Sherwood Brown: The Next Step

Sherwood Brown, known by most for leading FGCU Basketball during March Madness, is taking his college experience/education and partnering with friend Peter Cuderman to found Excelitrex Business Solutions.

Excelitrex is a company that helps businesses with anything and everything in order to be successful. The "About Excelitrex" states 'Utilizing the 21st Century, technologically and socially, an all-purpose business solution company with a customer-centric focus was established in 2013'. Their services range from Finance Plan Production to Cloud Computing and anything you can imagine in between.

Cuderman earned his baccalaureate degree and MBA from FGCU along with being student body president and serving on the Board of Trustees.

"I just wanted to come out with a business to basically give back to the community," said Brown, a legal studies major, in an interview with NBC 2 News.

With so many athletes focused only on their sport, its great to see Sherwood not limiting himself. According to ESPN's 30 for 30, 60% of former NBA players are broke within five years of retirement. NBA teams are still giving summer league invitations and Sherwood is also willing to go overseas. Now with Excelitrex, Sherwood's opportunities look endless.

Excelitrex is located at 9128 Place Naples, FL. Visit there website here where you can claim your free shares of the company.

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FGCU Nominated For ESPYS Best Upset

FGCU's win over Georgetown in the "second" round of March Madness was nominated as the ESPYS Best Upset on Thursday. The Eagles are up against: Louisville Women's Basketball over Baylor, Marquez over Pacquiao, and Texas A&M over Alabama. According to Seth Soffian from News Press, Brett Comer, Chase Fieler, Sherwood Brown, Bernard Thompson, Eric McKnight, Eddie Murray, Joey Cantens and Andy Enfield will represent FGCU at the ESPYS. The ESPYS will be held at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles on July 19th at 9:00 p.m eastern. Watch on ESPN or ESPN HD. Vote for the Eagles here. Don't let people forget the legacy that FGCU has established.

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Chris Sale With Another Phenomenal Outing

Chris Sale started on the mound on Tuesday for the White Sox, who were kicking off an inter-league series with the Mets. Through eight innings of work Sale struck out thirteen batters while only walking two. The FGCU Baseball Alum gave up only three earned runs but in the top of the ninth (with Addison Reed in) the Mets tied it up thanks to infield confusion. In the bottom half of the inning Alexei Ramirez knocked one down the third baseline to give the Sox the W. Sale ended up with a no decision but had another phenomenal outing that adds to his impressive season stats. (2.69 ERA, .97 WHIP) His next scheduled start is Sunday June 30th up against the Cleveland Indians.
Box Score 
Video Highlights

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Previewing the Nebraska Game

FGCU @ Nebraska
Friday November 8th (Time TBA)
Venue: Pinnacle Bank Arena [15,000 seating capacity]
TV: Big Ten Network

FGCU (A-Sun)
Record: 26-11 (13-5)
Tournament: Sweet Sixteen
Coach: Joe Dooley

Nebraska (Big Ten)
Record: 15-18 (5-13)
Tournament: N/A
Coach: Tim Miles

Notes
•Huskers will open Pinnacle Bank Arena with women's basketball vs. UCLA (day) and men's basketball vs FGCU (night)
•Pinnacle Bank Arena is a $179 million facility, projected to be completed in August. Compared to Alico Arena ($16 million)
•Only other meeting between these two schools ended in a 51-50 Husker victory in December of 2011
•FGCU 0-4 all time against Big Ten teams

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Road To the NBA With Sherwood Brown Episode 2

I recently talked with Sherwood Brown about his workouts. Be sure to thank him for stopping by.

"The Houston, Memphis and Portland workouts, they were 3 on 3, the workouts were usually about an hour long. At the beginning we did a little bit of drills to get warmed up. Before that actually we do measurements, vert test, wingspan, height, weight, body mass index. After the drills, the rest of the time is 3 on 3 competitive.

In all the workouts I've had, I've felt I've had something to prove just because people haven't really had the chance to watch me as much as they watched everyone else. The only time people watched me in the tournament but they kinda want to make sure I'm a consistent player.
Today with the Mavericks it was 2 on 2 and everyone was a guard. We did basically the same thing but we did a little one on one today.

[On which workout he felt most confident on] I felt really confident with the one today with the Mavericks, it was probably the one I felt most confident about.

[On back to back workouts] I don't feel its taking that much of a toll on my body, like I said before the workouts or only a hour long so you just have to go hard for an hour and you have the rest of the day to rest.

Going to Orlando to workout is definitely going to be something a little different cause every kid that plays basketball their dream is to play professional basketball for their hometown so playing for my hometown would be great, I would love the opportunity to play for them but to be honest I would love the opportunity to play for anyone, whoever gives me the chance, I would be much grateful."

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Dunks Of the Day: APR, Joe Dooley Camp

Academic Progress Rates
       The NCAA released Academic Progress Rates yesterday and FGCU passed in all 14 sports. These are all four year average numbers out of 1000. A minimum of 900 is required to avoid penalties.

