According to the e-mail bylined by Chris Dokish from Pittsburgh Sports Report, Coach Jamie Dixon has made the hirings for the vacancies in the various coaching spots.

The associate head coach position that was vacated by Barry Rohrssen when he left to become the head coach at Manhattan, will reportedly be filled by St. Joseph’s assistant Mike Rice, Jr.; while the director of basketball operations slot, previously held by the promoted Orlando Antigua, will be filled by former Panther player Brandin Knight.

Rice is a Pittsburgh native and son of former Duquesne head coach Mike Rice, Sr., who is now the play-by-play announcer for the Portland Trailblazers. The 37-year old Rice spent the last three seasons at St. Joseph’s under Phil Martelli, who hired Rice after seeing him excel as the director of the Eastern Invitational Basketball Camp in New Jersey. The Eastern Invitational bills itself as the biggest and most influential exposure camp in the United States, with over 900 coaches from every level attending yearly.

Prior to Rice’s stint at the Eastern Invitational, he served as an assistant for 10 years at the college level with stops at his alma mater, Fordham, as well as Marquette, Niagara, and Chicago State.

According to the report, Knight may not actually join the team until the end of the summer.

I don’t know enough about Mike Rice to sound like I know what I’m talking about, and I have other things to do and enjoy today. Superficially, it looks like a damn fine hire. He seems to have a lot of NJ and Philly connections that are vital to Big East recruiting.

I’ll try to have more later.

Bob Smizik with a decent remembering of Ironhead Heyward.

“He was a great father,” said Charlotte Heyward Blackwell. “The boys are all extremely gifted athletes. He was very hands on, very involved. He wanted them to know he was there for them.

“He had a stroke in March of 2005 that left him partially paralyzed on his left side. It was a setback. But even in his wheelchair, he was lively. He didn’t let it hold him back at all. Even when he lost the ability to walk, he was out there in the wheelchair, letting them know he was there.”

Cameron is a serious athlete. He’s a 6-foot-7, 270-pound junior defensive tackle at Peachtree Ridge High in Suwanee, Ga. He’s heavily recruited by major schools, including Pitt.

“He hasn’t made up his mind,” said his mother, a Pittsburgh native and Pitt graduate.

“We remained best friends,” said Charlotte of her ex-husband. “It was a joint custody with not a lot of rules. We both served as parents. We both did the driving. We lived about a mile apart.”

Cameron played his first two high school seasons at Whitfield Academy, about 35 miles from home. After his father’s stroke, he transferred to his neighborhood school, Peachtree Ridge. Under Georgia rules, he would have been ineligible. But the family petitioned the state governing board and he was granted a medical hardship to play so his dad could watch.

When it was clear that Ironhead did not have long to live, Peachtree Ridge coach Blair Armstrong was considering moving Senior Night from the end of the 2006 season to the start of it.

It wasn’t to be. Cameron Heyward won’t have his father with him for this final season. But the memory lives on of a great dad, an outstanding football player and one of the sport’s world’s unforgettable characters.

Former Pitt offensive lineman, Matt Morgan is trying to stick with the Buffalo Bills. He was signed out of college as a free agent by the Rams in 2004 and was on their practice squad. Last year he was on the Rams regular roster for at least part of the season.

Tyler Palko was working one of the high school QB camps at Bloomsberg University this weekend.

“You’re going to have expectations and sometimes you meet them sometimes you don’t,” the soon-to-be fifth-year senior quarterback said. “We didn’t have a very good team last year to handle that. I think sometimes you have to experience the lows to kind of wake you up.

“It does jolt you. Who wants to start off 0-3 coming off a BCS game? But (we did) and you’ve got to learn how to deal with it.”

Palko was among the featured instructors Saturday at George Curry’s Quarterback Camp, run by the former Berwick and current Wyoming Valley West head coach with the help of several of the state’s top high school and college sideline bosses.

More than 300 athletes from grades 4-through-12 participated in the annual event, held Saturday for the first time on the campus of Bloomsburg University.

Whereas Penn State’s Anthony Morelli and Pat Devlin were no-shows, Palko has been loyal to Curry’s camp, which the West Allegheny High School grad has been attending since the seventh grade.

“You tighten up your fundamentals,” the 6-foot-2, 220-pound left-hander said. “It’s a neat thing to be around and see guys grow. I think that’s why people continue to come back to his camps, because you get a lot out of it. Coach Curry’s very good at what he teaches in the fundamental aspects of playing quarterback.”

…

He hopes to follow the example set last season by his friend Michael Robinson at Penn State.

“He was in the same position. They didn’t have a very good season and they came back and, shoot, they’re in the Orange Bowl. So it happens to people and I think it makes you a better quarterback to experience highs and lows and mediocrity. I think coming off a 5-6 season we’re excited to get back into it and that’s what we’re looking forward to.”

Palko expressed disappointment at not being able to play in a game against the Nittany Lions during his college career, adding he hopes the series between the two rivals will resume one day.

“It stinks not playing them because it would be a fun game. It’s not like a hatred thing. You want to play in big games, that’s a big game. I think it’s going to get back on track, I really do, just because of (the efforts of) coach Wannstedt.

“I think they’re going to find some happy medium down the line. I wish it could have been when I was here, but I’ll come back and watch it.”

Along with everyone in the state.