Red Bank High School graduate David Barger has announced he will be retiring as Carson-Newman College's athletic director on April 30 but will continue to help the NCAA Division II school in Jefferson City, Tenn., in fundraising roles. The school is giving him "emeritus" status like legendary former Eagles coach and AD Frosty Holt. Barger recently was announced as one of seven special award winners at the Greater Chattanooga Sports Hall of Fame banquet on Feb. 27 at the Chattanooga Convention Center. Tickets for the banquet, which also will include 22 inductees, cost $35 and are available through organization president John Farr at 875-9282. Barger will receive the Morgan-Morris Award for providing inspiration through adversity -- in his case limb-girdle muscular dystrophy. He's had it since childhood but it has increasingly affected his mobility recently. "Everything's good but the legs," the 1970 Carson-Newman graduate said in the release announcing his retirement. "I just can't do it full speed like I want to, like I have been able to, and I've always thought that should be the point when I try to find another way to help Carson-Newman." Barger left the banking industry to be the school's athletic promotions director in 1980; he became the AD 10 years later. In the early 1990s the school made the transition from the NAIA to the NCAA.
Swimming & Diving
• KNOXVILLE -- Baylor School graduate Martin Grodzki of the Georgia swimming and diving team lived up to his seeding and won the 500- and 1,650-yard men's freestyle events at the Southeastern Conference meet that concluded Saturday at Tennessee's Allan Jones Aquatic Center. Grodzki won the 500 by more than two seconds Thursday in 4:16.94 and won the 1,650 by 15 seconds-plus Saturday in 14:36.93. He was eighth Friday in the 400 individual medley. Alabama's Reese Shirey from Baylor led off a seventh-place men's 200 medley relay and anchored the eighth-place 400 medley relay, and Anna Rae Gwarjanski began a ninth-place women's 800 free relay for Alabama. UT's Jordan Mauney from Baylor was 10th in men's platform diving.
Tennis
• SAN DIEGO -- Chattanooga's Wesley Cash and Zan Guerry lost 6-4, 6-4 Saturday to La Jolla club members in the men's 55 doubles semifinals of the International Tennis Federation's Seniors World Individual Championships. The fourth seeds, Guerry and Cash lost to John Holladay and William Kellogg, who play today for the championship against Ross Persons of Houston and Daniel Waldman of Washington, D.C.
• The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga men's tennis team improved to 6-2 for the season with a 7-0 win Saturday on the UTC courts -- the Mocs' first outdoor competition of 2012. With only Nos. 1 and 2 singles players Roberto Vieira and Chris Smith playing both singles and doubles, 10 players took part in the sweep.
Softball
• AUSTIN, Texas -- GPS graduate Tory Lewis went 2-for-5 and scored a run in Tennessee's 10-7 softball win over Illinois at Austin, Texas, on Friday. Another ex-Bruiser, Whitney Hammond, scored as a pinch runner. The Lady Vols' later game against Texas was rained out, as was Saturday's game against Pittsburgh.
Basketball
• UTC senior basketball players Ricky Taylor and Keegan Bell will be the special guests for the Chattanooga Quarterback Club's noon luncheon meeting Monday at Finley Stadium, and the public is invited. Attendance costs $10 with a meal, $4 without.
• JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. -- Ishmael Sanders from Cleveland scored a team-high 18 points in Carson-Newman's 82-71 South Atlantic Conference basketball loss Saturday to visiting Newberry.