Over the years, this approach has been one of my favorite approaches to a story about a former Cavalier that I’ve never met. While I have heard a number of stories about Erin Gibson over the years, I have never had the privilege of meeting her.

The recap above is what you will find on the Virginia Tech University website in regards to her stellar high school career on The Hill. It is equally important to mention the number of times that the term All-Academic is mentioned during her time as a Hokie.

Gibson graduated 🎓 Carroll County High School as a 6’2 “post player under the guidance of  then and now head Coach Howard Mayo. There is someone who knows how to both play and coach ” Big ” basketball.

For a basketball player to sign to play D1 College Hoops, he or she has to have two skill sets. One, you clearly have to be able to perform on the court, but secondly, you have to be able to hold up in the classroom. Apparently, Erin handled both ends of the spectrum.

Virginia Tech University was still a member of the Big East when our former Lady Cavalier signed, but she did experience playing in the Atlantic Coast Conference during her senior season when the Hokies made their big move.

Gibson played in all 32 games as a freshman, another testament to the caliber of player that relocated to Blacksburg after teaming up with Brandi Cochran ( Mitchell ) and friends while wearing the Cavalier colors.

Her career highs at VT include 24 points versus Radford, 16 rebounds against Furman, and 4 steals in a tilt with Miami. But these are all numbers that can be found on Al Gore’s internet ( which I think might catch on ). If only there was an opportunity to see 👀 the journey through her eyes.

Gibson set the school scoring record that held up for 20+ years, and even then, it took a generational talent like Alyssa Ervin to bump her from the top spot.

Maybe, just maybe, someone in the know could create an opportunity for a conversation, but if not, just taking a step back in time to recognize another Carroll County success story was time well spent !

Multiple trips to the Big Dance 💃!!!

Yesterday afternoon, our four cross-country teams loaded up a bus 🚌, driven by Jon Delp, and headed down to Dodson, North Carolina, to participate in a large meet hosted by West Stokes High School. The River Run Highlight Invitational.

The screenshots above show the results of our 19 runners, and now we begin the process of trying to upgrade the coverage by adding a headshot of the Cavalier runners to their results.

This event was slightly different from others because it offered a 2-mile run in addition to the 5K event.

For a school to qualify as a team, they need to have a minimum of four competing in their category. With the split between the 2 mile and 3 mile events, Carroll County Middle School Boys 👦 were the only group to meet the specs of a team, and that group placed 10th in the large field.

Our ninth Varsity runner, Will Dalton, did not compete yesterday but will be back next time out.

That concludes the high school runners, and here in a bit, we will break down the middle school efforts.

We will continue to work on the photo cropping and the process as we go forward. Also, I didn’t realize that I needed to get one of Sasha again.

Each of these student athletes is committed to a sport that doesn’t receive a great deal of fanfare, and the focus all season will be to frame up their efforts.