Ohio
VASJ sophomore D’Angelo White picks up an offer from Ohio State football
It’s not often that an athlete gets a full-ride football scholarship from his dream school before playing his first down of varsity football.
D’Angelo White is one of the rare exceptions.
A 6-foot-5, 221-pound rising sophomore at Villa Angela-St. Joseph, White picked up an offer from Ohio State recently. In two months, he said he will earn his first varsity playing time, yet he has already gained an offer from the school he’s grown up watching.
Coach Ryan Day’s Buckeyes.
“This has always been my dream school,” White said. “This one means a lot.”
White used the words “this one” regarding his college offers because Ohio State isn’t the first to offer him a scholarship. In fact, 11 others offered White a scholarship before Ohio State did.
Not bad for a kid who has yet to play his first varsity down.
“I was Ohio State for a camp and I got a chance to talk with (tight ends) coach Keenan Bailey, and he offered me a chance to come play at Ohio State,” White said. “Coach Day said he was going to do it, but Coach Bailey said he wanted to get to me first. … I was shocked. I couldn’t believe it. I had a goal to someday get an offer from Ohio State, so when I did, it felt so good.”
Other schools that have offered include Bowling Green, Cincinnati, Illinois, Indiana, Kent State, Kentucky, Miami (Ohio), Michigan, Purdue and West Virginia. Kentucky was the first school to offer White a scholarship back when he was in eighth grade.
“D’Angelo earned an SEC offer as an eighth-grader. That says it all,” said VASJ coach Jeff Rotsky of the Kentucky offer. “The greatest thing about D’Angelo is the WANTS to be great. He works so hard. When he’s at his peak and playing fast. there’s no stopping him.”
White is the latest VASJ football player to get headlines with college news. All-Ohio running back Bo Jackson has committed to Ohio State, receiver/tight end Brian Kortovich has committed to Purdue, and offensive lineman Robert Smith has committed to Boston College.
Rotsky said White’s emergence this season will benefit VASJ’s offense greatly. With he and Kortovich at tight end and/or receiver, Jackson in the backfield and others — such as speedy Christian Chase — on the field, VASJ could be difficult to defend.
“In our one-back sets, (Kortovich and White) will be playing in 12-personnel,” Rotsky said of the two-tight end sets. “With Bo in the backfield and other talented backs we have, we’ve got a chance.
“We’re blessed with the group we have here at VASJ. The kids work so hard. Nobody takes anything for granted. They genuinely like playing football with each other.”
White said he has no plans on resting on the laurels of having so many college offers. He’s been a mainstay in the VASJ weight room, with personal bests of 280 pounds in the bench press and 435 pounds in the squat rack while running a 4.7 in the 40.
“I think my strengths are I can do both, catch passes or block,” he said.
He is in no hurry to make a choice on his college future. After all, he has three years of varsity ball yet in front of him. For that matter, he has his first varsity down yet in front of him.
“This Ohio State offer has given me even more energy,” White said. “I can’t wait for this season. I’ve got our playbook down. I’m ready for everything this year.”
GIRARD, Ohio (WKBN) – Over 100 athletes came together for the 5th Annual Trumbull County Special Olympics Invitational Saturday morning in Girard.
These athletes represent five different schools across Trumbull County to compete and spread the message of inclusion, achievement, and sportsmanship.
The Invitational continued its long-standing tradition of honoring the legacy of Randy Suchanek while celebrating the dedication and accomplishments of Special Olympics athletes throughout the region.
“You can hear all the excitement for this, for the athletes that are here today,” said superintendent Bryan O’Hara. “They work hard all year long to participate. We’ve always worked hand in hand with the rotary to get this accomplished is a lot of work behind the scenes.”
Participating schools included Ashtabula, Geauga, Columbiana, Kent-Portage and Trumbull Fairhaven
“There’s a lot of nice participation from girard students as you see behind us, and a lot of participation from the community helping out,” Girard-Liberty Rotary co-president Andy Kish added.
O’Hara added that the event keeps everything in perspective, seeing the athletes compete in the spirit of fun, along with the courage and determination that they show.
Alex Sorrells contributed to this report.
Out of prison, Indiana’s caviar king back on Ohio River to find fishing holes taken
David Cox, of English, Indiana, says once he began setting his nets again after a two-year prison sentence and a three-year ban on commercial fishing, all of his once-secret spots were taken.
