Virginia Tech women’s basketball signee Hannah Young was recently featured with her father Lewis in the Newcastle Herald (New South Wales, Australia). Hannah will follow in her father’s footsteps by playing collegiately in the United States. Lewis competed at Gardner-Webb in the 1970s where he ranks fifth amongst the team's all-time leading scorers. He followed that up with a year with the Harlem Globetrotters and later competed professionally in Scotland.  

Read the complete article here. 

Former Virginia Tech baseball player Austin Wates received national attention recently when he made an unbelievable catch while playing in the outfield for the Corpus Christi Hooks, a Double-A team of the Houston Astros.

Wates robbed San Antonio’s Nathan Freiman of a home run on May 5, as he and centerfielder Brandon Barnes both tumbled over the fence in left-center field. The play was named the top play on ESPN’s SportsCenter for May 5.

To watch the video of the play, please check out this link.

Wates continues to enjoy success in Houston’s organization since the Astros selected him in the third round of the 2010 First-Year Player Draft following his junior season at Tech. He hit .340 in the month of April for Corpus Christi, with a homer, 15 RBI and five stolen bases. He’s hitting .295, with two homers, 17 RBI and six stolen bases on the season.

Wates hit .382, with eight homers, 54 RBI and 18 stolen bases his final season at Tech.

Former Tech and current Carolina Panthers linebacker James Anderson will be visiting three elementary schools in his hometown of Chesapeake, Va., on Friday, May 4, to distribute summer reading books to first-graders.

The visit is part of Anderson’s new literacy initiative entitled “Read Like a Pro.” He is teaming up with Scholastic Inc., the global children’s publishing, education and media company, to promote the importance of reading and literacy, and to help the schools he has “adopted” tackle the summer reading slide. In addition to providing books to first-grade students, Anderson will read aloud to the students and talk to them about how literacy and reading affected his life and got him to where he is today.

When students don’t read over the summer, teachers typically need 4 to 6 weeks in the fall to re-teach material students have forgotten. What researchers call the “summer slide” in reading skills is a major concern for educators and is responsible for the majority of the achievement gap between children from middle class and low-income families. Children from low-income families are less likely to have access to books at home.

 Anderson played at Tech from 2002-05. In the 2006 NFL Draft, the Panthers selected Anderson in the third round, and he has been with the team ever since. Last year, he finished with 145 tackles, two interceptions and 1.5 sacks. In 2010, he recorded 130 tackles, 3.5 sacks and an interception.

In July of last year, the Panthers rewarded Anderson for his steady play, signing him to a five-year contract worth $22 million, $8.5 of which was guaranteed.

Virginia Tech signee Montrezl Harrell is one of twenty-four players to have accepted invitations to attend the 2012 USA Basketball Men’s U18 National Team Training camp June 5-12 at the U.S. Olympic Training Center (USOTC) in Colorado Springs, Colo. The USA Basketball Men’s Junior National Team committee issued the player invitations.

Harrell, from Tarboro, N.C., signed with the Hokies during the early signing period in November. He played this past season on the post-graduate team at Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, Va.

The 2012 USA U18 National Team will be led by a trio of college coaches at the FIBA Americas U18 Championship, including Billy Donovan (University of Florida) as head coach, with Mark Few (Gonzaga University) and Shaka Smart (Virginia Commonwealth University) as assistant coaches.

Following the first three or four days of training camp from June 5-12 at the U.S. Olympic Training Center (USOTC) in Colorado Springs, Colo., finalist for the team will be selected by the USA Men’s Junior National Team Committee and will continue to train at the USOTC.  

The official, 12-member 2012 USA Men’s U18 National Team will be selected prior to the team’s departure for the 2012 FIBA Americas U18 Championship, which will be played June 16-20 in Sao Sebastiáo do Paraiso, Brazil. Players eligible for this competition must have been born on or after Jan. 1, 1994.

Eight teams will compete in the 2012 U18 zone qualifier, including the USA, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Columbia, Mexico, Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands. The top four finishing teams in the tournament will qualify for next summer’s 2013 FIBA U19 World Championship.

In addition to chair Jim Boeheim (Syracuse University), the USA Basketball Men’s Junior National Team Committee includes NCAA appointees Lorenzo Romar (University of Washington), Bruce Weber (Kansas State University) and Roy Williams (University of North Carolina), as well as athlete representative Jay Williams.

On April 16, 2007, tragedy struck the Virginia Tech campus when a disturbed gunman took the lives of 32 people. In the days, weeks, months and years since then, a nation provided prayers, thoughts, sympathy and support to those in the Blacksburg community. A lot of those came from the sports world, where many expressed their thoughts in countless ways.

This April marks the five-year anniversary of the tragedy. Here is a column by ESPN’s Chris Fowler, published two days after the shootings, that captured the spirit of the Virginia Tech community. Please take time to read this, as a campus and community remembers those lost and injured.

