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Bluefield vs. Graham to Be Featured in Great American Rivalry Series
The “Battle of the Bluefields” also slated for National Live Webcast

Bluefield, WV: August 20, 2015 – The Great American Rivalry Series is proud to announce that it will feature the “Battle of the Bluefields” between annual rivals the Bluefield Beavers and the Graham G-Men in the Series’ second weekend of games for 2015. This game will also be the first LIVE Internet Broadcast of the season for the Series. This famed cross border rivalry presented this year by the United States Marines and played on August 28 at Mitchell Stadium on the West Virginia side of the border. Featuring some of the longest running rivalries in high school football, the 2015 Great American Rivalry Series will feature 100 showdowns nationwide. All of these great games come with great football, hard earned sweat and a heavy dose of hometown pride.

Series founder Rick Ford notes that, “With all the traditions of these games including bonfires, pep rallies, and parades, high school football has brought communities together to watch their teams compete in these classic battles for more than a hundred years.”

The Beavers and G-Men will meet in Mitchell Stadium for what is considered the area’s largest sporting event as they vie to be victorious in the historic Battle of the Bluefields. This storied rivalry began in 1911, but the second meeting did not take place until 1928. Since then, the game has been played annually. Many residents recall the more memorable games like the 1948 matchup which ended in a tie. Bluefield leads the series 62-23-2, though the records are much closer in recent years.

“We are excited to partner once again with the Great American Rivalry Series,” said Leroy Pennington, Marketing Specialist for the United States Marine Corps “The elite status of this Series fits perfectly with the Elite Warrior brand of the Marine Corps and we are proud to stand alongside these outstanding young athletes.”

The Bluefield-Graham game was selected as one of the top 100 must-see match ups for the 12th Annual Series and is always a highly anticipated early season game in the Bluefield communities on both sides of the border. The Beavers and the G-Men will both enter the game hungry as they attempt to start the year off on the right track with a big rivalry win. For the second in year in a row, the Series is proud to partner with GigaBeam Networks, a WVVA.net company in presenting this live kick off internet broadcast.

The winning team earns year-long bragging rights and will take home the Great American Rivalry Series Champions trophy, presented by the Marines. The game’s Most Valuable Player will be recognized as part of the Series and an alumnus from each school will be inducted into the 12th class of the Great American Rivalry Series Hall of Fame.

Bluefield College is sponsoring this year’s Scholar Athlete Award with the top student-athlete from each school receiving a $1,000 scholarship to attend Bluefield College. Bluefield College is a private, Christian, liberal arts college developing transformational servant leaders, many of whom are graduates of Bluefield and Graham high schools. With added commitments to Virginia Baptists, academic excellence, lifelong inquiry, the liberal arts, professional studies, service, support and encouragement, Bluefield seeks to graduate servant leaders who understand their life calling and transform the world. The College is touted for its affordability, personal attention to students, award-winning core curriculum, classroom technology, and learning settings on the mission field and in countries abroad.

“We’re fortunate to be a part of the legendary Bluefield-Graham football rivalry as the sponsor of the Scholar Athlete program,” said Bluefield College President David Olive. “It’s a great opportunity for us to support the students from both schools and to share with them the value of the BC experience.”

You can find more information at GreatAmericanRivalry.com or through the Series’ Twitter (@AmericanRivalry), Facebook, YouTube and Instagram accounts. Previews and past results will be posted throughout the season with details of the teams and the history of the rivalries, and after the game. Fans can relive the excitement with photo galleries and game recaps.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Fans can add to the intensity of the rivalry via Twitter, Facebook, Instagram using #GreatAmericanRivalry. The Rivalry can also be found on Pinterest (AmericanRivalry) and YouTube. Fan photos posted with this hashtag may be featured on the Great American Rivalry Series website’s new Fan Photo Gallery, Pinterest Page and promoted via our other social media outlets.

ABOUT THE GREAT AMERICAN RIVALRY SERIES

In 2004, iHigh, Inc. (now known as BrainBox Intelligent Marketing) created the Great American Rivalry Series to celebrate this uniquely American sport and the cultural phenomenon of “Friday Night in America.” In 11 years the Series has gone to more than 500 games in 40 states and continues to shine the spotlight on top high school football rivalries across the nation, where long-standing traditions are valued, expectations are sky-high, and fans are committed.

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VYPE Sports Network (VSN) today announced that RSNSports.com has been added to its growing network of high school sports websites.

RSNSports.com coverage of high school athletics in West Virginia — including streaming of games, rankings, and features — will immediately expand the reach of VSN into an area of the country that has passionately supported sports at the local level.

After a decade of operating as an independent entity the site will move onto the VYPE Sports Network with the current ownership group at RSN Sports remaining intact.

