8/4/2019 The Collegian - Sports - Aug. 21, 2011

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CHRIS BILS

Sports Editor

  After he left Ashland Uni-

versity, graduate and star wide

receiver Joe Horn had one goal

in mind: to make it to the Na-

tional Football League. When

the NFL Draft came and went 

in April, Horn was left without a team and the lockout meant 

that it was uncertain when he

ould get his chance.

The hardest part about the

lockout, according to Horn,

as finding a place to live and

ork out. Fortunately, Mission

Athletic Performance Group in

Cincinnati (where he had been

training since leaving school last 

inter) allowed him to keep us-

ing their facilities throughout 

the summer. Horn lived with

friends and worked at an ice

cream store to pay for gas and

food.

The lockout ended on July 

25, and Horn got his chance

the next day. The Indianapolis

Colts, the team who had shown

the most interest in the Ashland

star on draft day, called Horn’s

agent the day that teams were

allowed to start contacting rook-

ie free agents. He immediately 

agreed to join the team.

Since then, he has been in

Colts training camp at Ander-

son University in Anderson,

ndiana.

“It’s been fun,” Horn

said. “It’s everything I’ve ever

dreamed of. My main goal isn’t 

ust to make it this far, I want to

make the team. But for right now,

being a part of the Colts organiza-

tion and going out and practicing in front of eight or ten thousand

people is a ton of fun.”

During his career at Ashland,

Horn had 170 catches for 2,681

 yards and 28 touchdowns, the last 

two of which are school records.

 Ashland head coach Lee Ow-

ens remembers Horn as much for

his character off the field as his ac-

complishments on it.

“He was a leader on campus,

he was an excellent student and

he was a two-sport athlete,” Ow-

ens said. “We’re looking for that 

athlete that can be that all-around,

on and off the field representative

of our football program and that’s

 what Joe was.”

Horn counts his favorite mem-

ory as the school’s first playoff win

over Minnesota State-Mankato in

2008, while Owens remembers

fondly one of his touchdown cel-

ebrations.

“Now, I wasn’t, at the time,

 very happy with him and I let him

know that, because of the pen-

alty,” Owens said, rememberin

Horn’s “Lambeau leap” after

score against Lake Erie last sea-

son. “But as I go back and watc

the film, it’s comical because, as he

makes the leap, the fans along the

CHRIS BILS

Sports Editor

Former Canton South High

School volleyball star Tierra 

Moore is suing Ashland Universi-

ty for damages exceeding $25,000

on the grounds that the school

unfairly pulled her scholarship

earlier this year.

Moore, who was named Most 

  Valuable Player of The North-

eastern Buckeye Conference last 

season, signed a national letter

of intent in November to play at 

 Ashland and accepted $30,000 in

athletic and academic aid.

Later that month, Ashland an-

nounced that head coach Connie

Surowicz would not be returning 

to the team in 2011. In Decem-

ber, Cassandra Dixon was named

as Surowicz’s successor. The new 

coach contacted Moore, and ev-

erything looked like it was in or-

der for her to attend Ashland in

the fall.

 A little less than two months

later, an email from Coach Dixon

ruined Moore’s Groundhog Day.

The email said that Ashland

did not have a copy of the letter

of intent that Moore had signed

three months earlier. Dixon told

Moore that the letter may havebeen lost during the coaching 

change and that the school would

have to draw up a new one, re-

gardless of whether or not she

had already turned one in to the

school.

One month later, on March

3, Moore received another email,

this one telling her that she no

longer had a scholarship to attend

 Ashland and play volleyball.

Canton South Athletic Direc-

tor Rick Campbell learned of the

situation at a banquet from one

of the school’s wrestlers, who was

also planning to attend Ashland

in the fall. Campbell immediately 

  went to the phone in an effort 

to resolve the situation and get 

Moore’s scholarship back.

His first call was to Ashland’s

  Athletic Director, Bill Goldring.

He said that Goldring told him

that Tierra had not been commu-

nicating with Ashland and had not 

met the new coach.

 According to Campbell, these

accusations are false. If anything,

he said, it was the other way 

around.

“Come on now. It would take

one call to me, it would take one

call to the coach,” Campbell said.

