Happy Graduation, Grads: Here's a List of Commencement Speakers

Congrats to grads, whether you are graduating from the University of Maine or the University of Hawaii. We don't have commencement speakers from those two schools, but here is a list of 15 other speakers who addressed graduates over the last three weekends.


1) Lesli Baskerville (pictured top). North Carolina Central U. Durham, NC

2) Dom Amendum. UNC-Greensboro. Greensboro, NC

3) John Kerry. Yale University. New Haven, Conn.

4) Sheryl Sandberg. Harvard University. Cambridge (Boston), Mass.

5) P. Diddy Combs (pictured middle) Howard University. Washington, DC.

6) Connie Willis. Univ. Northern Colorado. Greeley, Colo.

7) Eric Stough. Animator ("South Park.") Colorado U. Boulder, Colo.

8) Christopher Patten. Notre Dame. South Bend, Ind.

9) Colin Powell (pict. bottom) High Point University. High Point, NC.

10) Cece Stewart. Winthrop University. Rock Hill, SC.

11) Bill and Melinda Gates. Stanford University. Palo Alto, Calif.

12) Marc Bennioff. Univ. of Southern California. Los Angeles, Calif.

13) Al Gore. Princeton University. Princeton, NJ.

14) Adm. William H. McRaven. Univ. of Texas. Austin, Tex.

15) Alex Smith, quarterback of Kansas City Chiefs. Univ. of Utah. Salt Lake City, Utah.

RU Faces Winthrop This PM

There is a big game today my alma mater Radford University (Radford, Va.) and my cousin Mike's alma mater Winthrop University (Rock Hill, SC). The two teams will face off in Radford at 4 p.m. in a regionally televised game on MASN.

The RU Highlanders have won their last two home games thanks to Art Parakhouski (pictured here). They defeated Presbyterian University 75-58 earlier in the week, which included a 10-point effort from one of my favorite players Gorkem Sonmez (my dad came from Sonmez's native Turkey) and last Saturday the Highlanders defeated the UNC-Wilmington Seahawks in a game that was a part of Bracket-Busters weekend.

In the the UNCW game, Parakhouski scored 17 points and grabbed 14 rebounds. He has 23double-doubles, which leads the NCAA. Laz Trifunoic scored 19, and Blake Smith added 15 for the Highlanders in their 76-68 win over the Seahawks.

Winthrop has lost two of their last three games, including a 77-57 setback in Richmond, Ky., in their own Bracket Busters game with Eastern Kentucky. Matt Morgan scored 18 points for the Eagles in a losing cause.

In their home win over UNC-Asheville, Cahrles Corbin scored 19 points and grabbed 15 rebounds for the Eagles in a 68-65 overtime victory on Senior Night.

The Eagles also lost to High Point on the road this week, so today's game is crucial for both teams as they head into the Big South Tournament which starts on March 2.

Locally, the UNC-Greensboro Spartans prepare for their final home game before The Southern Conference Tourney when they face Georgia Southern on Monday night.

The Spartans lost to Davidson this week, but a week ago they were able to beat The Citadel on the road in Charleston, SC, by a 59-53 score thanks to 19 points from Ben Stywall and 18 points from Mikko Koivisto.

Parakhouski was recently named Big South Player of the Week for a fourth time this season.


UPDATE: We won the game 54-52, and Parakhouski got yet another double-double!

UPDATE TWO: Radford is actually replaying Winthrop today (Thurs., March 4th) in Conway, SC, on the campus of Coastal Carolina at 6 p.m. The game is scheduled for broadcast on ESPN-U. We will try to have the results posted on this blog.