ACC NEWS RELEASE – Defending National Champion North Carolina received four first place votes and was selected by the league’s head coaches to win the 2010 ACC Field Hockey Championship, as announced today by Commissioner John Swofford.

The Tar Heels collected 24 of the possible 25 points. First place votes were awarded five points, second place received four, etc., and coaches were not allowed to include their own teams in their predicted order of finish.

Maryland, the 2009 ACC Champion and national runner-up, came in second, picking up 21 points and one first place vote. Virginia took third place with 18 points, followed by Wake Forest (12) in fourth, Boston College (9) in fifth and Duke (6) in sixth. The Cavaliers received the final first place vote.

All six teams were represented on the preseason All-ACC squad, with North Carolina tallying a league-leading three honorees. Duke, Maryland and Virginia each had two representatives, while Boston College and Wake Forest each had one.

Eight of the 11 preseason All-ACC selections earned All-America honors from the National Field Hockey Coaches Association in 2009, including: Emily Kozniuk of Boston College; Rhian Jones of Duke; Katie O’Donnell of Maryland; Katelyn Falgowski, Jackie Kintzer and Kelsey Kolojejchick of North Carolina; and Paige Selenski and Michelle Vittese of Virginia.

O’Donnell, Falgowski, Kintzer, Kolojejchick, Selenski and Vittese were also named to the All-ACC team in 2009.

North Carolina comes off a 2009 campaign in which it went 20-2 overall and 4-1 in league play. The Tar Heels defeated Maryland 3-2 in the NCAA Championship game, earning the program’s sixth national title.

UNC’s Karen Shelton, the reigning NFHCA Coach of the Year, returns seven starters and 15 letterwinners, including Kolojejchick, who was named National Rookie of the Year by womensfieldhockey.com. UNC seeks its 17th conference championship and its first since 2007.

With players having to decide by mid-August if they are going pro or going on to college, Durham-based Baseball America did a piece on the winners and losers in college baseball as players decided to go pro.

Winners included Georgia Tech while North Carolina and Florida State were judged among the losers.

Aaron Fitt wrote about Carolina: “UNC is actually quite pleased with its haul, which includes a solid core in catcher Matt Roberts, lefthander Kent Emanuel and righty Jake Cole, plus good depth. But still, the Tar Heels entered Monday hoping to land one of their three remaining elite recruits—Stetson Allie, Sean Coyle and Ty Linton—and came up empty. Coyle, in particular, would have been a cornerstone player in the UNC infield, but the third-round pick signed with Boston for $1.3 million. The Tar Heels still wound up with a sure-fire top 25 recruiting class—and maybe a top 15 class—but heading into the day it had a chance to be an elite class, and it wound up falling short of that distinction.”

To read the entire piece, please click here.

Ty Linton was also a high school all-state linebacker in football and had been practicing with the Tar Heels.

Before coming to UNC, Linton said, “It’s always been a dream of mine to play at Carolina. And I’m going to be at Carolina unless life-changing money comes my way.”

Selected in the 14th round by Arizona, evidently he got that life-changing money as the Diamondbacks gave him a $1.25 million signing bonus.

UNC football coach Butch Davis said the football program is disappointed to lose Linton to the Diamondbacks.

“We are always going to recruit talented student-athletes and Ty was a very good two-sport prospect in football and baseball. He had an opportunity at Carolina to pursue his education while playing both sports,” Davis said.

“He was making significant progress in training camp and I believe he had a bright football future. After meeting with Arizona over the last few days, Ty and his family felt it was in his best interest to pursue a professional baseball career. We wish him the best of luck.”

The neverending drama surrounding quarterback Brett Favre took another turn minutes ago when he boarded a plane for Minnesota.

Reportedly, he has told a few fellow Minnesota Viking teammates that he is coming back for one more season – at least.

The Washington Redskins may have found its fastest player since Darrell Green in the person of Garner native Brandon Banks.

Banks, wearing the No. 16, returned a punt 77 yards for a touchdown in the Redskins 45-17 romp over the Buffalo Bills in preseason action. The Redskins, under new head coach Mike Shanahan, are looking for more production from the special teams, which failed to get a touchdown on any runback last season.

Banks stands just 5-foot-6 and weighs less than 150 pounds. Compare that to hall of famer Darrell Green who was 5-9, 180 pounds and called himself “itty bitty.” While it wasn’t as spectacular as Green’s famous hurdling 50-plus-yard punt return for a TD in the 1987 playoffs against the Bears, Banks blew by and through five or six defenders to remind Redskins’ fans of days gone by.

After getting in the end zone, Banks paid tribute to his fellow Triangle buddy John Wall, the Washington Wizards rookie, by performing Wall’s signature dance. To read more about the connection between the two and to watch the return, please click here.