CEO of RSN Sports Dana Farrell said that he and his team were ready to take their products to another level.

“RSN Sports is excited to partner with VYPE to help bring the ultimate sports coverage experience to our fans and viewers,” he said. “This new agreement will deliver a rich library of sports content from across the nation right to the door of RSNsports.com fans.

“At the same time, West Virginia teams and athletes benefit from being spotlighted across American. VYPE is a national media brand that is growing rapidly and was exactly what we were looking for to create a more complete experience for our fans and corporate partners.”

VSN will rely on the RSN Sports team for web-based coverage of players and teams as well as its delivery of online broadcasting from premier events across the state.

This marks the second expansion in the Rust Belt region of the country for VSN, of which more is planned.

Farrell said the ability to operate his site as he always had and be part of a co-op with like-minded publishers met with his expansion plans for his brand.

“Our loyal users can expect us to continue the exciting features and productions that have made us the top statewide all-sports network, all while adding nationally relevant content from VYPE,” Farrell said. “This is a very big deal that has been months in the making and now it is go time.

“Our viewers and corporate partners should get ready for the ultimate interactive sports experience in the weeks and months ahead.”

VSN and its assets were purchased in late-2014 by Fieldhouse Media Group, and the acquisition of RSNSports.com was the next step in the development of the brand.

Currently the VYPE sports network operates websites out of Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Cincinnati, Wichita, Southeast Texas, Oklahoma, Utah, the Pacific Northwest as well as its national offerings of Vype.com and NationalHSFootball.com — three of properties also offer print publications dating back nearly 10 years.

VSN is being developed as a network of publishers, reporters, writers, special contributors and affiliates being committed to capturing the high school sports experience in its purest form through in-depth coverage and real-time content; featuring authentic local views in communities large and small across the country.

The vision shared between VYPE CEO Derek Dusek and Farrell was a common ground that lead to a deal being signed.

“Plain and simple, there is no substitute for passion in the high school sports industry and if you spend time with Dana you know that he has it,” Dusek said. “When you combine talent and experience with that passion you can have a winning product.

“Dana and his team used that combination to move to the top of the West Virginia market and we think that adding that to our team will continue to push VYPE forward.”

About VYPE.com

Based in Houston, Texas, VYPE High School Sports is a multimedia sports brand dedicated to publishing created and curated programming across content ecosystems and technologies.

Publisher of the nation’s largest & most successful high school sports magazines and fastest growing high school sports news websites, VYPE celebrates student-athletes accomplishments while providing valuable resource information for families.

About RSNSports.com

RSN Sports is an independent digital sports media company operated out of Charleston, WV. It is primarily focused on high school athletics and centric on the broadcast of games within the state across multiple sports. With written features and local experts the brand has grown to the No. 1 online destination for WV sports.

The decline in high school football participation has continued, dipping for the sixth time in seven seasons.

According to the recently released data from the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) 37 of 51 states — breaking Washington, D.C. into its own territory — has seen a decline during the time period.

Major boons for Alabama (+9,185), Louisiana (+7,988), Michigan (+5,919), Oklahoma (+3,657), and Texas (+3,105) helped buoy the deflation in the midwest with Ohio (-12,797), Wisconsin (-4,565), Illinois (-4,060), Missouri (-2,342), Minnesota (-2,224), and Iowa (-2,190), among others in the region, losing players at an alarming rate.

The hotbed of Southeastern football has shown remarkable strength with Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi all gaining in participants. While two other states in the region — South Carolina and Tennessee — have only combined to lose 311 players over the seven year period.

Florida, remarkably, has rapidly increased. It was down 5,608 players following the 2012 season but over the last two years it gained over 6,000 to its bottom line, ending as a net positive for this seven-year window.

High school football saw steady gains from 1998 through the 2008 season when the game went from 886,840 athletes to 1,112,303.

It dropped to 1,083,617 kids playing 11-man football last year.

A combination of concussions, pay-for-play, and sport specialization have impacted the perception of the sport and multiple platforms have been launched to combat each issue.

Only time will tell if the sport has seen its bubble burst of if it can recover.

Here is a look at each state since 2008.

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Spending four days at Nike World Headquarters just outside Portland, Ore., immersed in lacrosse with the sport’s superstars sounds like a dream. For 100 high-school players, though, it’s how they spent last week.

