Columnists/Contributors
Columnists
Ken Cross: Ken Cross begins his second year
with College Chalktalk as the columnist for Pac-10
basketball. He began his sports media career as a
reporter for the now defunct Sportsfan Radio network in 1998
and parlayed that into reporter duties for ESPN Radio,
Sporting News Radio and Fox Sports Radio. He also is a
writer for Lindy's Sports Annuals and features a column on
www.lindyssports.com. His other beats include
SEC/ACC football and basketball, the Carolina
Panthers, Carolina Hurricanes and Charlotte Bobcats.
Ray Floriani: A graduate of St. Bonaventure University
and former team manager for the Brown & White, Ray
Floriani has been covering college basketball for 32 years,
including 25 years with Eastern Basketball Magazine. In
addition to his contributions with College
Chalktalk, Floriani is on the Basketball Times staff and
regularly contributes to sites such as College Insider, Rush the
Court, and Villanova by the Numbers. A basketball official
for two decades, Ray resides in Lyndhurst, NJ with his wife
Karen. Ray has also written books, such as "Harrison" (Arcadia 2003) which he
co-authored with his wife Karen, as well as "The National Invitation Tournament" (Arcadia
2006).
George "Roadie" Rodecker: George "Roadie"
Rodecker is a 23 year member of the United States Basketball
Writers Association (U.S.B.W.A.) and has closely observed and
written about the amateur basketball scene world-wide for the past
24 seasons. He's covered Men’s and Women’s NCAA
Regionals, the Sweet 16, & Final Fours, the FIBA World
Championship Games, the Goodwill Games as well as the Portsmouth,
Phoenix, Chicago and Orlando NBA Pre-Draft camps and is a regular
attendee at private Pre-Draft workouts. Roadie's also a
regular at the NBA Draft Lottery and NBA Draft
itself. He's reported on the NCAA Division I men’s
and women’s college basketball scene and specifically the NBA
Draft on behalf of CBS, hoopville.com, collegeinsider.com,
hoopshype.com, SportsLine, basketballtimes.com, Basketball Times
Magazine, and Eastern Basketball Magazine. Roadie has
extensively consulted with many professional basketball leagues
both domestically and abroad regarding player’s professional
abilities. Additionally, he has appeared on NBA-TV and sports
talk radio stations across the US and Canada. He makes his
home in New York State's historic Hudson Valley where he recently
completed a cooking/good living book and enjoys fine cigars, Pink
Floyd, cooking, & bird watching - often all at the same
time!
Joshua Parrott: A native of Kansas, Parrott has a
decade of experience as an award-winning newspaper reporter with
stops in Texas, Tennessee and Louisiana. He spent the past
four years covering Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns and the Sun Belt
Conference. Recently he relocated to the Houston area after
his beautiful wife got her dream job. He is a long-time member of
the Football Writers Association of America and the United States
Basketball Writers Association and has served as a voter for the
Associated Press men's basketball top 25 poll and various
individual collegiate awards, including the Heisman Trophy.
Jim Sumner: Author of three books and numerous articles
on Southern sports. A graduate of Duke University and North
Carolina State University, Sumner lives in Raleigh. He is a
columnist for Go Duke: the Magazine and Inside
Carolina magazine and a frequent contributor to Basketball
Times, ACC Sports Journal, accsports.com, GoDuke.com, the
Wolfpacker magazine, Duke Basketball Report, Maple Street Sports
magazines and other publications. He is a member of the Atlantic
Coast Sports Media Association and the United State Basketball
Writers Association and is a Wooden Award voter.
Doug Tifft: Doug Tifft serves as beat writer
for the Xavier Musketeers men's basketball team for Fox
Sports Ohio and is employed at the Cincinnati
Enquirer. He has also covered professional baseball,
golf and auto racing. Doug grew up a Boston Red Sox fan in
Elmira, New York -- yet somehow lived to talk about it.
Brent Beaird: A writer for Rivals.com, Gatorbait
magazine, Lindyssports.com and the MyClaySun edition of the
Florida Times Union, Beaird will cover the SEC for College
Chalktalk. He can be heard on 1010XL sports radio in Jacksonville,
Florida and is a part of the Comcast High School Game of the
Week in Jacksonville. Brent, who is also Heisman Trophy voter,
can be contacted at brentbeaird@aol.com.
He resides in Orange Park, Florida with his wife and two
children.
David Driver: Free-lance writer based in Maryland and
former sports editor of the daily Baltimore Examiner. He has
covered college basketball on the East Coast for 20 years, with a
focus on the CAA, Patriot League, Atlantic 10, MAAC, NEC, MEAC, ACC
and Big East. Driver also written more than a hundred stories on
Americans playing pro basketball in Europe, and he covered hoops
overseas while living in Hungary for three years. He can be reached
at www.davidsdriver.com, where you can also find his
basketball blog during the season.
Bill Koch: Sports writer for South County Newspapers in
Wakefield, RI. Coverage area includes the University of Rhode
Island men's basketball team. Freelance work has appeared in the
Sporting News and several newspapers throughout the Northeast.
Additional Contributors
Mark McGiveron, Vinny
Pezzimenti and Derrick Dukes, Christian Marge
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