Good morning,
Veterans Day is an official United States public holiday, observed annually on November 11, that honors military veterans; that is, persons who served in the United States Armed Forces. It coincides with other holidays, including Armistice Day and Remembrance Day, celebrated in other countries that mark the anniversary of the end of World War I; major hostilities of World War I were formally ended at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, when the Armistice with Germany went into effect. The United States previously observed Armistice Day. The U.S. holiday was renamed Veterans Day in 1954.
This week I will tell you about some of those veterans.
Army vet OK’d to play college ball by NCAA
The NCAA approved an appeal by an Army veteran who was originally ineligible to play due to poor grades in high school
By Jonas Shaffer
The Baltimore Sun
Oakland men’s basketball player and Baltimore native Isaiah Brock, an Army veteran who had been deemed ineligible this season because of poor high school grades, was cleared to play by the NCAA on Monday.
Oakland appealed the NCAA’s ruling Thursday, which was based on Brock’s academic profile when he graduated from Forest Park in 2011, and added a letter of support from U.S. Rep. Mike Bishop of Michigan, according to The Detroit News
Brock, 22, a 6-foot-8 forward who was closer to 6 foot in high school, spent four years in the Army after leaving Baltimore. He served as a mortuary affairs specialist for his six-month deployments in Afghanistan and Kuwait, retrieving the bodies of dead soldiers from the battlefield and preparing them for burial.
Brock met Golden Grizzlies coach Greg Kampe during the Troops First Foundation’s Hardwood Classic in Kuwait, and Kampe, taken with his life story and intrigued by this athleticism, offered an athletic scholarship.
Brock earned an A and a B in University of Maryland University College online classes while serving in Afghanistan, and after enrolling at Oakland this summer, he got two Bs. The NCAA had allowed Brock to practice with the team, but because of his years-old grades, he was told he would have to sit out this season.
According to The Detroit News, he wrote the NCAA three letters pleading his case over the summer. On Monday, he got the news he was hoping for.
“I just want to thank the NCAA for giving me the opportunity to play this year and I also want to thank all of my teammates, family and friends for all of their support through this process,” Brock said in a release. “I’m very grateful and I won’t let this opportunity go to waste!”
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(c)2016 The Baltimore Sun
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
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“Without counsel purposes are disappointed: but in the multitude of counsellors they are established.” (Proverbs 15:22)
Tom Stearns, WASI Chaplain, 907 715-4001
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