“And he tried to tell me that they 

  were trying to go through her

  JO (Junior Olympics) volleyball

coach. Come on, the girl’s in high

school every day. I don’t buy it,

it’s all a lie. I’m very disappoint-

ed.”

Campbell also found theschool’s accusations that they had

never received a letter of intent 

hard to believe. He said that, in an

email sent in November, former

coach Surowicz said that every-

thing had gone through and had

been forwarded to Goldring.

  According to Campbell, one

of the emails from Coach Dixo

says that Goldring told her they 

had never received the letter, they 

 would have to redo it, and that the

new offer would be for less mon-

ey that the old one.

Campbell’s opinion is that the

new coach did not want Moore

on the team because she did no

think she was good enough.

“What they did, they canno

do,” he said. “This girl did noth-

ing wrong, nothing. I truly believe

that it was just because this ne

coach came in, she didn’t think

maybe she wanted Tierra o

maybe she had somebody else,

so this was her way of forcing he

out. And I think it’s done at othe

schools.”

Neither Dixon nor Goldrin

 were available for comment due

to the ongoing legal case.

Campbell even went as far as

contacting the GLIAC confer-

ence office.

He says there is a process fo

handling letters of intent, a pro-

cess that Ashland did not follow.

The school has a certain amoun

of time, once they get the signed

letters, to send them to the con-

ference office to be validated.This is to protect the university,

so that players cannot sign else-

 where once their scholarships are

 validated.

Berkshire wins

gold!

Ashland’s kicker-punter

competed at the IFAF World

Championship in Austria D2

INSIDE >>

CHRIS BILSSports Editor

1:04.69; that is the 100 meter

breaststroke cut time for the Unit-

ed States Olympic Swimming Tri-

als. It is also the time that Ashland junior swimmer Tyler Remmel has

had written on his dry-erase board

for over five years, almost as long 

as he has been swimming com-

petitively. Other goals came and

 went, being erased from the

board as soon as they were

accomplished.

“That was my high and

lofty goal,” Remmel said.

“The goal that I was never

going to get to, but I was

always going to strive to get 

there and just hope that 

someday I got there.”

This summer, for the

first time, Remmel’s lofti-

est goal was within reach.

More importantly, the sum-mer was setting up perfectly 

for him to go after the cut.

  A journalism and sport 

communication major,

Remmel landed an intern-

ship with Swimming World

Magazine. Sending an article to themagazine weekly to be published

online, Remmel was able to work 

on his own time, which meant that 

he had more time to train than in

summers past. He had his sights set 

on making the cut at one meet in

particular, the Iowa City Sectionals.

“All summer, I had that pegged

as the meet that I was going to try to

qualify at,” he said.

Unfortunately, Remmel missed

the cut by .30 of a second at Iowa 

City.

“When I missed it at Iowa City,

I was kind of shocked because I

had just assumed that I would get 

it,” he said.

Not only did Remmel not make

the cut, but an upcoming Frenchclass meant that swimming was go-

ing to have to take a back seat for

a little while. The class started the

  week after Iowa City, which was

SUBMITTED

Tyler Remmel (middle) competes at the NCAA Division II Swimming Championships in March. Remmel will be competing at 

the U.S. Olympic Trials next summer.

MOORE

Horn signs NFL contract, in camp with Indianapolis

Former Ashland wide receiver competing for a spot on roster 

Remmel makes Trials cut

Former

high school

volleyball star

sues Ashland

see VOLLEYBALL, p. D4see REMMEL, p. D4

Sunday,

21 August 2011

section

D

BECOME A FAN, D2

Ashland’s athletes deserve your support.

PITCHER GOES PRO, D2

 Ashland’s Ajay Meyer inks free agent contract with Toronto.

EAGLES FOCUSED HEADING INTO 2011, D3

Football team hopes to lift trophy at end of season.

SUBMITTEDSUBMITTED

Left: Joe Horn catches a pass at Indianapolis Colts’ training camp at Anderson University in Indiana.

Right: Horn throws a pass as he tries to impress the coaches who will decide whether or not he plays on Sundays this fall.

see HORN, p. D4