Rarely does a team or an event captivate such a range of Americans as the Women’s World Cup champions did earlier this summer. It’s no surprise that the members of the East Carolina soccer team count themselves as some of the U.S. squad’s biggest fans, but they see the World Cup’s universal appeal as a promising sign for their sport and their upcoming season. Junior defender … [Read more...]

To those of us in the more advanced generations who are slow to grasp the footprint of social media, it might seem like posting on the various platforms is somewhat scattershot and impulsive. But Houston McCullough, from her post in the East Carolina athletics department on her third day as the Pirates’ first-ever content manager, wants us to know that nothing could be further … [Read more...]

Like a fine wine or a prime roast, college athletics needs some time to breathe, and July is certainly the season of rest in the Pirate Nation. It’s not complete radio silence — facilities improvements and strength and conditioning continue on campus — but it’s pretty eerily quiet compared to the carnival that will open in the fall with games and matches in a half a dozen … [Read more...]

Just a couple of weeks into the busy fall athletics season, Pirate competition ground to a halt as Hurricane Florence barreled in. Every East Carolina team participates in planned community service hours every season, but this was something else entirely. As soon as the storm had passed, baseball and basketball players were boarding buses for New Bern, where they got their … [Read more...]

In the late ‘90s as an East Carolina baseball player, Erik Bakich internalized the word “Omaha” as a symbol of the journey and the goal wrapped up into one. As a volunteer assistant at Clemson in 2002, he got to experience the storied College World Series in that city for the first time. Now, seventeen years after that last visit, Bakich is the head coach of one of the two … [Read more...]