Tag Archive | "coach"

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Tigers roar into postseason

Posted on 07 February 2019 by LeslieM

By Gary Curreri

Blanche Ely girls basketball coach James Polk always believed in his team and that belief is paying dividends as the march into the postseason.

With a 58-26 district semifinal win over Ft. Lauderdale, Blanche Ely (20-7) moved into the District 14-8A championship game on Thursday at 7 p.m. against St. Thomas Aquinas. The Tigers dropped both meetings against St. Thomas this season falling 66-61 and 70-64.

“We are young,” Polk said. “I’ve got freshmen on the floor, sophomores on the floor and juniors on the floor. We try to learn and grow from our close games and our losses.”

“We expected to be fighting for the district championship,” Polk added. “Our goal this year was to represent Class 8A in Lakeland this year. We talked about being a team and goal as a team means ‘Together Everyone Achieves More.’ We are no longer a family because a family looks for favors and we are talking about being a team this year.”

Blanche Ely has gotten stellar play from Ja’Leah Williams, 5-ft., 9-in. sophomore shooting guard. Williams is averaging a team-high 21.5 points per game along with 4.7 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 3 steals per game.

Williams, 16, of Pompano Beach, said the team lost some size from last year’s squad, but that wasn’t going to stop them. She compared her team to the boys teams that have won multiple state championships.

“I asked the team, ‘don’t you want to be like the boys?’” Williams asked. “I try and motivate them. We want to go to Lakeland just like them. We have to work hard just to get there too. I want to be there with them. Having fun with family and friends.”

Williams, who averaged 18.5 points last season, said basketball is important to her even though she only started playing at age 12.

“It means a lot to me,” Williams said. “Even though some girls started playing at a young age, I ran track and I never knew I was going to be this good at basketball. I think I realized I was going to be good when I tried out for my middle school team and made it. Not only did I make it, but I started as a 6th grader. We won the championship in my 8th grade year at Pompano Beach Middle School. I am going to make a championship happen again this year. I think there is a big difference in this year’s team. We are very small, but we are running more.”

Polk said during the season that there was still room to grow and they were maturing. The team has outscored the opposition, 1,677-1,220.

“I felt that we had opportunities to do some better things,” Polk said. “We had to learn how to play more of a possession game. We also had to learn how to secure the ball and take care of the ball. That was the major thing. I think we are also very aggressive defensively.”

In addition to Williams, Polk said others who have contributed heavily include junior JaNiyah Moore, sophomore Mikhia Lumsdon and freshman Breanna Gustave.

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Herring lifts Deerfield to 4th straight district title

Posted on 01 November 2018 by LeslieM

By Gary Curreri

Deerfield Beach football coach Jevon Glenn was so confident that his team would defeat host Piper for a fourth consecutive district championship, he opted to hold out quarterback Derohn King after he was injured on the Bucks’ first offensive play of the game.

King, a junior, who transferred from Piper before the season, injured his throwing shoulder on the first offensive play for the Bucks in the game, and came out of the game after a 56-yard TD pass to Donte Banton one play later and did not return.

With Derohn going out early, it made us change our game plan a little bit, but we just wanted to hit them in the mouth and impose our will on them,” said Scott, whose team defeated Piper, 35-0 for the District 11-8A championship. The Bucks finished the regular season with a 9-1 overall record and 5-0 mark in the district.

Glenn said King could have returned but opted to hold him out. King has 1,605 yds. passing and 21 TDs this season.

Especially with a bye week coming up, we just wanted to make sure,” Scott continued. “We figured we could beat them without Derohn tonight. We want to err on the side of caution and make sure we gave him enough time to get it 100 percent. He could have gone back in. He threw at halftime, but it just wasn’t worth it.”

Enter Bucks senior quarterback Tyron Herring, who came on in relief of injured starter King, who threw for one score and ran in another in the victory. Herring finished 7 for 11 for 110 yds. and a 28-yd. scoring toss to Donte Banton in the blowout win.

