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GoMocs
8/12/2008, 08:19 AM
I was stopping by because of our upcoming football game with you guys, but thought I would mention that Chris Early is now at Chattanooga. He will be eligibile in early December and is looking good. He will get some minutes as a freshman.

Mad Dog Madsen
8/12/2008, 10:05 AM
O yeah I remember this guy. Why exactly was he dismissed in the first place?

stoopified
8/14/2008, 04:23 PM
O yeah I remember this guy. Why exactly was he dismissed in the first place?I dunno BUT Capel dropped the hammer on him quick.I don't even think school had started yet.I'm thinking it was early(pardon the pun )in summer workouts.

GoMocs
8/18/2008, 09:24 AM
I dunno BUT Capel dropped the hammer on him quick.I don't even think school had started yet.I'm thinking it was early(pardon the pun )in summer workouts.

I have read a couple different versions, but something about trying to use a fake id to get into a club.

badger
8/18/2008, 09:45 AM
I think OU drops the hammer on first sign of problems nowadays.

Rap video on Youtube? Hammer. Gamble at Riverwind Casino? Hammer. Take a tank of gas, an expensive car, or the dealership's money that the car came from? Hammer, return the d@mn car or else you get hammered, hammer.

Rhino
8/18/2008, 11:03 AM
Early had numerous chances. The fake ID was just the last straw.

Just like Jarboe and the video.

GoMocs
8/19/2008, 12:20 AM
from today's Chattanooga newspaper:

Wiedmer: Mocs’ Early right on time in diplomacy


By: Mark Wiedmer
(Contact)
Within the Chattanooga sports community, Ron Bishop is perhaps best known as the former wildly successful head basketball coach at Tennessee Temple University.

Within the national hoops community, Bishop is just as well known as the director of SCORE International, which puts together basketball teams that witness to the power of Jesus Christ during summer exhibition tours across the globe.

Bishop is also a minister, which means he is almost always a man of peace and calm and understanding. At least he was until he saw an opposing player nearly knock University of Tennessee at Chattanooga forward Chris Early to the floor during a recent SCORE trip to Costa Rica.

“Chris is in a game playing in the low post,” Bishop said of the 6-foot-8, 225-pound redshirt freshman. “He pivots a couple of times, elbows high and wide, just the way you teach it. But on the pivot he hits a guy in the chest with his elbow and the whistle blows.”

Turns out the whistle wasn’t the only thing to blow. The player Early elbowed charged him and pushed him hard.

“He pushed Chris so hard,” Bishop related, “that Chris backpedaled three or four steps from the impact. I thought we were going to have an international incident. I thought it was going to be Charles Barkley versus Angola.

“I’m a minister, and this is a Christian outreach tour, but I wouldn’t have said a word if Chris had punched the guy right in the face. If he’d decked him, I’d have given him a high-five.”

The rap on Early when he arrived at UTC last winter after bitterly parting ways with Oklahoma was that he was a kid capable of finding trouble. So it would have surprised almost no one if Early had squared off against the Costa Rican.

Not that anyone openly criticized Mocs coach John Shulman’s decision to take the Huntington, W.Va., native. After all, Early is big enough to bang inside, polished enough to shoot the 3-pointer outside and reportedly savvy enough to know when each skill is needed.

Programs such as UTC almost can’t afford not to take a chance on talent like that.

But Shulman also knew something last winter that most Mocs fans didn’t. When the coach brought Early to Chattanooga for a visit, 2-year-old John Carter Shulman asked the player to accompany him to the family’s basement for a game. Once there, the youngster apparently pelted Early with small plastic balls.

When the player emerged from basement a few minutes later, he smiled wide and said, “Coach, your son ambushed me.”

Said Shulman on Monday during his annual golf fundraising outing at Lookout Mountain Golf Club: “I knew then that Chris was a kid I wanted on my team.”

Yet Early was on Bishop’s team this summer, and the Costa Rican professional players wanted him off their court.

So what happened? Did Early punch his opponent in the face? Did he yell or curse or make obscene gestures? Did he start an international incident while slapping high-fives with Bishop?

“Chris got right up in the player’s face,” Bishop said, momentarily building the suspense. “Then he smiled, turned around and walked away. I’ve never been prouder of a player. I couldn’t wait to text John and tell him what happened. John texted me right back and told me to tell Chris he was proud of him, too.”

Bishop insists that both Early and true freshman shooting guard Ricky Taylor of Brownsville, Tenn., will make UTC fans proud on the court all season. He points to the night Taylor hit 10 of 12 3-pointers in a game, as well as the night Early totaled 29 points and 15 rebounds.

“Chris is a a unique player and person who is going to create some real matchup problems for somebody,” Bishop said. “And Ricky Taylor is going to be a tremendous offensive player.”

Early didn’t say much about the basketball in Costa Rica. He said more about the country, noting, “It was an eye-opener. So many of their people have so little. They live in tin huts. It makes you realize how good we have it here.”

As for that unfortunate rep he brought with him from Oklahoma, Early said, “I can’t wait to get that monkey off my back.”

If his ability to avoid an international incident is any indication, it sounds like he already has.

okienole3
8/24/2008, 03:06 PM
Who was gambling at riverwind?