Clemson football recruit suffers stroke, why Ducks are moving faster and Tenn. hostesses with the mostesses

Just a few of the intresting notes to be found at www.charlotteobserver.com and on the blog spot of Stan Olson and he has many of these same topics coming down each day and they continue on thoroughout the week.

Just a few of the main menu items on today’s plate at Click Here:

Clemson football recruit Jake Nicolopulos, a linebacker from T.L. Hanna High ranked No. 24 in the Observer’s S.C. Top 25, suffered a stroke Wednesday morning and is in Charleston today for further evaluation.

An excerpt from today’s article in the Anderson Independent Mail:

Hanna football coach and athletics director Kenya Fouch, who visited Nicolopulos on Wednesday morning at AnMed Health Medical Center where he was in critical but stable condition, said Nicolopulos would be treated at the Medical University of South Carolina where a team of doctors who specialize in the symptoms that Nicolopulos is experiencing can further diagnose treatment.

“Right now there aren’t many answers,” Fouch said. “Everybody’s trying to find out what happened.”

From Stan Olson on, “Why the Ducks are moving faster”… See all of this one at Click Here and for a taste Duck down and look out below for the lowdown on the Oregon Ducks fast track to the top……

While virtually all the Oregon Ducks’ coaching staff have west coast ties, then there is defensive line coach Jerry Azzinaro, hired this year after coaching the same group at Marshall in 2008. More importantly, Azzinaro was Duke’s defensive coordinator from 2004 through 2006, giving him a familiarity with the Carolinas.

There’s more, though; Oregon is tied tightly to Nike and its co-founder and chairman, Phil Knight. Knight is an Oregon graduation, and in 2007 donated $100 million to the school’s athletic program.

The Ducks have used that money well when it comes to upgrading football.

“Their facilities are possibly the best in the country,” says a veteran area college coach. “They have a TV in every one of the players’ lockers, and I understand the kids get a new jersey for every game.

“Oregon is, in a sense, being marketed by Nike.”

Stan Olson with one more for today that talks about the University of Tennessee and their traveling football hostesses…..Click Here to see it all……

If you haven’t read the NY Times story about Tennessee’s “recruiting hostesses” that editor Mike Persinger linked to on this blog this morning, you should. The NCAA is investigating—among other things—charges that these hostesses have been showing up at the games of Volunteers’ recruiting targets.

The story reads in part:

Marcus Lattimore, a running back who made an unofficial visit to Tennessee but said he would not enroll there, said multiple Tennessee hostesses attended a game at James F. Byrnes High School in Duncan, S.C., in September. He said they brought signs, including one that read, “Come to Tennessee.”

“I haven’t seen no other schools do that,” he said. “It’s crazy.”

The hostesses are considered representatives of the university, which would mean they could not recruit players off campus. Therefore, the visits may be considered violations of N.C.A.A. recruiting rules.

Two of Lattimore’s teammates, Brandon Willis and Corey Miller, have orally committed to Tennessee. Lattimore described the hostesses as “real pretty, real nice and just real cool.” He said he thought they had “a lot” of influence in Miller’s and Willis’s commitments to Tennessee.