Athletics

Veteran ACC assistant football coach Jason Swepson has been named Elon's new head football coach. The announcement came at a Jan. 10 news conference in Alumni Gym, attended by more than 300 Phoenix fans and members of the football team.

Elon sophomore Chris Thomas was named the 2010 Southern Conference Men’s Soccer Player of the Year and six Phoenix players earned all-conference honors.

Deborah A. Yow-Bowden ’74, a member of the Elon University Board of Trustees and one of the nation’s most respected figures in collegiate sports, has been named the new director of athletics at North Carolina State University. She becomes the first woman in N.C. State’s history to head the Wolfpack athletics program.

As a women's cross country and track star and a bio-chem major at Elon, sophomore Emily Tryon finds few free moments during her days for extracurriculars or even relaxation. She maintains a steadily hectic schedule as the result of practices, meets and all the homework and studying that comes along with her field of choice.

Here’s something you may not have known: A worker riding a sanding machine on the hardwood floor of a gymnasium can reach speeds of up to 10 miles per hour, yet removing the paint from a basketball court still takes about two weeks. Such is the schedule for a father-and-son team that started work Tuesday on the floor of Alumni Gym as part of renovations to the home of the Elon Phoenix basketball and volleyball teams.

Elon's baseball team is among three Southern Conference teams named to the field of 64 for the 2010 NCAA Division I Baseball Championship. The Phoenix (38-22) will play its first round game against Alabama (37-22) in the Atlanta regional at 3 p.m., Friday, June 4. The other teams in the double elimination Atlanta regional are Mercer University (37-22) and Georgia Tech (45-13).

It just didn’t seem right that Ashlee Crewe had to forfeit her college graduation to join teammates in Georgia this weekend for the NCAA softball tournament. So in front of family and friends, Crewe received her diploma Wednesday evening from Elon President Leo M. Lambert in a ceremony honoring the only senior on the Southern Conference championship team.

The Phoenix overcame a 2-1 deficit with five runs in the top of the seventh inning to defeat UNC-Greensboro and capture its first Southern Conference tournament title, 6-3, in Chattanooga, Tenn., on Friday, May 14. Elon will face the host University of Georgia Bulldogs in the Athens Regional of the 2010 NCAA Softball Tourament on Friday, May 21.

A news story in the Times-News of Burlington, N.C., reports that former Elon University baseball player Chase Austin could start his first full year in professional baseball with the Greensboro Grasshoppers.

Ali Ford of the Phoenix women’s basketball team was named the Southern Conference Freshman of the Year by both the Southern Conference Sports Media Association and the 11 head coaches. Ford became the second straight Elon player to receive the award, after Tiara Gause picked up the honor last season. Ford was also the only underclassman named to the coaches’ All-Southern Conference team.