Can you eat fish from the Ohio River?
In 1975, future presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, then governor of Massachusetts, bet 20 pounds of New England cod that the Red Sox would defeat the Reds in the World Series. If things went south for Boston, Ohio governor James Rhodes promised to send Dukakis 10 pounds of Lake Erie perch and 10 pounds of Ohio River catfish. The Reds ended up winning and the cod was sent to the Convalescent Home for Children, in Cincinnati.
At the time, people were still eating catfish from the Ohio without too much concern. The fish were also served at several restaurants along the river.
There were warnings in 1977
But two years later, in 1977, The Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission released the results of a study of contaminants found in the tissues of Ohio River fish. They warned anglers in cities such as Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Louisville, Wheeling and Gallipolis that man-made chemicals known as PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, had been discovered in the river fish. Later, high concentrations of mercury were discovered in the fish, too.
Thanks to the Clean Water Act of 1972 and the environmental regulations that followed, the river is now cleaner than it was in the seventies. And it’s still teeming with a variety of fish, including catfish, striped bass, drum and black bass, among other species.
But even though PCBs were banned by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1979, they are still found in fish, since they remain in the sediment in the bottom of the river. “Organisms live in the sediment and fish feed on them,” Rich Cogen, the executive director of the Ohio River Foundation told The Enquirer. Mercury is also a big problem, according to Cogen.
So the question is: Can you eat fish caught in the Ohio River?
The short answer is yes. But it depends on what species you are eating and where along the river you caught it.
There are also very strict limitations on how frequently you should eat them, according to the web site for the Ohio Sport Fish Consumption Advisory, part of the Ohio Department of Health.
In areas of the river between the Belleville Lock, located 204 miles downstream from the river’s origins in Pittsburgh, to the Indiana border, the advisory agency currently recommends consuming Ohio River fish no more than once a month max. That area includes Adams, Brown, Clermont, Gallia, Hamilton, Lawrence, Meigs and Scioto counties.
Here’s where to check
Recommendations change throughout the year, but you can keep up by visiting the Ohio Department of Health’s Sport Fish Consumption Advisory page, which provides updated information on when certain fish, usually bottom feeders such as carp, are deemed too dangerous to eat at all.
Here’s who should take a pass on Ohio River fish
The agency also warns that people who are more likely to have health effects from eating contaminated fish, includingchildren younger than 15 years old, pregnant women and women who are planning to become pregnant to avoid Ohio River fish altogether.
Just because you have to limit the amount of fish you eat, doesn’t mean the river is a bad place for fishing, as long as you limit your intake or do catch-and-release fishing. Just make sure you have a proper fishing license before casting your line.
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It isn’t over until it’s over. That’s the case for both the UCLA Bruins football program recruiting and for quarterback Brady Edmunds. Edmunds is currently committed to head to Ohio State but he took a visit from UCLA offensive coordinator Dean Kennedy earlier this week.
Kennedy met Edmunds on Thursday despite the fact that the quarterback has been committed to the Buckeyes since December of 2024 but could the UCLA Bruins be making a run at flipping the quarterback?
Edmunds has only had an official visit with Ohio State but could UCLA heave a heat check on the 6’5” quarterback? New UCLA head coach Bob Chesney is off to an unbelievable start to his recruiting with the Bruins and flipping a recruit of Edmunds’ caliber would be his most impressive move yet.
247 Sports has Edmunds as the No. 16 quarterback in the class, which would give UCLA a clear predecessor for Nico Iamaleava whenever the Bruins current starting quarterback decides to head to the professional level.
It’d be a full circle moment for the Bruins, as Edmunds was originally recruited to Ohio State by former UCLA head coach Chip Kelly, who bailed on UCLA to go run the Buckeyes offense. Ohio State is a great spot for a developing quarterback, as the Buckeyes produce tons of NFL talent, especially at the wide receiver position, which would help Edmunds put up some gaudy numbers in Columbus.
Chesney and the Bruins have geography on their side, Edmunds attends Huntington Beach High School in Southern California, which could potentially become a factor if Edmunds views UCLA as a program on the rise that’d be much closer to his friends and family than out in Ohio.
Time will tell if Kennedy’s visit will make a difference but UCLA’s recruiting has made waves in the first offseason under Chesney and the new regime.
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