ADRIAN, Mich. –Adrian College Athletics is proud to announce the addition of Alana Mortimer as the new assistant coach for the women’s lacrosse program.

Mortimer joins Head Coach Amanda Asher‘s staff with a strong background as both a player and coach. A standout student-athlete at Concordia University Ann Arbor, she was a four-year member of the women’s lacrosse team and served as team captain. As a dominant force on defense, she earned First-Team All-Conference honors in her senior season. In addition to her success on the lacrosse field, Mortimer was also a member of the women’s ice hockey team during her time at Concordia. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and Management, complemented by double minors in Coaching and Human Resource Management.

After college, Mortimer spent a year coaching at Livonia Stevenson High School, where she played a key role in developing young talent and instilling a strong foundation in the sport. A native of Toronto, Ontario, she brings a deep passion for the game, strong leadership qualities, and a commitment to excellence to the Bulldogs’ program.

Mortimer will begin her journey at Adrian College immediately, joining Head Coach Amanda Asher and the women’s lacrosse program as they prepare for the upcoming season.
 

Fisk University — which started the first Historically Black College and University women’s gymnastics program in 2023 — will discontinue that program at the end of the 2025-26 academic year.

Fisk’s final season of gymnastics competition will be in the Spring of 2026.

The school said the decision came after a comprehensive review of the gymnastics program and its alignment with Fisk’s conference, the HBCU Athletic Conference. Gymnastics is not currently an HBCUAC-sanctioned sport, making it challenging for the school to schedule competitions and build a strong recruiting pipeline.

“While we are tremendously proud of the history our gymnastics team has made in just three years, we look forward to focusing on our conference-affiliated teams to strengthen our impact in the HBCU Athletic Conference,” Fisk Athletic Director Valencia Jordan said in a release. “Fisk is grateful for the hard work, dedication and tenacity of its gymnasts, staff members, and coaches who made this program possible.”

It’s unclear whether recent financial instability at the school played a role in the decision regarding gymnastics.

Fisk last summer said it would face a deficit of more than $3 million unless Nashville leaders approved its request to repurpose pandemic relief funds, per The Tennessean. Metro Council ultimately approved a redirection of about $8.5 million in federal relief grant funds for the school.

Gymnastics is not a revenue-producing sport on the college level.

Just two months ago, four Fisk gymnasts — Morgan Price, Allie Berkley, Aliyah Reed-Hammon and Ciniah Rosby — were named first-team All-Americans at the Women’s Collegiate Gymnastics National Invitation Championship in Shreveport, La., while teammates Kaylei McDonald, Liberty Mora and Jade Reese earned second-team honors.

Price won the 2025 all-round title at the eight-school competition, finishing with a score of 39.25. She finished first in all four disciplines as well, posting a 9.825 score in the vault, a 9.8625 on the balance beam, a 9.85 on the uneven bars and a 9.9 on floor exercise.

A year earlier, Price had become the first HBCU gymnast to win the all-around title.

The first HBCU gymnast to score a perfect 10 in competition, Price announced her decision to transfer to Arkansas last month. A three-time All-American at Fisk, Price will join older sister Frankie with the Razorbacks.

In addition to the seven Fisk gymnasts earning All-American honors in 2025, the team posted 11 victories and produced a streak of six consecutive wins.

But the season was also marked by the sudden departure in February (read here) of former coach Corrinne Tarver, who had been hired in 2022 to start the program in 2023.

Neither the school nor Tarver listed a specific reason why she left.

Assistant coach Nuriya Mack was named interim head coach.

Annually in June, the entirety of the NHL gathers to award the best-of-the-best. Whether it be the Hart Trophy, the Norris Trophy or the Vezina, those who win are those who brought out success in their respective teams throughout each season. 

But outside of the awards that recognize the professional athletes is the Willie O’Ree Community Hero Award, spotlighting six people who have made a positive impact on their community culture or society, Michigan State University’s Sarah Dunkel-Jackson was honored as the winner of the award before game two of the Stanley Cup Finals in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. With the win, Dunkel-Jackson was awarded a $25,000 donation to the Sports Are For Everyone program – a program that runs both the Hockey Challenge Camp and the Baseball Challenge Camp.

Being a present figure on the campus of Michigan State University in the Department of Family Studies, teaching courses in the counseling, educational psychology and special education departments, Dunkel-Jackson – the director of the Hockey Challenge Camp – has been embedded within the sport for years and has earned rightful recognition by the hockey community worldwide. 

“This just means a lot to me to know that I’m helping out my community and that this program in particular, not just me because I have an amazing team, but this program helps our community,” Dunkel-Jackson said.

