Hamilton Heights rising junior Abdulhakim Ado was ranked Wednesday as the No. 38 basketball player in the class of 2016 and was given a four-star rating, according to ESPN. He is the first area player to receive a top-100 ranking since former East Ridge star Philip Jurick was the No. 91 recruit in the 2008 class. The 6-foot-11 Ado is the highest-ranked area player since former Cleveland standout Vincent Yarbrough was the consensus No. 11 recruit in 1998. Ado averaged 9.8 points, 11.8 rebounds and 7.3 blocked shots for the Hawks in 2013-14.
• After seven years of apprenticeship under two-time national-runner-up Marty Rowe with the Lee University women's basketball team, Caleb Hindman has been hired as the head girls' coach at Polk County High School, where his mother, Pam Hindman, played before going into coaching herself. She coached for 19 years at Chattanooga Christian, where Caleb graduated, and now is the coach at Chilhowee Middle. "That's the only middle school in the county, so I'm in charge of feeding my son good basketball players," Pam said Wednesday with a laugh. "Marty has been a great mentor to my son," she said of Rowe, who had Caleb as a student assistant for three years, a graduate assistant for two and a full-fledged assistant the last two. "We're really excited for Caleb getting the opportunity to advance in the coaching profession," Rowe said in a Lee release, "and we're also excited for Polk County High School for landing a quality young coach. Caleb comes from a basketball family and has such a great set of eyes for the game." Said Caleb: "We will probably take our lumps the first couple of years. We held our first practice on Tuesday and had only 11 players and seven were freshmen, but we have something to build on."
Soccer
• Covenant College men's soccer coach Nathan Pifer has hired a fellow Covenant alumnus, Scott Bosgraf, to be his full-time assistant coach. Bosgraf replaces Drew Courtney, who left the Lookout Mountain school to be the head coach at Bryan College, but already served from 2009 to 2013 as Pifer's goalkeepers coach. Bosgraf also has extensive experience as a club coach, having assisted his and Pifer's Scots coach, Brian Crossman, with the Chattanooga Football Club from 2009 to 2012 and currently serving as head coach of the CFC club program and an assistant at Baylor School. He previously was a head coach in the East Ridge asssociation and took an under-18 boys' team to a Division II state championship in 2011. He has served as a coach, board member and director of the Lookout Mountain association. As a Covenant senior in 1988, he was a team captain and an All-South third-team selection. "It is rare to gain a full-time assistant with the experience Scott has, and I am excited about him moving into full-time status with the team," Pifer said in a school release. Said Bosgraf: "Covenant has a great tradition both on and off the field. ... Coach Nathan Pifer and Dr. Brian Crossman have had a great impact for Christ on many lives, including mine, and I greatly anticipate carrying that work on as a member of the coaching staff."
• The East Ridge Futbol Club 99 Arsenal under-15 boys' team won the recent US Youth Soccer state championship and qualified for the Region III (South) tournament June 20-26 in Baton Rouge, La.
• The Tennessee-Georgia all-star soccer games for recent area high school graduates have been divided. With a shortage of players available Friday for the Georgia girls' team, that game is being rescheduled for next week. The boys will play Friday as planned at Finley Stadium, but at 4:30 p.m. instead of 3:30.