Newspaper Page Text
PI2 March 7, 1994
The Panther
Sports
basketbaU — football — traeR and field — volleyball • soccei
'Inside
CAU
Sports
'Linden Pearson
TENNIS ANYONE?
The Clark AtlantaUniversity tennis team has served up a
promising season.
After several early season matches against Morehouse College,
Mercer University, and Bethune Cookman, the University's mens'
team, has attained a 2-3 record as of February 28. Tthe Lady
Panthers has achieved a record of 2-2 in their quest to repeat as
the Southern Intercollegiate Athletics Conference (SIAC) champi
ons.
Head Coach W. Oliver McClendon said,” At this point there
are no individual leading scorers because it is early in the season.
We have not met all the schools in our conference yet. “
According to Coach McClen, the top teams in the SIAC are
Morehouse and CAU. This information was based on last years
final results.
“There hasn’t been alot of support at most of the tennis match
es” said Stacy Jackson, a veteran of the womens team. A major
reason is that the campus of CAU does not have any tennis courts.
All of the home tennis matches are held at the McGhee Tennis
Center on Beecher Street, in South West Atlanta. The school was
to have built tennis courts when the gym was constructed.
Spelman College is presently having a tennis court built on their
campus, but the courts will not play an intricate part in their pro
gram.
Over 20 matches are in store for both the men’s and women’s
teams. With such a lengthy schedule, the veterans of both teams
will become important in leadership roles. Boniwa Maponya,
Jamella Ivery, Mariam Rasheed, and Stacy Jackson are the
returning women veterans. As for the men, they are lead by
Devin White, Conward Jones, and Craig Oliver. Last year’s 3rd
flight Doubles Champions were Craig Oliver and Conward Jones.
“The Future of the tennis program looks bright”, said Coach
McClendon. He also feels that the new Athletic Director,
Richard Cosby, is a plus to all sports at CAU. “He is a sports per
sonality and fits in very well here. He’s been in the trenches and
he knows what to do.” The coaching staff also includes Allan
Sampson, as Assistant Coach. When speaking on the topic of
coaching tennis, Coach McClendon said, “it is very difficult to
coach any type of sport when you have not participated or played
that particular sports”
CAU’s next home match will be March 1 aganist Morehouse
College. It will be held at the McGhee Tennis Center, come and
support the Panthers on their bid for SIAC dominance!
College basketball
Colleges that produced the most
NBA players 1992-93:
College
NBA players
North Carolina f
m 11
Arkansas
CAU
Tennis
Teams
Keep
up the
GOOD
WORK!
Former CAU Basketball Star
Found Dead In California
By Kevin Donalson
Sports Editor
A body found at the bottom of the Sacramento
River was identified as that of former Clark-
Atlanta basketball star Ernest Lee. Services for
Lee were held on Thursday, February 17 at
1:00p.m. at the St. Paul Baptist Church in
Sacramento, California.
According to the office of the sheriff and coroner
of Yol County, his death was due to drowning.
He is thought to have jumped off the bridge. His
body was so badly decomposed that identification
had to be made through dental x-rays.
Lee attended CAU from 1983 till 1987. At CAU
he became the fifth leading scorer in NCAA histo
ry, with 3,298. He led the nation in scoring his
last three years.
Lee was a solid built, 6-5 guard who could score
at will. All his life he was told that as long as he
kept playing basketball he would be alright. His
first major set back came when he could not
attend a major university because of his 1.9 high
school grade point average.
After sitting out a year, he enrolled at CAU. He
was an instant star. When he left CAU, he was
the NCAA fifth all-time leading scorer. He led
the nation in scoring his last three years and was a
lock to make it into the NBA, but he didn’t. After
al teams and played pro ball in Europe, but he
never made it to the NBA. At 30 years-old, Lee
felt his life was over because his dream had not
come true. Dissapearing on Dec. 10, his body was
found at the bottom of the Sacramento River one
month later.
Getting to the NBA was all that Lee ever want
ed to do. After leaving CAU, he tried out for the
Sacramento Kings, but did not make the team.
“I heard that Earnest may have died that way
(suicide), but I was hoping that it wasn’t true,”
Robert Pritchett, Lee’s former coach at CAU, told
the Journal-Constitution. “I knew that he was
going through some tough times, but I thought he
had gotten over the hump with his problems.”
When he did not make the Kings, he played a
few seasons in Europe, but nothing could take the
place of playing in the NBA,
“I had a two-year plan: Two years at Washington
and then to the NBA,” he was quotedas saying in
a hometown newspaper in February 1987.
Lee was fired from his job as a construction
worker in mid-December, and on Dec. 10 he dis
appeared. He called his grandmother, who he
called “nana”, and asked her a serious question
said the Journal-Constitution. “Nana, where is my
life going?”
It is sad to say, but obviously his answer was
found at the bottom of the Sacramento River.
1994 TENNIS SCHEDULE
MEN/WOMEN
•
• n
§
DATE
OPPONENT
PLACE
TIME
MARCH 1
MOREHOUSE (M)
HOME
2:00 p.m.
MARCH 3
OGLETHORPE U. (M)
AWAY
2:00 p.m.
MARCH 4
DEKALB COLLEGE (W)
AWAY
9:30 a.m.
MARCH 5
CHATTANOOGA STATE (M)
AWAY
9:00 a.m.
MARCH 6
CENTRAL ALABAMA (M)
AWAY
11:30 a.m.
MARCH 8
ALBANY STATE (M/W)
AWAY
2:00 p.m.
MARCH 11
SAVANNAH STATE (W)
HOME
2:00 p.m.
MARCH 24
SPELMAN (W)
AWAY
2:00 p.m.
MARCH 27-
CAU INVITATIONAL TOU.
S. FULTON
TBA
29
TENNIS CENTER
MARCH 31
MORRIS BROWN
AWAY
1:00p.m.
APRIL 7
ALABAMA A&M (M)
AWAY
1:30p.m.
APRIL 11
OGLETHORPE U. (M/W)
HOME
2:00p.m.
APRIL 14-16
TUSKEGEE RELAYS (M/W)
AWAY
2:00p.m.
APRIL 18
MORRIS BROWN ((M/W)
HOME
2:00p.m.
APRIL 21-23
SIAC TOURNAMENT
ALBANY, GA.
TBA