Starting the organization meant allowing for those to receive equal opportunity, much like what Willie O’Ree – who was the first black man to play in the National Hockey League – did for the sport. Both the Hockey Challenge Camp and the Baseball Challenge League were designed to help children with different medical and learning needs play a sport, just like every other kid their age obtains the opportunity to do.

The organization was not actually started in hockey. It began five years ago with the Baseball Challenge League, a program that started kicking down the walls of diversity and allowed for kids to receive equal opportunity to play ball.

“We had created, it’s called the Baseball Challenge League in our community. I’m on the board of our community program, and we created a program where kids with unique medical and learning needs could play baseball with their buddies,” Dunkel-Jackson said.

After reviewing the results of the camp turnout from the baseball program after two years in the making, Dunkel Jackson’s son, Cale, asked if hockey was something that they could start. To that, Sarah said “Great, let’s try it.” With a support group surrounding them, hockey was officially off the ground and running.

“Cale had his travel hockey coaches, who are awesome, and they agreed to help out,” Dunkle-Jackson said. “Yeah, we just made it happen at our rink in our community and then Munn Ice Arena allowed us to have our final game in the really great stadium there.”

Since the beginning just five years ago, the numbers have seen a tremendous upwards trend. Having supple amounts of signups and now a registration for the children to fill out, the camp has broken barriers and continues to make waves in the hockey community.

“We have a registration going on now and we have way more than we have in the past, so we’re really excited,” Duckel-Jackson said. “It’s grown by the players with unique medical needs and learning needs, but it’s also grown by the number of hockey buddies that we have and coaches.”

With Michigan as a state known for its hockey history with national championship winning college programs, the 11-time Stanley Cup Champion Detroit Red Wings, and the home of USA Hockey, bringing this award nomination to her home state puts the cherry right on top.

“MSU is a powerhouse in hockey and Michigan in general is – the state of Michigan. There are so many hockey teams and so many opportunities for some kids to play hockey,” Duckel-Jackson said. “And I just want every kid to have that chance, including kiddos with unique medical needs and learning needs.”

“I mean, we have some players who their older brothers, their uncles, their dads play, their moms play, but they have never had a chance to actually be on a team and so this is their chance to also get an opportunity to play such a fun sport.”

Winning the award granted her a $25,000 donation to a charity of choice and also allows for the organization to receive more publicity. One goal that Dunkel-Jackson has in mind is buying more adaptive equipment, such as sleds for the children who need them in order to partake in sled hockey.

To continue to be able to run the programs and help out the community means the world to Dunkel-Jackson. The future of the Hockey Challenge Camp and Baseball Challenge League remains bright in her eyes.

“I just love seeing that children have an opportunity to play sports, and that’s every child,” Dunkel-Jackson said. “Every child should have a chance to participate and be part of a team and this gives them that opportunity to do it in a safe and supportive kind of setting.”

Cast against their brown and beige office backdrops, the four horsemen of the settlement spoke as one.

Tony Petitti, Jim Phillips, Greg Sankey and Brett Yormark — commissioners of the conferences that control major college sports — conducted a remote news conference Monday morning to share their views on the momentous House v. NCAA settlement and what’s next for the industry.

They were joined on the Zoom call by Teresa Gould, commissioner of the Pac-12, which was a named defendant in the lawsuit (along with the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC and NCAA) and therefore a participant in constructing the post-settlement world order.

Together, the quintet reiterated the need for congressional help to codify rules and provide antitrust protection in order to end the barrage of legal challenges to the NCAA.

They explained that the distribution of $20.5 million to athletes starting July 1 won’t be determined at the conference level. How much to allocate to football, men’s basketball and the Olympic sports will be a campus decision.

And they acknowledged the post-settlement world is evolving. They don’t have all the systems and personnel in place to immediately clean up what Phillips (ACC) called “an unregulated environment with no rules and no enforcement.” They believe answers, and solutions, will come with time.

But is there any reason to believe cheating will disappear? That pay-for-play, which has taken so many forms over the decades, will be expunged from the system? That “bad actors,” as Sankey (SEC) described them, will be banished forever?

If effort and determination count, the clean-up effort could succeed.

“It’s progress over perfection,” Yormark explained. “There will be challenges. But we’re very confident. Our schools want rules. We’re providing rules, and we will be governed by those rules. And if you break those rules, the ramifications will be punitive.”

As part of the settlement, the power conferences created the College Sports Commission, with a chief executive, Bryan Seeley, a former lead investigator for Major League Baseball, and a singular mission: Ensure NIL deals are legitimate.

For the past four years, they have been anything but.