Nike invited the top 100 high-school lacrosse players from the Class of 2017 to attend the third installment of The Ride, the brand’s version of a lacrosse clinic and expo. The 50 girls and 50 boys from across the nation, decked out in Nike gear, trained on Nike’s Ronaldo Field with some of the best coaches and mentors in the sport, including:

– Kara Cannizzaro — named the NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player when she led the University of North Carolina women’s lacrosse team to win its first NCAA title in 2013

Nike’s new Huarache V cleat promotes speed, flexibility and power

– Kitty Cullen — current Team STX member the first University of Florida player to score 200 career goals

– Bill O’Brien — current New England Black Wolves player and 2014 Iroquois Nationals Team training camp invitee

– Jeremy, Jerome, Miles and Lyle Thompson — brothers from the Onondaga Nation who played for the 2014 Iroquois Nationals team and now all play professionally

Nike split the players into four teams, two girls’ and two boys’, named for the brand’s lacrosse cleats: Vapor and Huarache. Those four mentors, along with a slew of other respected names in lacrosse, watched and coached the high-school players vying for championship trophies on Friday. The Huaraches swept the Vapors with the girls and boys teams both defeating their Vapor counterparts.

And, thanks to Nike, VYPE was there to watch it all unfold. Here are our four takeaways from The Ride.

1. Grow the Game

Nike recognizes that lacrosse has been the fastest-growing high-school sport nationally in recent years, and Nike Lacrosse is stepping up its game. Between The Ride and the lacrosse athletes the brand signed, Nike seems to have a solid footing in the sport, so expect to see more of its presence on lacrosse fields soon.

The U-19 WNT is sporting Nike’s new unis in Scotland this year

2. Suit Up

Nike Lacrosse presented its array of gear inside what it called “The Crease,” an all-white room filled with mannequins and display cases in the Tiger Woods Center next to Ronaldo Field. There, among other jerseys and cleats, the national-team uniforms Nike designed for the United States and the Iroquois Nationals stood proudly. Currently, the U.S. U-19 Women’s National Team is donning the pictured gear in navy and white for the Federation of International Lacrosse Women’s U-19 World Championship in Scotland.

3. Know Your Roots

The Thompson brothers educated The Ride participants about the Native American roots of lacrosse throughout the week.

“I’m surrounded by the game,” Lyle Thompson, the Onondaga Native who won the Tewaaraton Award in back-to-back years at the University at Albany, said at the media welcome. “When we’re born, in our crib we’re given a traditional wooden stick, just to pass the game on.” The sport originated with the Native American Indians around the western Great Lakes, and they played with wooden sticks and a wooden ball at first.

Nike Lacrosse tapped into this origin in revealing the Huarache V, its newest lacrosse cleat inspired by the Thompson brothers. The cleat features a braided “T” that represents the Onondaga Nation, the brothers’ Native American heritage and the braids that frequently hang from their heads. The cleats will be in stores this fall.

4. Ride it Out

“The ride” is a moment in the game when the offense loses the ball and has to defend the opposing team running it down the field. That moment is about speed and teamwork; it’s what Nike built this whole experience around. The mantra for The Ride was “Fast or Last,” and that message seemed to seep into the players’ heads through coaching and mentorship. The high school players at The Ride played together like veteran teammates despite only beginning to play as units a few days prior. Now all that’s left is to take the lessons they learned in Oregon back to their home programs for their final two high-school seasons.

Nike: The Ride was one big lacrosse extravaganza filled with products and practice meant to showcase Nike’s presence in and dedication to growing the sport.

It did.

Send us your news, pics and updates from summer camps, practice and tournaments.

North South Football as captured by RSN correspondent Mike Goddard of Greenbrier West.

Parkersburg Catholic High cheerleaders ready for practice in the shadow of the cross.

Final practice at R.C. Byrd High football field before new Field Turf is installed for the 2015 season. photo by Joe Brocato ‏(Twitter: @joebrowdtv)

THURSDAY, June 18, 2015 (HealthDay News) — High school football players appear to be twice as likely to have migraines as the average person, which may be due to head injuries and concussions the athletes endure during play, two small new studies suggest.

The first study found that one-third of a group of 74 football players from Louisville, Kentucky-area high schools reported migraine-like symptoms.

“In the general population, anybody out walking the streets in America, there’s a 16.2 percent prevalence of migraine,” said senior researcher Dr. Tad Seifert, director of Norton Healthcare’s Sports Concussion Program in Louisville and head of the National Collegiate Athletic Association Headache Task Force. “We found that almost 34 percent of our players self-reported a history of migraine.”

Even that number is likely understated, said Dr. David Dodick, a concussion expert at the Mayo Clinic and chair of the American Migraine Foundation.

Many players may not realize that they’ve had a concussion or a migraine, Dodick said. If they do, players often don’t report their symptoms to an adult.

“It makes them look like they’re not tough,” he said. “They don’t want to let down their coach. They don’t want to let down their parents. They don’t want to risk their position on the team. So you stick it out.”

In addition, migraine headaches or migraine-like symptoms appear to be the most common symptom suffered by high school athletes following a concussion, the second study found.

