While athletes on other fall sports teams like cross country and soccer have concluded their seasons, the East Carolina volleyball team is just a little more than halfway through its conference slate, with American Athletic Conference matches scheduled through Thanksgiving. And those remaining eight contests have plenty of history-making potential for the Pirates, especially … [Read more...]

Through Davis Searcy’s teen years growing up in Bethel, he was a regular at East Carolina basketball games. When he was in high school, he drove himself to nearly every home game, and he used to admire the spirit and the impact of the Minges Maniacs. Searcy remembers a time when the Maniacs created a stifling lower level presence. They were loud, obnoxious and organized – … [Read more...]

Anyone who characterizes cross country as an individual sport has never met the 2017 East Carolina squads. Bakri Abushouk had finished four years of school and three seasons of cross country at N.C. State, and he thought he was finished with his career as a student-athlete. But his mother and his younger brother Dean urged him to consider coming to ECU for his final year of … [Read more...]

John Gutekunst carries a folded roster in his pocket at all times, intent on putting faces to the names of the 45 defensive players he just met for the first time four days ago. He is also becoming a student of East Carolina’s terminology. After 50 years in coaching Gutekunst has probably seen every play and situation ever presented on the defensive end of the gridiron, but … [Read more...]

It was the pinnacle moment in a near-decade of regional domination for the East Carolina wrestling program. As the final day of the tournament went on the pressure mounted for heavier-weight competitors like Mike Radford and Willie Bryant. The event was the 1973 North Carolina Collegiate Championships in Chapel Hill, featuring teams from 17 different schools in the Tar … [Read more...]