Central Georgia Sports ReportJuly 10, 2020Comment

Thursday's Daily News 'n Notes: Bill Bibb dies; SIAC cancels the fall; college football dominoes start falling; and more

Central Georgia Sports ReportJuly 10, 2020Comment

Thursday's Central Georgia - and of interest to Central Georgia - news and notes, compiled from staff reports, email reports, the web, and social media. Updates will be noted, so check back.

The SIAC makes it official: no fall sports in 2020

A few days after a release stating nothing had been decided, the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference decided:

No fall sports for 2020.

The debut of new head football coach Maurice Flowers at Fort Valley State will have to wait. The Wildcats went 6-4 in 2019, and still fired Kevin Porter, who went 1-1 in SIAC title games with the Wildcats.

Volleyball is the other fall sport at FVSU. Men’s volleyball was established last fall because of a gift of $150,000 from the First Point Volleyball Foundation and USA Volleyball.

The school has made no announcement on coaching changes, but the athletics website no longer lists Jason Bryant as the women’s head coach, though he is listed as the men’s head coach, with Edward Wrather as an assistant for both.

Bill Bibb put a stamp on Mercer and small-college sports in the South

He played basketball at Kentucky, and went on to become Mercer’s winningest men’s basketball coach and then the first commissioner of the old Trans America Athletic Conference, which became the Atlantic Sun Conference.

Bill Bibb’s was a life fully lived upon his death Thursday at the age of 86.

Bibb was Mercer’s head coach from 1974-1989, going 222-194 (53.4 percent). The highlights were going 21-6 in 1978-79 and 22-9 in 1984-85. The latter year, Mercer went to the NCAA Tournament.

The Bears also went to the NCAA in 1980-81 with a team that included Dartez Talbott, whose high school coaching career has been in Central Georgia.

Longtime NBA standout Sam Mitchell led the 1984-85 team, with help from longtime Wilkinson County head boys coach – now retired – Aaron “Pete” Geter.

Bibb followed his playing career at Kentucky under Adolph Rupp and then Kentucky Wesleyan by coaching at Trinity (Texas), St. Louis University, and Utah State after college, and started as an assistant at Mercer in 1973-74.

A year later, he was in charge.

While coaching at Mercer and serving as athletics director, Bibb was one of the founders of the old Trans America Athletic Conference, which initially stretched from Macon to Texas and three states in between, in 1978.

It sponsored only men’s sports until absorbing the New South Women’s Athletic Conference in 1985. After two years as AD at Texas-Arlington, Bibb returned to Macon as the TAAC commissioner until retiring in 2006, several years after the conference changed names to the Atlantic Sun.

He was inducted into the Macon Sports Hall of Fame in 2009 and the A-Sun hall in 2016. The conference’s all-sports trophy is named after him

As of midnight, there was no release from the Atlantic Sun – which moved its headquarters from Macon to Atlanta last summer - nor had there been any social media mention.

Central Georgia notebook: Dublin baseball Hall of Famer, Perry golf, FVSU football, Tony Gilbert, and Bruce Lane

College Sports in 2020

Big Ten drops non-conference fall games

Column: It’s worth a try

The Big Ten’s statement

MAC hurt by decision, working on non-conference replacements

Iowa senator sitting out Republican convention isn’t happy

Column: The season is clearly in jeopardy

Will UGA have non-conference games?

Many eyes now on the SEC

Playoff boss Hancock: stay the course

The ACC makes an Olympic sports fall move