His 1-yd. quarterback keeper with just 2 seconds left in the first half gave the Bucks a 14-0 halftime lead. The score capped a 10-play, 35-yd. drive that was set up by an interception by Javon Denis.

We felt coming into the game after watching the film that this team (Piper) wasn’t on our level,” Scott added. “We just couldn’t give them anything. When we played St. Thomas (Aquinas, a 38-6 loss) we gave them a whole bunch. We came out the next weekend against Douglas and let that affect us. Last week, we got the ball back rolling against Monarch.”

Deerfield also got a strong performance on the ground by junior running back Jaylan Knighton, who finished the game with 20 carries for a game-high 136 yds. and added scoring runs of 10 and 13 yds. He has 1,593 yds. rushing and 22 TDs this season.

Knighton said he felt the pressure to contribute once king went out, but pointed to the scoreboard.

Derohn going out hurt us,” said Knighton, who ran for 249 yds. on 11 carries and 4 TDs in a 42-0 win over Monarch the week before. “It really didn’t because the score was 35-zip. He went down the first drive and the main thing I wanted was this week for him to heal so he could come out strong for the playoffs.”

Piper (6-3, 4-1) fell for the eighth straight time to the Bucks dating back to 2011 and have been outscored by Deerfield Beach, 309-24, during that span. Piper hasn’t scored against Deerfield Beach since 2014 and has been shut out the past four years and the past 18 quarters.

Deerfield, which has outscored the opposition this season, (320-98 this season) won for the third straight game following its setback against St. Thomas Aquinas. The Bucks also snapped Piper’s modest three-game winning streak.

In 1979, the Bengals stunned the Bucks, 14-12, to win the school’s first district football championship, but there was no upset in the making last Friday for Piper, which last won a district title in 2001.

Now, the Bucks have the week off before opening the playoffs at home. It is a welcomed week of resting the players, according to Scott.

We need it,” Scott said. “I was telling the guys before, we started working out Dec. 26 (last year) and we have been going strong ever since. We have a lot of nicks and bruises, but we have time to heal up. We are going to be very careful how we handle the bye week. We aren’t going to give them a lot of time off so we don’t lose our edge. We are going to sharpen some things with no pads and no contact. We are just going to keep our guys well rested.

Knighton also welcomes the rest this week.

We need to come to school every day,” Knighton said. “We have to make sure we get recovered, get film and hydrate, and make sure everything is straight so, when playoffs come, we come (out) strong.

The St. Thomas loss affected us bad, but we didn’t let it hurt us too bad so we could focus on the following week,” Knighton added. “We can really stay on that loss. We got over it and we have stayed strong throughout the week.”

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Mixed Media Workshop: Nanette Saylor – bringing dreams to life

Posted on 24 April 2017 by LeslieM

By Rachel Galvin

Close your eyes. Think about what you would like to bring into your life. What’s next for you? What’s missing? What would you like to have in your future? If you just did that exercise, you had thoughts, pictures in your mind of those answers.

Imagery is very powerful. If you have read the book The Secret, and many other similar novels, you know about The Law of Attraction, and how being able to envision what you want in life can help you bring about what you think.

What you think about is what you create, right? Some people might be skeptical. Perhaps, they have tried and nothing has happened from trying. Well, perhaps, the problem is ‘trying,’ rather than really committing. While thinking about what you want is a good start, taking action is better… being open to opportunities that come your way, and finding ways to help you focus on what you want to create.

Creativity Coach & Possibility Partner Nanette Saylor knows all about the power of envisioning. She conducts vision board (Mixed Media) workshops, providing materials for those who attend so they can create their own boards so they can put their thoughts into images to focus on throughout the day. By keeping it in existence through images, it helps the mind focus on the goal and draws it into your life.

On April 13, Saylor had such a workshop at Uptown Art in Boca Raton (6018 SW 18 St. www.uptownart.com). She asked those in attendance to share why they had come to the workshop and what they hoped to achieve in their life. One person had gone through a divorce and wanted to create a new direction in her life. Another had been moving back and forth between American and Europe, and felt a little unsettled and also wanted to bring love into her life. Someone else said they felt stuck.