Men's Basketball: 938
Baseball: 958
Men's Cross Country: 931
Men's Golf: 955
Men's Soccer: 966
Men's Tennis: 976
Softball: 976
Women's Basketball: 960
Women's Cross Country: 973
Women's Golf: 1000
Women's Soccer: 971
Women's Swim/Dive: 990
Women's Tennis: 980
Women's Volleyball: 960


Joe Dooley Camp
       FGCU is currently holding a Joe Dooley Basketball Camp at Alico Arena for boys grade 3-12. Brett Comer and the rest of the crew are teaching kids skills to improve their game. "Maybe we'll luck out and one or two of them will be good enough to play for us," Dooley said. (via http://www.naplesnews.com/videos/detail/fgcu-youth-basketball-camp/) Sherwood Brown is also back on campus to assist at Alico. While this ends tomorrow on the 13th, FGCU will also be hosting a Dunk City Team Camp from June 14th-16th.

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MLB Draft Recap With Harrison Cooney Interview

Photo courtesy of Linwood Ferguson

 The 2013 MLB Draft ended with six Eagles being selected. Led by Harrison Cooney, the 187th pick, FGCU Baseball had a great representation at this year's draft, tying the previous record (6) of FGCU players taken in one draft 2006.

"It was such a relief...once my name got called it was pretty awesome. It was a pretty surreal moment in my life," said Harrison Cooney.
The first five FGCU players drafted were all juniors which shows how great of a job the Eagles staff does at developing their players.

"The work ethic is definitely one of the main things, getting up at 6:00 a.m every morning in the fall, really long practices...it really simulates what it is it like in pro ball," Cooney said.

This hard work put in by the FGCU Baseball squad is shown not only in the draft but by the sweep of Florida and a late season ten game winning streak.

It sounds familiar but FGCU's athletic success will have a long lasting impact.

"Its awesome, its definitely going to help with recruiting down the road.  Also, people who cover college baseball are going to see how many players are being drafted from FGCU," Cooney said.

Eagles already in the pros are White Sox' ace Chris Sale and the Cubs' Casey Coleman. As every baseball players' dream is to make it the big leagues, this helps out FGCU recruitment immensely.

The FGCU recruiting class already features great players such as Mario Leon and Sterling Koerner but future recruiting for Dave Tollett will be made a lot easier because of this years draft. Tollett is the founder of FGCU Baseball and has put tremendous amounts of working into building this program from the ground up and everyone from player to coaches to fans has reaped the rewards.

FGCU Players Drafted:
Round 6 Pick 21 (187th Overall): Harrison Cooney [Angels]
Round 7 Pick 26 (222th Overall): Brandon Bednar [Giants]
Round 8 Pick 9 (236 Overall): Rick Knapp [Mets]
Round 11 Pick 3 (319th Overall): Sean Dwyer [Rockies]
Round 16 Pick 4 (470th Overall): Brandon Bixler [Twins]
Round 21 Pick 9 (625th Overall): Mike Reeves [Blue Jays]

"Seeing these guys get a chance to live their dream, its pretty awesome," Cooney said.

*Kyle Buchanan was selected 1214st (Yankees) but did not play for FGCU due to injury.

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Offseason Guide: Baseball

Photo courtesy of Linwood Ferguson

The Eagles began the season well, beating St. Johns twice and sweeping Florida in Gainesville. Then during a 10 game home stand, FGCU only lost twice (Manhattan and Ave Maria). After going 7-10 in April, FGCU picked it up and lost only two games in the month of May. Between April and May, FGCU, led by Coach Tollett, went on a 10 game winning streak. However the season came to a rainy end in DeLand where the Eagles fell to Kennesaw State and Lipscomb.
The A-Sun Championship was believed to be their only chance to make it to the NCAA Tournament. The Eagles were not selected for a regional and will have to look ahead to next year. Many FGCU players are projected to be selected in the upcoming MLB Draft (June 6th-8th) including Dwyer, Cooney, Bednar, Knapp, Reeves, Bixler, Beisner, and Brown. Great article about FGCU's great ability to produce draft ready players.

While FGCU might be losing players to the draft, they are also bringing a talented 2013 recruiting class including pitchers Jake Hansen and Mario Leon. Blake Berger, Kalam Daniel, both catchers, are future Eagles as well. Infielders Chase Turner and Sterling Koerner are committed. Rounding out the class is outfielder Gage Morey.

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Dooley Brings In Rice Transfer Julian DeBose

Just over a month into his time here at FGCU, Joe Dooley has brought in two transfers, Marc Eddy-Norelia (Tulane) and now Julian DeBose (Rice). DeBose is a versatile guard from Washington D.C who was All Metropolitan his senior year while averaging 17.5 points, 6 rebounds and 2 blocks at St. John High. His first year at Rice he averaged 3.7 points and 1.5 rebounds and improved next year to 10.4 points and 4.3 rebounds. With his athleticism and length, DeBose has the ability to pull down boards and block some shots. At 6'4", FGCU adds another guard who has the ability to get up high and thrown down some intense dunks. He will have two years of eligibility here in Dunk City after sitting out next year.

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