The Times West Virginian

Golf success a matter of the mind
Sports would be nothing more than a form of art in motion were it not for the one thing that differentiates it from ballet or theater.
They keep score.
Be it runs or points, goals or strokes; be it objective or subjective scoring, there is a winner and a loser.
Sowers projected to be starting safety
Nate Sowers, a two-time converted quarterback, now is projected to be a starting strong safety for West Virginia University ’s football team this fall.
The 6-2, 220-pound junior from Martinsburg has learned to like playing defense since switching to that side of the ball in the middle of the 2007 season.
While recruited as a highly rated quarterback in 2005, Sowers eventually moved to wide receiver, where he saw little action. Then it was to the defensive secondary.
“I’m settled in now at strong safety,” he said. “Hopefully, there will be no more position-changing for me. I’m concentrating solely on playing safety and I don’t want to move.
White is Unitas Award candidate
West Virginia University’s Patrick White was named Wednesday among 26 of the nation’s top senior quarterbacks who are candidates for the 2008 Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award.
The prestigious honor is bestowed annually on the signal-caller considered the nation’s best signal-caller by the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Educational Foundation, for which Transamerica Insurance and Investment Group is the major corporate and presenting sponsor.
Turning up the heat
Doug Davis didn’t look the way Arizona pitchers Brandon Webb and Dan Haren did the two previous days. Not surprisingly, the Diamondbacks didn’t resemble the first-place team that finally appeared to be breaking out of a slide.
Jason Bay’s two-run double finished off Pittsburgh’s five-run fourth inning and the Pirates shook off Mark Reynolds’ two home runs to beat the Diamondbacks for the first time in their weekend series 6-4 on Sunday.
FSU signs Andrew Gunnoe
Bad weather never deterred Andrew Gunnoe from working on his game.
“I remember being a little kid and bundling up so I could go out in the snow and play basketball,” he said. “It’s always been a love of mine and I’ve always prided myself on working hard to get better.”
Perhaps more than anything it was Gunnoe’s drive and relentless work ethic, coupled with a wealth of basketball potential, which prompted Fairmont State head men’s basketball coach Tim Murphy to offer the 6-6, 195-pound Summers County standout forward a chance to play for the Falcons next season at the college level.
A throwing trend
Cardinals pitcher Braden Looper was on the field more than he expected Sunday — the price of getting two hits on a hot day.
Looper continued his torrid hitting to help earn himself a win in the Cardinals’ 7-4 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates. He had two singles, scored twice, and drove in a run to raise his batting average to .429 — tops among pitchers in the majors. On the mound, Looper (7-4) allowed eights hits and three runs in 5 2-3 innings.
WVU focused on in-state recruiting
It is unlikely that as new coach Bill Stewart assembled his first football staff at West Virginia University he did so with the new recruiting rules in mind.
During the evaluation period, which ran from April 15 through May 23, the Mountaineers’ coach was prohibited from involving himself in recruiting, a new wrinkle he does not like.
He instead leaned on his stable of assistants, led by Doc Holliday, whom Stewart labeled the “best recruiter in the country” when Hurricane native and WVU alumnus Holliday was hired.
The staff followed through with the permissible phone calls and even visited practices when possible — high school practices.
COLUMN: Rodriguez’s agent all about selling dreams
Here, all along, I thought Adam Sandler was “The Waterboy.”
But what did I know?
Turns out “Waterboy” was a nom de plume used by Rich Rodriguez’s agent, Mike Brown (aka “Ice Cream”), according to surprising testimony that came out of his May 5 deposition taken at Marriott Courtyard in Holland, Ohio, on May 5.
Turns out that WVU lawyer Bob Fitzsimmons was able to uncover a tie Brown had to a fringe gambling enterprise between Rodriguez’s attorney’s Marv Robon’s many requests to “run to the potty,” as he so delicately put it once, and 258 objections — many of them on the subject of Brown’s involvement in this endeavor.
Sanni cracks lineup in WNBA
Olayinka Sanni, erstwhile leader of the West Virginia University women’s basketball team, cracked the Detroit Shock’s starting lineup late last week in the WNBA.
The 6-foot-2 rookie center from Chicago Heights, Ill., earned the nod by proving to head coach Bill Laimbeer that she’s a quick learner, according to a feature story on the Shock’s Web site.
“We’re very impressed with Sanni, unexpectedly so,” Laimbeer said. “Her best trait is she finishes the shot with two hands, from around the basket, from six-to-eight feet out.”

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