Saylor showed off some of the vision boards she had created, poster boards or pieces of paper with magazine clippings and other items affixed to them. She said some people look at the process more logically, creating a quadrant and putting pictures and words in each section that focus on different aspects on their lives – physical self, financial, relationships, etc. Another way of creating them is to just cut out whatever inspires you and figure out why you chose it later. Sometimes, she only uses images without words. At this workshop, she brought stacks of magazines, but also ribbon, buttons, bottle caps, puzzle pieces, feathers, yarn, greeting cards and more.

She showed a few books that have inspired her, including one by Shakti Gawain, who she called ‘the mother of vision boards.’ She said Gawain said, “When you put images to your thoughts, you use the power of the Law of Attraction in a way that puts it on steroids.”

Our minds process images faster than words,” said Saylor, who plans on doing another workshop on May 18.

This is not the only workshop she does. She is currently doing one on Julia Cameron’s book “The Artist’s Way.” Once this one is through, she will start another.

You can find out more about Saylor’s workshops on her Conscious Creators page on Facebook.

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Randall let go at Ely

Posted on 20 June 2013 by LeslieM

Pages 09-16By Gary Curreri

Melvin Randall admits he was “caught a little off guard” when he was told he was no longer going to be the Blanche Ely’s boys’ basketball coach after leading the team to back-to-back Class 7A state titles.

Randall said he was informed on June 7 that his 13 years at the school that yielded three state titles was over. Randall, who has been a math teacher at the Pompano Beach school for the past 26 years, has compiled a 456-136 record and five state titles between Deerfield Beach and Blanche Ely high schools.

“This has been going on for the last two years and it basically boils down to something personal,” said Randall, who was informed in a 10:30 a.m. meeting with Blanche Ely assistant principal Malcolm Spence (Blanche Ely administrator over sports) and assistant principal Antonio Womack. “There was no explanation, no nothing. I was kind of shocked. I am not bitter. There have been many placed in my position who have said ‘forget it’ and have just walked away. I am not going to walk away.”

“I am still teaching (math) there, but with the coaching it’s pending,” Randall continued. “I may go into the private sector. You have to have a better excuse than we are moving in a different direction. Which direction is that? Are you going down? I am not being cocky, but that is the only direction I can think of. We only lost five games the past two years.”

Randall finished the 2012- 13 season at Ely by winning his second consecutive Class 7A state championship and earning its second consecutive national ranking.

Randall, 50, of Ft. Lauderdale, has expressed his frustration with the school’s administration by not being allowed to keep two of his long-time assistant coaches (Morris Grooms and Reginald McNair, both former players of his,) from the 2011-12 season and also is upset at how he was treated by Ely principal Karlton Johnson after leading the team to a state championship in 2012 when he had to apply for his position twice.

“Whatever the situation was, it didn’t warrant dismissal,” said Randall, the only coach in Broward to lead two different teams to national rankings – Deerfield Beach in 1999 and Blanche Ely the past two seasons. “It could have warranted suspensions maybe, instead of the harshest thing (firing).”

I am very proud of what I have done at Ely as the boys head basketball coach,” Randall said. “And really doing it the hard way and being successful and running into a situation that I have been in a few years and being successful.”

“My job is to educate 9th grade students and above and also, when I am in the gym, I am trying to do the same thing through that crazy sport of basketball,” Randall said. “It is not just bouncing a basketball and getting Ws and Ls. It is about mentoring these kids and giving them lifelong skills.”

Randall said he didn’t want his name to be tarnished as he moved past the situation.

“I am going to be heard because they are not going to tarnish my name,” Randall said. “I don’t want people to say maybe he did something drastic because he won two state titles, and he must have done something (wrong). And to be put in a spot to coach at the next level, and that is what athletic directors would be thinking as well. It is going to be pretty interesting.”

Efforts to reach school officials were unsuccessful.

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