and forth, but to actually get out and see that person with your own eyes — that absolutely makes a difference. I mean, this is who they've been talking to. I think that's an advantage that they'll have over some of the schools that might not come down (to Miami) to see those kids." When Rutgers unveils its 2011 recruiting class next February, Bakas hardly would be surprised to see Schiano come away with a handful of the Florida prospects he's currently recruiting. Of the 14 recruits who have offered non-binding commitments for the 2011 class to date, two are from Florida, including Marquis Lucas, an offensive lineman currently attending Miami Central High School. "Do I think they're going to get some good ones? Absolutely," Bakas said. "It's just a matter of continuing to build those relationships and playing teams like FIU doesn't hurt, either." This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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