Former Virginia Tech golfer Johnson Wagner will tee off at 9:40 a.m. in the first round of the Masters Tournament on Thursday morning at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Ga.

Wagner, currently second on the FedEx Cup list on fourth on the PGA Tour money list, was the PGA Tour Player of the Month for January 2012. He will be grouped with Hideki Matsuyama and two-time Masters champion, Tom Watson. This is Wagner’s second appearance in what is one of golf’s premier events. He tied for 36^th in the 2008 Masters.

Wagner, who was named the PGA Tour Player of the Month for January, tied for fourth place at the Arnold Palmer Invitational on March 25 and in doing so, passed Rory McIlroy into the lead in the standings. The leader in FedExCup points following The Tour Championship will win a $10,000,000 bonus.

Wagner, who won the Sony Open in Hawaii in January, will compete in the 2012 Masters Tournament April 5-8 in Augusta, Ga.

Katie Baer, a Virginia Tech athletics trainer, will be coordinating a university event entitled “Women in Sports Medicine” that will be held March 13 at 6:30 p.m. in the Bowman Room on the fourth floor of Tech’s Jamerson Athletics Center.

Speakers will include:

• Stephanie Aldret – Her topic will be the manipulation for practitioner-patient mismatch, and the importance of appropriate table height, mechanics and technique

• Baer – Her discussion will center on women in the athletics training room – perceptions and reality.

• Jenn McCrady – Her topic is on how to relate to the male athlete from a rehab/medical provider aspect.

• Jennie Schafer – She will discuss how to use a healthy lifestyle to portray confidence and stand out

• Bridget McSorley – Her discussion will be on networking and athletics career opportunities for a woman with a family.

• Renee Selberg-Eaton – Her topic focuses on females in a male-dominant setting – how to communicate and make connections to male patients.

For more information, call 540-231-2711 or e-mail Katieatc@vt.edu.

Former Virginia Tech goalkeeping great and assistant coach Chase Harrison has signed a contract with the Philadelphia Union of Major League Soccer.

Harrison returns to the Union after initially signing with the club in September of 2011. Most recently a member of the Harrisburg City Islanders of the USL Professional Division, Harrison led the Islanders to the 2011 USL-Pro final, where they fell in penalty kicks to the Orlando City Lions. During his second season with the club, he registered a total of five shutouts in goal, posting a 1.30 goals against average and 8-6-6 record. As a City Islander in 2009, Harrison earned eight shutouts, finishing with an 8-4-4 record and a 0.81 GAA, the best mark in the league.

During his collegiate career in Blacksburg (2002-2005), Harrison made 79 appearances in net for Tech, establishing three school records: goals against average (1.12), shutouts (24) and minutes (7,181). He also holds a pair of single-season records with eight shutouts in 2004 and 2005 along with clocking a total of 2,062 minutes in 2003. Harrison stands fifth on the school's all-time saves list with 289 for his career.

Harrison, who was selected 26th overall in the third round of the 2006 MLS Supplemental Draft, also served at Tech as a goalkeeper instructor and volunteer assistant coach for three seasons.  During his professional career, he has been called up to the senior squad for Major League Soccer's D.C. United and Columbus Crew, while playing for a number of other USL clubs.

A native of Huntington, W.Va., Harrison graduated from Tech with a degree in consumer studies.

Virginia Tech graduate and former Tech golfer Johnson Wagner has been selected the PGA Tour Player of the Month, presented by Avis, for the month of January.

Wagner won the Sony Open on Jan. 15, marking his third career PGA Tour victory. Also, he finished tied for ninth at the season-opening Hyundai Tournament of Champions and he tied for second at the Humana Challenge on Jan. 22.

He was nominated in January along with Steve Stricker, Mark Wilson and Brandt Snedeker. Wagner won the award in an on-line vote on PGATour.com.

With the award, Avis will present a check for $50,000 to be distributed to charity. Wagner has announced he will donate half the award money to the First Tee Foundation and the other half to the Levine Children’s Hospital in Charlotte, N.C.

Despite not playing in the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, former Tech golfer Johnson Wagner remained in second place on both the PGA Tour’s money list and in the FedEx Cup rankings.

Wagner has played in four tournaments this season, making the cut in all four and winning the Sony Open in Hawaii. In three of those four, he has recorded top-10 finishes. For the season, he has earned $1.586 million, which ranks behind only Kyle Stanley’s $1.793 million on the list. He’s also behind Stanley in FedEx Cup points.

Another former Tech golfer, Brendon de Jonge, ranks 35^th on the money list with $302,400 in earnings and 31^st in the FedEx Cup rankings. De Jonge has one top-10 finish and two top-25 finishes this season.

Both Wagner and de Jonge, who also did not play in the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, are scheduled to play in the Northern Trust Open held at Riviera Country Club near Los Angeles on Feb. 16-19. The $6.6 million purse is one of the largest on the Tour, excluding the majors.