Remember the old-fashioned cheating, when bags o’ cash were given to recruits and their handlers in exchange for signatures on letters of intent? The moment NIL became the law of the land in the summer of 2021, a new, legal form of pay-for-play emerged, courtesy of booster collectives.

High school recruits and transfers alike were lured to schools by collectives offering six- and seven-figure deals. Those deals did not require players to participate in the promotional and endorsement opportunities at the heart of what the NCAA described as legitimate NIL.

The fake NIL was under-the-table cheating out in the open — unregulated but entirely legal.

Which brings us to the College Sports Commission (CSC) and the industry’s latest attempt to clean up the player procurement process.

In addition to the $20.5 million they will receive directly from the schools as part of the House settlement, athletes retain the ability to strike NIL deals with third-party entities. The difference: Now, they must report any contract of at least $600 to NIL Go, a technology platform designed by Deloitte that will determine if deals fall within a reasonable range of compensation. (That’s code for fair market value.)

If NIL Go rejects the deal, athletes have the option to adjust the terms and resubmit.

Or they could seek arbitration.

In theory, they could ignore NIL Go, agree to the contract and take the field (or court). But there’s a risk to competing with an invalid NIL deal, because the schools are arming the CSC with enforcement authority.

How will Seeley, a former assistant U.S. attorney, gather evidence? He won’t have subpoena power.

Also, who will design the penalty matrix?

“We’re in the process of developing some of those rules and structure and overall implementation,” Phillips said.

The industry is watching, and skeptics are everywhere.

Even if NIL Go successfully filters out the illegitimate business deals — the financial arrangements that are outside a reasonable range of compensation — the specter of pay-for-play remains.

And it could very well take a familiar form. That’s right, folks: Get ready for the return of bags o’ cash.

The CSC is designed to eliminate the donor collectives that paid players (legally) without demanding anything in return except a signature and their best effort on gameday.

But if deep-pocketed fans of School X want to help the team secure vital commitments from coveted transfers or blue-chip prospects, is the CSC really going to stop them?

Pay-for-play could simply return to its former location — under the table — and proceed with limited hesitation.

How can the CSC police the actions of thousands of donors representing hundreds of schools across 10 major college conferences?

How could it investigate and punish private citizens?

Will the schools report suspicious activity, invite Seeley to town and hand over whatever evidence helps expose transgressions committed by a million-dollar donor who is also helping to fund the new engineering building?

The commissioners know far more about the CSC than we do.

They have discussed the clean-up project extensively with campus officials desperate for law and order.

They made a shrewd move hiring a former assistant U.S. attorney and not a college sports lifer.

But it’s difficult to ignore the leap-of-faith component built into their new world order. College sports has too many athletes with financial needs, too many sources of cash and too many fans who care about winning above all else.

The result is a revamped system that’s rooted in best intentions but dependent on a leap of faith.

“Ultimately,” Sankey said, “it’s incumbent upon everyone, presidents and chancellors, athletic directors, head coaches, assistant coaches and staff and, yes, commissioners, to make the terms of this settlement work.”

Bob Motzko livid with officials in Gophers playoff loss

Gophers hockey coach Bob Motzko spoke with reporters after Thursday night’s 5-4 overtime loss to UMass in the NCAA Tournament, and was livid with the referees after an apparent trip on Ryan Chesley was not called, leading to a game-winning goal for UMass.

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) – The University of Minnesota men’s hockey team announced its non-conference schedule on Monday, and it includes at least a pair of old rivals.

The Gophers will have 11 non-conference games before the Big Ten season, with eight of them at 3M Arena at Mariucci.

Who’s coming to Mariucci?

What we know:

The Gophers will open the 2025-26 season against former WCHA foe Michigan Tech Oct. 3-4 at 3M Arena at Mariucci. The following weekend, Boston College comes to Minneapolis for a weekend series. The Eagles are a perennial power in college hockey.

Minnesota is also hosting Minnesota-Duluth to renew the old rivalry between the Gophers and Bulldogs, Oct. 24-25 at 3M Arena at Mariucci.

Traveling to North Dakota

Why you should care:

Arguably Minnesota’s most highly-anticipated series of the non-conference season will happen away from campus. The Gophers will head to North Dakota and face the Fighting Hawks Oct. 176-18 at Ralph Engelstad Arena.

It’s the first of a four-year series with North Dakota. The Gophers will also travel to Bemidji State on Jan. 2, 2026, while 3M Arena at Mariucci is one of the host sites for the World Junior Championships.

Bob Motzko enters Year 8

Timeline:

The Gophers are entering their eighth season under Bob Motzko as head coach. He’s 161-82-21 in seven seasons a Minnesota, and the program will be looking to get back to the national championship game for the first time since 2023.