The second study included a random sample of 25 teenage athletes treated at the Florida Center for Headache and Sports Neurology. Only 5 percent of players lost consciousness due to a sports-related concussion. But 100 percent experienced a headache either right after the event or during their recovery, the study found.

Four out of five concussed athletes reported that their headache often worsened throughout the day, particularly if they engaged in physical or mental activity, the researchers said.

“We found that everybody we saw had a headache during some part of their sports-related concussion,” said principal investigator Dr. Frank Conidi, main neurologist for the Florida Center. “A majority if not all of the headaches were consistent with migraines.”

The headaches reported shared many symptoms associated with migraines, including sensitivity to light or noise, nausea, vomiting, sleeplessness, distortions of vision and difficulty speaking, the researchers explained.

Research has found that migraines and concussion are interrelated, with one increasing the risk of the other. For example, people with a history of migraine are more likely to suffer a concussion, Seifert said.

Because of that, coaches and team doctors should try their best to identify teenagers who suffer frequent headaches before they take the field, he said.

“That’s an at-risk population that we need to pay a little closer attention to,” Seifert said. “A good, thorough headache history should be a part of any pre-season physical, because they’re at higher risk for concussion and will take longer to recover from a concussion.”

Doctors also need to get better at treating headaches caused by sports-related concussions, Conidi and Dodick said.

“I see a number of these people go on to develop chronic headaches,” Conidi said. “If these people were treated properly initially, they wouldn’t go on to develop chronic headaches.”

Unfortunately, the drugs commonly used to treat and prevent normal migraines don’t always work on migraines that have been caused by a concussion, and research into medications specifically for sports-related headaches has been lacking, Dodick said.

“Post-traumatic headache is a very challenging medical disorder to treat,” Dodick said. “And there hasn’t been a single placebo-controlled study examining any drug used to treat athletes who are experiencing post-traumatic headache. That, in 2015, is incredible.”

Findings from the studies were to be reported Wednesday at the American Headache Society’s annual meeting, in Washington, D.C. Research presented at meetings is considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.

More information

For more about migraine, visit the American Migraine Foundation.

SOURCES: Tad Seifert, M.D., director, Norton Healthcare’s Sports Concussion Program, Louisville, Ky., head, NCAA Headache Task Force; Frank Conidi, D.O., main neurologist, Florida Center for Headache and Sports Neurology; David Dodick, M.D., concussion expert, Mayo Clinic, and chair, American Migraine Foundation; June 17, 2015, presentations, American Headache Society, annual meeting, Washington, D.C.

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WATCH BELOW  – FREE PRESENTATION!

A RSNsportsTV presentation of the Court XIV Basketball Showcase

Presented by RSNsportsTV and by

The region’s top upcoming basketball talent was showcased in this day long set of drills and competition which culminated in a Court XIV All Star Game that was streamed nationwide across the RSNsportsTV and VYPE.com networks.

Tipoff time was Monday, June 15, 2015

Sit back and enjoy as some of the top D-1 prospects from Kentucky, West Virginia and Ohio go head to head in Parkersburg, WV.

More information via…

Courtesy WVillustrated.com

Pat White and Steve Slaton

MOUNTAINEER MADNESS:  FORMER WVU FOOTBALL PLAYERS PAT WHITE & STEVE SLATON TO APPEAR AT AUTOGRAPH SIGNING

Two former WVU Football legends are making their way back to the Mountain State for a special Mountaineer Madness Father’s Day event.  Pat White and Steve Slaton are set to host an autograph signing at Collectibles Etc. in Cross Lanes WV, on Saturday June 20^th.  The event kicks off with a Pat White podcast at noon, followed by the autograph session from 2-4pm.  Pat White was the first QB to win 4 consecutive bowl games including the 2006 Sugar Bowl & 2008 Fiesta Bowl. Slaton and White’s three-year career together ended with 13,433 total yards, and 106 total combined touchdowns.

Collectibles, Etc. will have WVU merchandise on sale to be signed, or you are allowed to bring your own apparel for the signing.  Autograph tickets will be needed for each item you wish to have autographed, and can be purchased through the link below or by calling (304) 776-0020.  The autograph tickets are $25 each.  Fans can also purchase a Platinum VIP ticket which includes two autographs, and an 8×10 photo with White and Slaton that is printed and signed right in the store.

Additionally, if you cannot attend, then call (304) 776-0020 to have your select items signed for you.

For more information, visit the social media sites below:

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/collectiblesetcwv

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/collectiblesman

STORE WEBSITE:  http://shop.collectiblesetcwv.com/products/pat-white-steve-slaton-autograph-signing-west-virginia-mountaineer-football-stars