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SHS golf boosters holding tourney The Shawnee High School Golf Booster Club will be holding their seventh annual tournament on Saturday, July 25 at the Shawnee Country Club. Proceeds from the tournament will go the Shawnee High School golf programs. The four-person scramble begins at 9 a.m. and a lunch will be served afterwards. Individual player entry is $100 and includes green fees, cart rental and lunch. Team entries are $400 and a corporate team entry, which includes a sponsor’s banner, is available for $500. Sponsor’s banners are available by themselves for $300, while hole sponsorships are $100. Players from both the boys’ and girls’ teams will be on hand to provide “help” to the competing teams. Registration for the tournament is due by July 20. For more information, contact Tim Barrick at 740-2898, Kristee Gentry at 585-3209, Randy Epperly at 203-6567 or Kelly Parsons at 255-2980.
MAGENTA
Wednesday, July 22, 2015 QUESTIONS? Contact Sports Editor Richard Stroud at 405-214-3932 or richard.stroud@news-star.com
COLLEGE FOOTBALL
Sooners look to air it out in 2015 DALLAS (AP) — Bob Stoops is bringing back the kind of pass-happy offense to Oklahoma that he introduced to the Big 12. The Sooners hope that will help them win some more conference championships after a two-year drought that is the longest in Stoops’ 16 seasons. “A lot gives me optimism, a 17-year background,” Stoops said Tuesday, the
second day of Big 12 media days. “We’re just a year removed from being in the top 10 and winning the Sugar Bowl.” But the Sooners are coming off an 8-5 season capped by a 40-6 loss to Clemson in the Orange Bowl. They were 5-4 in Big 12 play, their most conference losses since going 3-5 in 1998, the year before Stoops arrived. They won
the 2000 national championship in his second season. “I look around the country. We’re probably not the only team that’s 8-5 or 7-6 and on and on and on. And I look at a track record of 12 of the last 15 years, we’ve had 10 or more wins,” Stoops said. “I don’t think anyone else has done that in the country with that kind of consistency,
and that doesn’t dissipate in a year.” Still, Oklahoma and Texas — which won the league’s last national championship a decade ago — are now chasing TCU and Baylor, the Big 12 co-champs from a year ago with their big-play ways and picked 1-2 in the league’s preseason poll this season. Stoops hired offensive
Pelicans adding Perkins to 1-year deal NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Two people familiar with the negotiations say free-agent center Kendrick Perkins has agreed to a one-year contract with the New Orleans Pelicans. The people spoke to The Associated Press on Tuesday on condition of anonymity because the contract has not been announced by the club or Perkins’ representatives. The agreement was first reported by ESPN. The 6-foot-10 Perkins has spent 12 seasons in the NBA, the first seven in Boston, a stint that included an NBA championship in 2008. He was traded to Oklahoma City during the 2010-2011 season and last season played for the Thunder, the Cleveland Cavaliers and Toronto Raptors. Perkins holds career averages of 5.5 points, 5.9 rebounds and 1.2 blocks. In New Orleans, Perkins is expected to take on a reserve role behind 7-foot starter Omer Asik.
coordinator Lincoln Riley to bring back the Air Raid offense that the Sooners used primarily while winning eight Big 12 titles from 2000-12. “I believe in the offense. It’s what we started with,” Stoops said. “We kind of made it popular when I hired Mike (Leach) from Kentucky from Hal SOONERS, Page 2B
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SHS Football
OSSAA releases new ADM numbers By Richard Stroud richard.stroud@news-star. com Twitter: @RichardNewsStar
Hancock agrees with Big 12 about title game
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COLLEGE FOOTBALL
DALLAS (AP) — College Football Playoff Executive Director Bill Hancock says the Big 12 is “smart to sit back and wait” over adding a conference championship game. Hancock said Tuesday at Big 12 media days that there was “no question” Ohio State benefited by winning the Big Ten championship over Wisconsin in a blowout that vaulted the Buckeyes into the inaugural four-team playoff. Ohio State beat Oregon for the national title. Baylor and TCU were the top two teams left out of the playoff after sharing the Big 12 championship. The 10-team league could add a title game if a rule requiring at least 12 teams is removed. Hancock said different outcomes in title games could have put both Baylor and TCU in the playoff, and Big 12 leaders “would have looked like a roomful of geniuses.”
YELLOW
New quarterback Jack Diamond and the Shawnee Wolves will open their 2015 season at home against Bishop McGuinness on Friday, Sept. 4. FILE PHOTO
COLLEGE FOOTBALL
REDEMPTION Stoops: Mixon deserves chance after arrest, suspension DALLAS (AP) — Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops said Tuesday that reinstated running back Joe Mixon deserves a chance to redeem himself after being charged with punching a woman in the face. Asked at Big 12 media days why he hasn’t distanced himself from Mixon, Stoops quickly said violence toward women should never be tolerated. But he said the redshirt freshman, after serving a seasonlong suspension last year, has other standards to meet as well. If those standards are met, it’s the job of educational institutions to help Mixon and other players in similar situations, Stoops said. “In the end we felt that he’s been disciplined,” Stoops said later in a follow-up question about Mixon.