Receiver Devin Thomas came into the game as the top kick returner while defensive back Phillip Buchanon was slated as the first-team punt returner. Neither distinguished themselves in the game. In fact, Thomas muffed the opening kickoff. (To be fair, Banks earlier dropped a punt as well.) And, depending on other roster desires, Banks, who is listed as a receiver, could fail to make the team because he doesn’t figure to play anywhere else except on special teams.

While it was just one return, if Redskins special teams coordinator Danny Smith goes by his own words, Banks has a good chance of making the team.

“I want a guy that’s sure-handed so we don’t have to worry about catching the ball. I want a guy with a quick first step, I want a guy with toughness, I want a guy with good vision, I want a guy with good balance, I want a guy that can make somebody miss, I want a guy that can take it the distance,” he said.

It appears Banks fits the bill except maybe being “tough.” Although former Redskins returner Brian Mitchell says “toughness” comes down to something besides brute strength or even the physical ability to take a hit. Mitchell says the one muscle they don’t test at combine is heart.

Banks, who went undrafted out of Kansas State, was a two-time all-conference football selection at Garner High School and was named to the USA Today’s All-USA high school track and field team in 2006.

While most Americans appreciate the various cultures coming together for a melting pot society, most (about 80 percent) do not appreciate illegal immigrants taking advantage of a free public education, free health care and other taxpayer costs to the tune of $113 billion a year, according to one recent study.

The cost of illegal immigration has extended to local youth leagues. For instance, one area soccer league has a scholarship program for children who can’t afford the tuition to play. According to a reliable source, nearly all the money awarded in recent years has gone to Hispanic children whose parents don’t speak English. That is money that could be going to poor American families.

Speaking a foreign language and the inability to speak English, no matter what some open borders types will tell you, is an indicator of being an illegal immigrant. Federal rules say that in order to be a naturalized citizen, one must be able to read, write and speak simple English.

One source in a local youth sports league told me the coaches have to translate and email team instructions and schedules to players in Spanish. That evidently isn’t enough for some Hispanic families who have demanded that they be called each week to get verbal instructions over the phone. Someone who speaks English has to be located while the coach waits on the phone. Other Hispanic families told one coach that their children couldn’t make it to practices often but that they wanted their children to play in the games nonetheless.

One soccer league in particular has a regular league and a travel team league. One source indicated to me that at least two Hispanic families, where the parents don’t speak English, insisted that their children be bumped up to the travel team or the kids wouldn’t play. Not only are travel team players considered better but their tuition to play is at least partly paid for by the league.

So, let me get this straight… a family illegally comes into our country, gets a job that an American would otherwise have (only 12 percent of illegals are employed in the low-desired agriculture field), takes advantage of the public education system, takes advantage of the health care system, etc. and they are so comfortable being here that they are applying for, and getting, money from area sports youth leagues to the detriment of poor American children… and, further, demanding special treatment because they don’t speak English. So much for being in the shadows.

It seems the problem is even worse in border states such as Texas. The Eagle Pass, Texas little league baseball team made it to the U.S. Southwest regional finals this year. That team was fully comprised of Hispanic players whose coach speaks to them in Spanish. The team lost to Pearland, Texas yesterday but could you have imagined if that team represented the U.S. in the World Series. That would be a spit in the face of our sovereignty and our rule of law. In past years, little league teams have been ruled ineligible for having players a few months too old to play. But evidently teams can have players who aren’t even in the country legally and that’s ok.

Some may say that while the parents are illegally here, the children are citizens. That could be true for some of them who have been in the country for more than 12 years (since that’s the age of most little leaguers). The debate rages nationally about whether the 14th Amendment is being interpreted correctly that children born in the U.S. to illegal immigrants are or should be considered citizens. One recent study showed that there are 60,000 births per year to illegal alien parents in Texas alone. That includes nearly 12,000 in Parkland Hospital – the hospital where President Kennedy was taken after he was shot in Dallas.

Another study out Thursday indicates that more than eight percent of the children born each year in the U.S. are children of illegal alien parents (termed anchor babies). The study also says that four percent of the people living in the U.S. today are here illegally (of course that doesn’t include the eight percent of children born to illegals each year who are considered citizens).

One local charity, just this year, started a Hispanic Youth Soccer League and advertised for Spanish-speaking coaches. Not only is that accommodating illegal immigration, it is bordering on, if not actually, racist to single out and target a particular race in favor of another. Might there be a poor, white neighborhood of native-born North Carolinians in need of a sports program? Would anyone suggest, support or even allow a White, Native-Born Soccer League?

Even if the charity somehow verified that the participants are legally in our country, should they be excluding other races from participation, isolating one particular race, and working against their assimilation into our society? We certainly don’t want to penalize children who were brought to our country illegally by their law-breaking parents. Nor should we reward them for their parents’ actions.

