Published: March 15, 2008 10:13 pm
Column: Dream still alive for Hudson
By Larry Fleming
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Cameron Hudson, a 5-foot-9, 160-pounder who was a multipurpose offensive weapon at two schools during his prep football career, could have gone to Shorter College with a combination athletic and academic scholarship.
Instead, Hudson has chosen to walk on at Georgia Southern University, which competes in the Southern Conference, a league that includes three-time national champion Appalachian State.
“It’s always been my dream to play college ball,” Hudson said. “I’m not big enough to play Division I, but I think I’ll fit right in with the system they run at Georgia Southern.”
The Eagles, who put the conference on the Division I-AA football map by winning six national titles, run a spread offense under coach Chris Hatcher, and Hudson expects to play as a slot receiver and an A back in the backfield.
“I hope I can fit into the return game someplace,” he said.
As a sophomore at Murray County, Hudson rushed for 1,203 yards, the second-highest total in school history, just 11 yards shy of David Bejar’s record set in 2001.
He set the single-season scoring record with 126 points that included 20 touchdowns, 17 coming on rushing plays. His 286 rushing yards set the single-game record, and his four touchdowns on runs of 40, 69, 4 and 77 yards in the same game fell one shy of the school mark. He tied a record with a 95-yard kickoff return for a touchdown in the regular-season finale against Southeast.
In what turned out to be his final game for the Indians, a tough 28-22 loss at Rockdale County in the first round of the state playoffs, Hudson rushed for 156 yards with touchdown runs of 73 and 5 yards. He returned a kickoff 88 yards for another score.
Hudson could also have considered walk-on offers from Furman, Austin Peay State in Tennessee and Tennessee Tech, but chose instead to head toward Statesboro. He’s hoping to earn a scholarship within the first year at GSU.
The careers of two other area athletes already in college are worth updating.
— Tripp Howell, a product of the Dalton High basketball program, is playing at Martin Methodist College, an NAIA Division I team.
And the Red Hawks will play in the national NAIA tournament in Kansas City, Mo., March 19-25.
Howell, a 5-10 freshman, has played in nine games this season for Martin Methodist, a four-year school located in Pulaski, Tenn., and has scored 22 points in 62 minutes for a 4.5-point average. He’s also credited with 11 assists, six steals and six turnovers.
— Vanessa Jackson, who played at Northwest Whitfield and was the 2006 Daily Citizen All-Area Player of the Year, had a good season at Albany State, a member of the Division II Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. The Lady Rams’ season ended with an 88-80 loss to Clark Atlanta in the conference tourney.
Jackson, a 5-6 sophomore, started 18 of the team’s 27 games, averaging 23.5 minutes, 5.6 points, 3.0 rebounds and 3.4 steals. She had season highs of five assists, six rebounds and nine points. The high-point mark came against Tuskegee, which won the conference tournament. Her 2.3 steals per game ranked sixth in the league.
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