“He was removed totally from all team activities from that point on. And he’s earned a way to be back to have an opportunity for a second chance to redeem himself with strict guidelines that go with it.” Mixon was given a year of probation last October when he entered a plea in which he acknowledged there was likely enough evidence to convict him of misdemeanor assault while still asserting his innocence over the incident last summer at a restaurant in Norman, Oklahoma. Florida State freshman quarterback De’Andre Johnson was recently kicked off the team after video showed him punching a woman in the face in a bar. Another Seminoles player has been suspended indefinitely after a similar allegation.
Stoops said he was aware of other incidents around the country, but said he believed each situation was different. “I don’t know all of their circumstances,” Stoops said. “In our situation, we felt this was the right way to proceed.” With Mixon suspended last year, Oklahoma’s Samaje Perine led the Big 12 with 1,713 yards rushing as a freshman and tops the depth chart going into the season. Perine set a Football Bowl Subdivision record with 427 yards rushing against Kansas. “It’s hard to improve on where he was, but I believe he will,” Stoops said of Perine. “He’s such a great, great worker. Very humble guy that’s always hungry.”
Few changes are in store for area schools after the Oklahoma Secondary Schools Activities Association released its annual report of average daily membership numbers on Tuesday. The ADM, which is a measurement of the number of students enrolled in OSSAA member high schools, is used for classification purposes for athletics and other activities. Sports other than football are reclassified annually. Football is reclassified every two years, with a new reclassification for the 2016 and 2017 seasons due in August. The biggest bit of news for local schools didn’t actually happen. Tecumseh was initially classified in 5A for all sports when the report was released. However, 64 of Tecumseh’s 732.55 ADM was incorrectly counted, as the Central Oklahoma Juvenile Center, which operates as a charter school in the TPS district, does not count toward THS’s ADM. The Savages will continue to compete in 4A in all sports for the 2015-16 school year and will be in 4A in football for the 2016 and 2017 seasons. Two schools that will be changing classifications are Prague and Meeker. With an ADM of 318.37, Prague will be competing in Class 3A in football beginning with the 2016 season after spending the past two in 2A. The Red Devils will be in 3A in other sports. Meeker is dropping back down to 2A in football after spending the OSSAA, Page 2B
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Big 12 gets tougher on full-contact practice limit DALLAS (AP) — TCU defensive end James McFarland says defensiveminded coach Gary Patterson doesn’t need players hammering each other in pads every day to keep up the intensity in practice. “Matter of fact, he’s had more of his intense moments when people had nothing but shorts and helmets on because he feels like since we’re not hitting, you should do everything right,” said the senior returning sacks leader for the Horned Frogs. “He doesn’t have a different way of doing things if we have pads or we don’t have pads on.” McFarland mirrored what his coach said at media day Monday after the Big 12 announced that it was taking an NCAA rule limiting contact in practice
“...WE WANT TO KEEP OUR KIDS HEALTHY. FRESH SHOULDERS, FRESH LEGS, MEANS MORE PHYSICAL PLAYERS.” – Gary Patterson
a step further by allowing two tackling sessions per week, including a game. The national rule allows for a total of three full-contact sessions, game included. The Big 12 will allow two practices for players held out of games. Two full-contact workouts for the team are permissible in bye weeks. Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby said the change came from a discussion with athletic directors, who talked to their coaches before approving the more stringent rule. Patterson said the tighter
restrictions won’t change the Frogs’ approach because they’ve had just one practice during game weeks for years. “There’s a false sense of we just try to bang our kids around,” said Patterson, whose physical coaching style has helped TCU lead the nation in defense five times since 2000. “I think all of us, we like keeping our jobs, and we want to keep our kids healthy. Fresh shoulders, fresh legs, means more physical players.” Patterson said most teams get the heavier
work done in the spring before turning the focus more to preservation during the regular season. And Bowlsby said that’s what administrators found as they considered the change, which was approved in the spring. “I don’t think that we’re going to find that this is a disadvantage,” Bowlsby said. “In fact, I think you may find that you have a healthier team in the second half of the season.” The NCAA defines fullcontact workouts as taking players to the ground or full-speed blocking. Drills involving players wrapping up but not tackling are considered non-contact. West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen said he hasn’t conducted consecutive full-pad workouts in
“quite some time,” and hasn’t had two-a-day workouts in four years. Clint Trickett, Holgorsen’s quarterback last year, retired after revealing he had sustained five concussions over 14 months. He didn’t play again after getting knocked out of a 26-20 loss to Kansas State on Nov. 20. “The way the model is right now is something that I’ve supported and something that we’ve done at West Virginia since I got there,” Holgorsen said. Kansas State coach Bill Snyder, who brought the Wildcats into national prominence with a nononsense approach that emphasized defense, also said the tighter guidelines won’t alter his program’s approach.