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The most successful program on Liberty Mountain deserves its own forum. We give Coach Green and the Lady Flames their props while breaking down their run to the Big Dance once again.
Liberty athletics program presses on
after Falwell’s death
Tuesday, Jun 19, 2007
By Josh Cooley
LYNCHBURG, Va. (BP)--Carey Green still laughs at the memory.
It was March 2006, and the Liberty University women’s basketball team had just won the Big South Conference championship and advanced to the NCAA tournament. Optimism abounded. One year earlier, the Flames had made a Cinderella run to the NCAA’s Sweet 16, where they eventually fell to top-seeded Louisiana State.
Coach Green and his players said goodbye to well-wishers at the airport, including Liberty chancellor Jerry Falwell, and passed through security to catch their flight to San Antonio. Green, Liberty’s eighth-year coach, knew very well the depth of Falwell’s passion for Liberty sports. But never did Green expect what he saw next.
"I invite all the young champions on Liberty Mountain to come up and rub my woolly mustache."
The athletic department is mirroring the overall campus’ recent explosion. Less than two years ago, the school opened an indoor track facility and an ice rink. The volleyball team recently moved into a new practice facility, and many other projects are on the horizon, including a wrestling/volleyball facility for game competition, a golf course and lights at the baseball stadium.
The women’s basketball team won an astounding 10 straight Big South championships before last season. The track team, now a national top-25 squad, sent a school-record five athletes to the recent NCAA Championships in Sacramento, Calif. In football, Lindy’s magazine recently ranked the Flames No. 25 in its preseason I-AA poll. And the Flames Club, the athletic department’s fundraising arm, is on a record-setting pace in 2007, reaching the $100,000 mark quicker than any other year in its 28-year history.
After a program-worst 1-10 season in 2005, he personally fired head coach Ken Karcher and replaced him with Rocco, who boasts a lengthy pro/college résumé. That same year, the school’s board of trustees set a deadline for football to make the jump to Division I-A competition within 10 years.
We set a deadline? I don't remember hearing that before.
and many other projects are on the horizon, including a wrestling/volleyball facility for game competition, a golf course and lights at the baseball stadium
I wasn't aware this was being fast-tracked, either.
JLFJR wrote:Thanks for your input, PA! Very helpful.
BP is Baptist Press. They run quite a few stories on LU athletics as well as that hallowed institution in Alabama that our Floridian friend loves to extoll.