The affects of illegal immigration are being felt all the way down to the ball fields in the Triangle with special treatment for illegals and special financial advantages for illegals, not to mention the player slots being taken up by illegal immigrants to the detriment of American children.

Perhaps Baldwin has enlisted the help of Hollywood in promoting the Hartford Whalers name. Actress Megan Fox was spotted wearing a Whalers t-shirt in Los Angeles on Saturday by totalprosports.com.

A former owner of the National Hockey League’s Hartford Whalers apparently wants to get controlling interest in the American Hockey League’s Hartford Wolf Pack, change the name to the Whalers and work towards bringing the Hartford Whalers back to the NHL.

Howard Baldwin, who bought the Whalers in 1972 and sold his interest in the team in 1988, has been barnstorming the state of Connecticut, along with former Whaler Bob Crawford, trying to revive the name and gain interest in bringing an NHL team back.

However, it appears that the Carolina Hurricanes hold the trademarks and the rights to the name. The newer Whalers jerseys you sometimes see at Hurricanes’ games are produced by Reebok CCM, which has exclusive rights to make NHL jerseys. The rights are still managed by NHL Properties plus, presumably, the Hurricanes – being the trademark holder – receive profits from the sale of the jerseys and other paraphernalia.

It’s ironic that an effort to revitalize the Whalers name would actually profit the man that is blamed for taking the Whalers from Hartford and moving them to North Carolina. Peter Karmanos got controlling interest of the Whalers in 1994 and, after disputes with the city, including failed efforts to build a new arena, he moved the Whalers to North Carolina and changed the name to the Carolina Hurricanes. The franchise has been more successful in Raleigh with the Hurricanes winning the Stanley Cup in 2006.

If Baldwin is able to get the Hartford Wolf Pack franchise (ironic name isn’t it) and does attempt to change the name to the Whalers, will the NHL and the Carolina Hurricanes object? I would think they would have to.

This isn’t a situation such as when the Cleveland Browns moved to Baltimore to become the Ravens. In that case, the league kept the Browns name and trademarks in hiatus until a new ownership team could bring a team back to Cleveland. In this case, the Hartford Whalers are the Carolina Hurricanes.

Interestingly, however, it appears that neither the Hurricanes nor the NHL combine the Whalers with the Hurricanes in compiling all-time team stats. Even though Johnny Unitas requested that his records be taken off the “Indianapolis Colts” all-time stats, the Baltimore Colts stats did carry over to Indianapolis.

I feel for the people who lost their beloved Whalers. But the Hartford Whalers, during their 17-year history in the NHL, recorded only three winning seasons and while loyal fans were rabid, attendance couldn’t help but be hurt. Plus, the Hartford Wolf Pack was a poor 18th in attendance in the 30-team AHL last season.

While it seems like a long shot that a different Hartford Whalers team will be admitted into the NHL, the rich and powerful Baldwin, who has run Baldwin Entertainment in Los Angeles for the past 20 years, could put up a good fight. And the drama surrounding the effort could end up in court with the Carolina Hurricanes being a prominent player.

By the way, the Hartford Courant is doing its part in keeping the Hartford Whalers name alive by creating an online home for those loyal to the Whalers. On Wednesday courant.com will launch http://www.courant.com/whalers.

The USA Collegiate Baseball team, which trains in Cary, finished its summer league play with a 10th-inning loss to Cuba in the Gold Medal game of the World University Baseball Championships in Toyko.

Cuba’s Alfredo Despaigne hit a three-tun homer in the bottom of the 10th to give Cuba a 4-3 victory. Under a rather silly International Baseball Federation’s tie-break rule, base runners are placed at first and second with no outs from the 10th inning on. (The batting order also changes.) The USA scraped a pair of runs across in the top of the 10th before the three-run blast with one out.

Proponents of the rules say that delays from extra inning contests cause scheduling and logistical nightmares that include security, transportation, drug testing, broadcasts and entertainment. Yeah, well, too bad – play baseball or don’t play baseball but don’t make junk up. An entire summer of play came down to this and it was decided by some stilted rule of expediency. Yes, both teams played by the same rules but, come on, that wasn’t baseball.

Cuban accounts of the game indicate that Japanese fans, who saw their team lose 4-2 to the Americans in the semis, supported the Cubans in the finals. Maybe Japanese players should go play in the Cuban league instead of the American or National leagues, right?

The USA finished the season with a 16-3 mark including seven consecutive victories before the Gold Medal loss.

The only ACC team represented on the US squad was Clemson whose Brad Miller had the team’s highest batting average at .441 in 14 games played, including seven started. (As an aside, the team’s press officer was East Carolina’s Malcolm Gray.)