Friday, Feb. 03, 2012

Athens’ Evans to enter Hall

Former Raleigh Athens Drive football standout Donald Evans said in 1991 that having his jersey retired at the high school was the greatest honor he could imagine.

“I’ll always be an Athens Drive graduate,” he said at the time. “I’ll do my best to represent it well as an athlete and as a person. I hope I can be the type of example that my coaches were to me.”

Evans, who played in the NFL from 1987 through 1996, will add another honor in March when he will be inducted into the CIAA John B. McLendon Jr. Hall of Fame.

He already was inducted into Winston-Salem State’s Hall of Fame in 2004 and has acquired the naming rights of the Donald Evans Training Facility in the Thompson Center on the Rams’ campus.

He has come a long way from when former Carnage Middle football coach Frank Williams found a discarded pair of football shoes and gave them to Evans so he could play football.

Evans was the second-round pick of the Los Angeles Rams in 1987 and played in the NFL with Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and the New York Jets.

David Riggs, the Holly Springs coach in 2010, was the head coach at Athens during Evans’ junior year and Julian Riddle coached the Jaguars when Evans was a senior. Larry Dunn recruited Evans to join the basketball team.

Evans said his coaches cared more about him as a person than as an athlete.

Super Bowl connection: New York Giants defensive coordinator Perry Fewell was the starting fullback for Belmont South Point High in the 1979 NCHSAA 3A football championship game. Fewell helped South Point defeat Ahoskie 34-13 in the title game.

Fewell later played at Lenoir Rhyne. He was defensive coordinator for the Buffalo Bills in 2006-09 and was the Bills interim head coach for part of the 2009 season. He joined the Giants in January 2010.

Former Millbrook High standout and N.C. State graduate David Merritt is the Giants’ secondary coach.

Thames to Texas league: Lawrence Thames, a Southeast Raleigh High graduate, has signed with the Laredo Rattlesnakes of the Lone Star Football League, a professional indoor football league. The team will début on March 31.

Thames, 6-foot-2, 295 pounds, played at Elizabeth City State and Chowan. He is expected to play defensive end and fullback.

Athens Drive, Apex huddle for hope: The Athens Drive Lady Jaguars – wearing pink T-shirts – and the Apex Lady Cougars observe a moment of silence in honor of those who have fought breast cancer, during the Hoops for Hope game at Athens Drive High School on Friday.

The 5th annual game raised $4,327 for the Kay Yow Cancer Fund.

Athens won the game 45-31 behind 15 points from senior Megan Gorman.

Staff writer J. Mike Blake contributed to this report.