HAPPY SIGNING DAY! | Here’s who signed and where they’re going

The athletes that ETBlitz.com covered on Wednesday are used to getting cheers and creating excitement on the field, the court, the baseball diamond, and even at the lake. But on National Signing Day, they were getting cheers for an entirely different reason.

Athletes at Kilgore, Sabine, Arp, and Troup were joined by their families, their coaches, faculty members and in some cases, the entire freaking high school on Wednesday to sign national letters of intent to continue their education and athletic careers on the collegiate level.

At Kilgore, seniors Braydon Nelson, Emmanuel Young, Rashaud Brown, Derrick Williams, Adan Reyes and Mikel Dennis – all of them football players – signed. Just over Interstate 20, Sabine Cardinals Cale Brown, Ella Roberts, Jaydan McPherson, and Hunter Stuckey were signing around the same time.

Arp’s Jackson Cavazos is going to be playing baseball at a little bigger show; Troup had a passel of athletes sign: Trae Davis is on his way to play football at Kansas State, and classmates Bailey Blanton, Grayson Hearon and Ty Lovelady all made their destinations official, too.

Balloons, photos and jerseys decorated the large table at KHS, where a host of seniors – from a class that won 33 games, lost only eight, and were a round away from the state title game in each of the last two years – congregated to sign paperwork for their future.

A trio of offensive linemen – Nelson, Young and Brown, the core of Kilgore’s offense the last three seasons – lined up beside each other one last time. Nelson put on social media weeks ago that he would be headed to the University of North Texas. Young’s choice was Howard Payne University, and Brown? He’ll be headed to Northeastern State (Okla.), in Tahlequah, Okla.

Young, Brown and Nelson have been nothing short of spectacular as the cornerstones of the Ragin’ Red offense, an offense that rolled up 3,086 rushing yards, 2,286 passing yards and 62 touchdowns in their senior season, and well over 9,000 total yards in their sophomore, junior and senior seasons combined.

Brown will help try and build a program back to its glory days in Talequah, where the Northeastern State Riverhawks fell to 1-10 a year ago. Northeastern State competes in the Mid-American Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MIAA), along with Central Missouri, Pittsburg State, Emporia State, Missouri Western, Fort Hays State, Northwest Missouri, Central Oklahoma, Missouri Southern, Nebraska Kearney and Washburn.

Young heads to Howard Payne, whose Yellow Jackets, who play at Gordon Wood Stadium there in Brownwood, went 6-4 overall, and 3-3 in the American Southwest Conference play in 2023.

Nelson honored his verbal commitment and signed with North Texas’ Mean Green on Wednesday. The Mean Green, coached by former Texas Tech standout Eric Morris, a young coach with a bright vision for North Texas.

The Mean Green now competes in the American Athletic Conference. They went 5-7 in 2023, finishing out the season with a 45-42 home win over the Trent Dilfer-coached Alabama Birmingham.

At Sabine, Roberts, McPherson, Stuckey and Brown all signed letters of intent, as well.

Stuckey and McPherson both signed with East Texas Baptist University in Marshall, where they’ll be student athletes in a different sport: fishing.

And the two Cardinals are going to one heck of a program. Last year, ETBU’s Ethan Thurston, just a sophomore, won the Carhartt Bassmaster College Series Classic at Eagle Mountain Lake. And most recently, in Kissimmee, Florida, ETBU students competed in the Abu Garcia Major League Fishing event, and Brayden Mercer and Corey Morris fished together, and took a top-30 place.

They’ll be back in action at Douglas Lake, Tennessee, in early March, and a lot closer to home – the Sam Rayburn Reservoir in Jasper – in May.

Roberts is headed to the University of Texas at Tyler, where she’ll continue her education and cheer career. The cheer program at UT-Tyler brought on former Tyler Legacy cheer and dance instructor Katie Hutto as head coach last year.

While at Legacy, Hutto’s team finished in the top 20 in the UIL Class 6A-DII teams at UIL Gameday.

Roberts follows the paths of two former recent Sabine cheer standouts – Tessa Peterson and Katie Stansberry – to UT-Tyler.

And Cale Brown, who has helped the Lady Cardinals win many a game on the court in her high school career, will be going northeast a bit to enroll as a student and compete for Southern Arkansas University, and their volleyball program.

Southern Arkansas, located in Magnolia, Arkansas, recently completed a 15-14 season, most of it in the Great American Conference. They went 9-8 in conference play and 7-2 at home. She’ll be coached by Alli O’Banion.

At Arp, Tigers senior middle infielder Jackson Cavazos signed with the University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy in St. Louis, Missouri. And to see video of Jackson signing, courtesy of Arp ISD Communications Coordinator Mike Alzamora, check out the ETBlitz.com Facebook page!

Also from Alzamora, a couple of interesting tidbits: Jackson, even though he is right-handed, bats left-handed because at the age of two he copied his older brother.

Regarding UHSP, Cavazos’ new college program, their teams are the Eutectics.

What is that, you ask?

Well, Alzamora did a little research. Here’s what Mike came up with, from the university’s website.

“Eutectic – our mascot’s namesake – is a term commonly used in pharmacy, describing the process of two solids combining to form a liquid. Playing a sport in college does the same thing by deepening and enriching your experience as a student.”

And this, per google (vedantu.com): Eutectic is a mixture of substances that melts and freezes at a particular temperature that is smaller than the melting points of the individual constituents or some other mixture of them.

We’re pretty sure Cavazos is going to make the fans at UHSP pretty happy. But first, he’s about to play his senior season for the Arp Tigers.

At Troup, receiver Trae Davis, who was a first-teamer on the All-ETBlitz.com Gridiron Team released last weekend (ALL-ETBLITZ.COM GRIDIRON TEAM! | East Texas, here’s your high school football best-of-the-best), signed his deal with Kansas State, officially becoming a Wildcat (All of the Kilgore players who signed on Wednesday were a part of the All-ETBlitz.com team, as well).

Bailey Blanton signed Wednesday to continue her education and athletic career at McMurry University in Abilene, where she’ll play volleyball.

The War Hawks have a long way to go – they went 2-24 last season, 0-10 on the road – but they’ll do it with Blanton in the lineup, and she’ll take them up the standings in the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference, competing against Centenary College, Colorado College, the University of Dallas, Schreiner University, the University of St. Thomas (in Houston) and Trinity University. That takes affect this year. Most recently, McMurry competed in the American Southwest Conference.

That’ll also affect Troup’s other signees today: a pair of football standouts, Grayson Hearon and Ty Lovelady, who signed Wednesday with the War Hawks’ football program.

The War Hawks went 6-4, but won their last four games: three out of four at home (Howard Payne, Austin College, and Sul Ross) and one road game (at Texas Lutheran).

ETBlitz.com congratulates all of these young women and young men on their collegiate destinations. And there are likely more to come this spring. Anyone who has a signing coming up – coaches or parents – contact Mitch Lucas at ETBlitz.com by e-mailing him at mlucas@thefootballbeat.com.