Derrick Gragg : All posts

Eastern Michigan women's basketball coaching job a 'dream come true' for Tory Verdi

Tory Verdi smiles during a Thursday press conference announcing him as the new Eastern Michigan women's basketball coach.

Melanie Maxwell | AnnArbor.com

Each time Tory Verdi has taken another step in his basketball coaching career, he's received a phone call from his father.

When he left a job with the WNBA's Connecticut Sun to be an assistant at Nebraska, his dad called him crazy. When he left Nebraska for a similar position at Kansas, his dad called him crazy.

But recently, when he opted to leave Kansas to become the head women's basketball coach at Eastern Michigan, there was no phone call.

This one made sense.

"No phone calls this time, no thoughts of me being crazy," Verdi said. "For once, we are in agreement.

"Eastern Michigan is a great job, and the best place for me."

With lengthy football losing streak over, Eastern Michigan keeps focus on future improvement

Eastern Michigan sophomore defensive lineman Andy Mulumba leads his team's post-game celebration after the Eagles snapped an 18-game losing streak with a 41-38 overtime win at Ball State. (Photo courtesy of Eastern Michigan University)

Susan Martin spent Saturday working at Eastern Michigan’s University House. She tracked the school’s road football game at Ball State on her computer.

Like the team’s fans, Martin - the university’s president - had endured 18 consecutive losses, the nation’s second-longest losing streak. Martin had remained confident that Eastern’s football program, which hadn’t posted a winning mark in 15 years, could turn things around.

Martin and other university officials were vocal in their support for Eastern Michigan coach Ron English, who hadn’t collected his first victory during the first year and a half of his tenure. Although English said often that he was focused on building the right kind of program rather than the number of consecutive games his team lost, Martin knew full well where things stood.

“You don’t want to have the worst losing record in the country,” Martin said Wednesday.

EMU AD: MAC could issue invitations to new members in near future

Eastern Michigan University athletic director Derrick Gragg wouldn’t be surprised if the Mid-American Conference issues invitations to one or two institutions to join the MAC in the near future.

“I think the MAC is going to try to extend invitations to one or two institutions in the next year or two,” he said.

Talking to the EMU Board of Regents Athletic Affairs Committee this afternoon, Gragg said current MAC members will be attending a retreat Oct. 11 to 13 to discuss various issues, including the shifting national collegiate sports landscape and what moves the MAC needs to make.

With video: Eastern Michigan breaks ground on $3.9 million indoor practice facility

As an Eastern Michigan University search committee interviewed football coaching candidates last winter, all eight asked for the same thing: An indoor practice facility.

An indoor facility, they said, would aid in year-long training and would help lure recruits to the Ypsilanti campus.

Mid-season review: Even at 0-5, Eastern Michigan football coach Ron English doesn't sweat

Even without a victory so far this season, Ron English isn't acting frustrated.

The first-year Eastern Michigan coach remains locked in on small things, largely ignoring the Eagles' 0-5 start in exchange for ground-level improvements that, in time, may turn his program around.

Eastern Michigan University to host Michigan State in football and basketball

Rynearson Stadium has never hosted a Big Ten opponent.

Thanks to an agreement between Michigan State and the state's three Mid-American Conference schools, that will soon change.

Eastern Michigan University teams with Ypsilanti Chamber for 5K run prior to football opener against Army

Derrick Gragg has long believed that game day at Eastern Michigan University has to about more than football.

Gragg, the university's athletic director, has fought to change a long-standing tradition of poor attendance at a school that has struggled to put a winning product on the field and to draw fans into Rynearson Stadium.

Eastern Michigan University women's football clinic teaches skills, camaraderie

Georgia Hauk is certainly no stranger to football.

As a high school cheerleader who grew up in football-crazy small town, the 67-year-old retired Ann Arbor elementary school teacher spent her Friday nights on the sidelines, watching the action unfold in front of her.

For years now, she has been part of football Saturdays at Michigan Stadium, watching the game surrounded by 107,000 fellow enthusiasts, picking up on football's finer points more and more each season.