To say that East Carolina has established a recruiting base in the Tri-City area of Virginia would be an understatement. The stretch along the Interstate 95 corridor that runs from Richmond to Petersburg has produced current Pirates such as redshirt freshman defensive back Jonathan Coleman II, sophomore defensive lineman Rick D'Abreu, redshirt freshman defensive lineman … [Read more...]

Football has been a family affair for Cruz Temple. Temple started playing the game at age seven, following in the footsteps of his father and older brother. His dad, Tony, was a walk-on player at the University of South Carolina and is now an assistant coach at Cruz’s high school in Abbeville, South Carolina. Brother Nate was a Shrine Bowl All-Star game participant at … [Read more...]

Pre-existing relationships have become even more important in the pandemic world of college football recruiting in which virtual campus tours and Zoom interviews have become the norm. The ability of Mike Houston’s East Carolina staff to establish a solid pre-pandemic relationship at Lakewood High School in Sumter, SC, wound up earning the Pirates their second verbal … [Read more...]

Tom Crowell has been a high school football coach in Montgomery County, Maryland, for most of the past five decades. During that span, Crowell has helped develop some special football talents, including current National Football League players such as receiver Stefon Diggs of the Buffalo Bills and Washington Redskins’ cornerback Kendall Fuller. Now the head coach at Sherwood … [Read more...]

East Carolina and Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium made an indelible impression on Justin Chase on a late September afternoon back in 2015. Then a highly regarded offensive line recruit from Chesapeake, VA, who had already made a verbal commitment to play for the Pirates, Chase had driven to Greenville with his father to watch ECU face Atlantic Coast Conference power Virginia Tech. It … [Read more...]