Friday, October 31, 2008

Flashback: Kiara Buford profile

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Here's an article I wrote for my news reporting class last year on Kiara Buford, before she started her senior season at Central. How time flies...

The high school girls basketball season has yet to start, but the University of Minnesota is already banking on a top player who has yet to complete her senior year.


Kiara Buford, 18, has played in the state tournament every year for Central High School in St. Paul and can play at the point guard, shooting guard and post positions. She was a contributing factor for last year’s Central girls basketball team that won the class AAAA state championship while setting an all-time record for most wins in a single season, finishing with a 32-0 record.

While Buford averaged only 12.3 points per game last season, down from 20.8 points per game in her sophomore season, people close to her said her skills outweigh the numbers.


“She can be as good as any player in the country at her position,” said Willie Taylor, head coach of the Central girls basketball team.


“She can dribble down the court and score. She’s also really good at being part of a team,” said Megan Howard, Buford’s teammate since eighth grade.


The University of Minnesota appears to agree with those remarks. Buford signed her letter of intent to play for the women’s basketball team Wednesday and verbally committed to play as a Golden Gopher her junior year.


“It’s close to home and I can play for the people that I grew up playing for,” Buford said.

Buford is also excited that she will don the maroon and gold with former Central teammate Ashley Ellis-Milan, as Buford said both she and Ellis-Milan are good friends.

Buford will be the third Central graduate in the school’s history to play at Minnesota, a list that features Monica Brown and Ellis-Milan.


Taylor is thrilled that Buford will be playing close to her high school.


“I can tell people ‘You know what, look at all the Central players at the U,’” Taylor said.


Her parents and extended relatives are also happy; they come to watch Buford play almost every game.

“She’s always been a leader. Just to see her grow so much in that role and really work hard to push herself is amazing, both on the court and academically,” said Tracy Buford, her mother.

Tracy can speak from more than a parent’s perspective; she played high school basketball at Highland Park Senior High School in St. Paul and continued at Grand View College in Des Moines, Iowa.


“Everything that she has been able to accomplish just gives me so much pride to watch her play,” Tracy Buford said.


As Buford continues to cement her status as one of Minnesota’s top high school players, she said that basketball has taught her other things that she can apply to her life outside the sport.


Beyond motivation for school, Buford said that basketball has helped her with communication and her social interaction with people outside the Central basketball team, assets that prove valuable when she is working at Old Country Buffet in Roseville.


Buford has two more reasons to serve as motivation, a 12-year-old brother and a 7-year-old sister. Tracy Buford said both of Buford’s siblings watch everything that she does.


“(Buford) is very mature for her age and she’s very responsible,” Tracy Buford said, “She has done a great job teaching them how hard she’s had to work to get to where she is,”


That hard work paid off on the court throughout last season.


Central’s roster featured four high-caliber players who transferred from other St. Paul schools, adding talent to a team that included Buford and Howard, who were not transfer students. With all that talent, Central consistently won by large margins, including an 18-point victory in the state championship game. Central’s dominance sparked criticism that the team did not win the state title legitimately.


Their undefeated season was also speculated to be the trigger in a rule enacted by the Minnesota State High School League in March, making transfer students ineligible to participate in any league-sanctioned varsity activities for one year.


The media scrutiny helped bring the team together and had little impact on the team’s effort to win a state title.


“You got to play as a team and know what it takes to win,” Buford said about her experience from the tournament.


“The media are going to say stuff, but you can’t really listen to them,” Howard said.


As Buford gears for her senior season and a run for back-to-back state championships, Taylor said that she will have to take a role as a player and coach with a bench that is not as deep as last season.


Buford hopes to continue her winning ways at Central as preparation for her collegiate career.


“My goals are to make it back to the state tournament and take a leadership role, since I’m a senior,” she said.


Leader or not, Buford will have plenty of fans supporting her next year.


“I’ll definitely be cheering her on,” Howard said.


Should Central qualify for the state tournament this season, Buford, along with Howard and Cyonna West, would become the only Central players to play in the state tournament in all four years of high school.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

"All Shook Up"

This article was written for an assignment in my magazine writing class. However, since I feel stories shouldn't go to waste, I will post the graded versions of this and a profile of Theairra Taylor to the site. The articles will appear in a different font than my regular posts.

Photo: Boler suited up during her playing days at Bloomington-Kennedy.

Shakila Boler is on the fast track to help her new team do big things this year, but her team will have to wait a while.

Shakila Boler is hoping to make history this season, but it has nothing to do with performance yet.

The Minneapolis Roosevelt guard tore her ACL and MCL this summer, an injury that normally forces players to sit out a year to heal. Boler is going through an intense rehab program to buck that trend.

