The Morning Stake | 2019.06.14

Leading Off

Explaining Texas Tech’s Success to People in Waco. This is actually pretty terrific, WacoTribune’s Chad Conine comes from a family of Red Raiders and spends this entire article explaining why Texas Tech has been so successful in athletics recently. Imagine if the shoe were on the other foot and Don Williams (or any other columnist, it doesn’t matter who it is) Baylor-splained why Baylor is so great and published that in Lubbock. There would be protests and boycotts. This article is completely favorable to Texas Tech. No punches are pulled and no rugs will be pulled out from you. Just a good, ol’ fashioned article about how great Texas Tech is and is being published in the Waco Tribune.

Texas Tech Track and Field

Oduduru Turns Pro. This is so great and I’m so happy for sprinter Divine Oduduru, who announced that he would forego his senior year and become a professional:

“I want to say thank you to Texas Tech University for believing in me and giving me the opportunity to come study here,” Divine Oduduru said. “I want to thank all of my teammates — from the sprinters to the jumpers to the throwers — for always believing in me and giving me so much support. I never felt like I was not at home here.

“It has been so great being here at Tech, and now I’ve made up my mind that I want to go pursue my career. I’ll always be proud to say I am a Red Raider and a Tech student. Wherever I go to, I will be proud to say that.”

Oduduru has said that he wants to bring his family in Nigeria out of poverty, and not to dismiss being in poverty here, being in poverty in a third-world country can have a completely different definition that what we might consider poverty. So I hope Oduduru is able to accomplish his goals and make his wildest dreams come true. Congrats and Godspeed!

Texas Tech Golf

Lady Raider Basketball

Texas Tech Baseball

College World Series. So I have a bit of a dilema in that I know that the College World Series does not begin until tomorrow, but I’ve always been posting the same series or regional thread on Friday at around noon and I hate to be the one that changes anything. So, today around noon, I get going.

More All-American Status. More honors, this time via D1Baseball.

Texas Tech Basketball

Drive and Dish.

NCAA Crosshairs. YahooSports’ Pat Forde and Pete Thamel wonder what schools will one of the six programs who will receive an NCAA notice of allegation:

Those expected to be in the crosshairs and face the most significant penalties include: Louisville, North Carolina State, Kansas, Arizona, LSU, USC, Oklahoma State, South Carolina and Auburn. TCU, Creighton and Clemson all also had assistant coaches implicated in the scandal and could face sanctions.

Texas Tech Football

Lynn to Open School in Tanzania. OC Register’s Gilbert Manzano writes about Los Angeles Charges head coach Anthony Lynn will travel to Tanzania between now and the beginning of training camp to open up a school:

Lynn and his Lynn Family Foundation, which he and his wife, Stacey Bell Lynn, launched earlier this year, partnered with nonprofit organization Common Threadz to build a school in Tanzania. Anthony Lynn said the school opens on June 29, and he plans to be there for eight days.

“There was a certain place in Tanzania where they didn’t have schools and teenagers were going into the military and young ladies were getting hauled off into sex (trafficking),” Lynn said. “We thought that we needed education there. We need a school there. This organization (Common Threadz) worked toward getting a school there. I helped a little bit. We’re going to go open it up.”

The school will be a K-7th grade, but the goal is to expand to 12th grade, Lynn said.

To raise funds for the school, Lynn will host a two-day golf outing in Grapevine, Texas, with a reception on June 23, and a tournament at Cowboys Golf Club the following day.

“There ain’t enough practice time in the world for me to get ready for that,” Lynn jokingly said about his golf skills. “Hopefully I don’t embarrass myself too bad.”

Because I am here for you, here is a link to CommonThreadz and a link to the Lynn Family Foundation where you can sign up as part of that golf tournament.

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