"Doctors are saying that she will be ready in January to start playing," says coach Tim Williams. "She's way ahead of schedule."

Boler averaged 16.2 points per game last year with former school Bloomington-Kennedy. Although she will miss the first half of this season, Boler will add experience and shooting skills to a strengthening Roosevelt team.

With or without her, Williams says his team is ready to take on the toughest foe in the Minneapolis City Conference.

"We will be a great team and compete for the conference championship with South," he says.

When Boler returns to the court, Williams will look to shake up South's dominance in the conference and bring his team to the class AA state tournament, something he has never done as coach.

"With her, we will have four solid guards that could start on any team all on one team, and that means serious matchup problems for opponents," Williams says.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Additional graphics

Here are more of the redesigned graphics for the upcoming season. One feature I hope to add this year is an in-game box score that better details who is providing the points for both teams, versus the leading scorers, where the top three are listed. If I can get a statistician, I'd like to add additional information on screen.



Graphics preview

The snapshots below are the new graphics I will use for the 2008-09 season. I took the graphics shown on this year's Olympics (Not NBC's red and gold design) and modified a few things. To compare them with last year's graphics package, visit my YouTube page where every game I televised from the 2007-08 season can be found. I'll show the others later, but feel free to comment.





Monday, October 20, 2008

Basketball coming soon!

I wish there was more activity to report on this blog, but I have to keep up with my schoolwork too. It's business as usual there; I'm not struggling in any classes, although I feel I may come up short again of making the dean's list. The key, as always, is to turn in your assignments on time. I've reported on a number of interesting topics in my journalism classes. I also have completed two sports stories for my magazine writing class and will post them on my Blogspot page since they won't be published in any written magazine. I will also post an assignment from last year to keep folks interested until the start of the new basketball season.

Speaking of basketball, I will return as a commentator starting with the Pat Paterson tournament at Hamline University during Thanksgiving break. Right now, I plan to broadcast a doubleheader with a potential Central/Centennial and South/Hopkins match-up for November 29th. Other tentative games include Cretin-Derham Hall/Central on December 16th. Many teams haven't submitted their schedules yet, so it's still a wait-and-see game.

I redesigned the graphics and will show you a preview of what they will look like on my next post. If you're not familiar to my broadcasts, I follow the "flex-pick" model NBC uses for Sunday Night Football; I pick games featuring top teams in Minneapolis and St. Paul or teams relatively close to each other on paper. In other words, you won't see a Central/Harding or a South/Henry type game.

In the meantime, you can vote in my "fun" poll before things get serious soon. I'll provide updates as tipoff draws closer.

Programs available for DVD purchase

Autism Part 1 DVD cover

Autism: The Wall That Knows No Limits - Award-winning documentary series providing insights on autism rarely seen in contemporary media. Produced by someone on the spectrum, this series is a wealth of information for anyone seeking to learn about autism.
$15 for one episode, $50 for the complete series (4 episodes)

What Are You DVD cover

What Are You? A Dialogue on Mixed Race - Originally a school assignment, this one-hour documentary explores a population that existed for many years but didn't get much focus until recently. This program examines how a small but growing segment of the population could shift racial and cultural identity. Screened at the 2009 Mixed Roots Film and Literary Festival and will be screened at the inaugural Critical Mixed Race Studies conference at DePaul University. $15

Vices to Verses promo

From Vices to Verses: Featuring Voices Merging - From Vices to Verses: A New Era of Hip Hop and Action is a biannual conference held at the University of Minnesota. The goal is to promote the culture and history of hip-hop, which is often lost in the corporate mainstream representation. In this program, you'll see how the Voices Merging student group absorbed what they witnessed and how their experience will transform them as a group and as individuals. DVD copies come with 14 minutes of bonus footage not seen online or on TV. $15

Machine 2010 highlight promo

Minnesota Machine: 2010 - Geared for Greatness - Join the professional women's football team in their historic 2nd season. Despite several injuries that depleted the roster, the Machine finished 2010 with a 6-3 record and their first division title in franchise history, edging the Iowa Thunder in the Midwest Division of the American Conference. This highlight reel includes clips from the 2010 season and their interview on the cable television show Rollin' and Tumblin' - $15

Photobucket

Silhouettes by RZI Couture - The inaugural breast cancer benefit fashion premiere took place in St. Paul and was met with a fabulous response. All the models were breast cancer survivors or relatives of someone affected by breast cancer and all the clothing was designed by Rosalyn Smaller, owner of RZI Couture and currently fighting breast cancer herself. The TV version features testimonials from the models and co-host Miss Georgia of KMOJ. $10 of every purchase will be donated to RZI Couture to help the breast cancer fight! $15