Recent Soddy-Daisy High School graduate Eli Christman is officially on the United States junior team going to Moscow, Russia, in six weeks for the World Championships for Shotgun after finishing second this past weekend in the USA Shooting nationals at Colorado Springs, Colo. Scores from the first two days were added to the scores from the National Junior Olympic tournament last month to determine the country's representatives in Moscow. Christman, Nic Moschetti of Broomfield, Colo., and Elijah Ellis from College Station, Texas, were tied at 246 targets apiece and assured of their spots even before the six-man final round in Colorado, and Moschetti edged Christman with Ellis third in that. Moschetti wound up with 251 points to Christman's 249 and Ellis's 247 in the junior team count. The International Shooting Sport Federation worlds in Moscow are set for Aug. 30-Sept. 11. Christman is about to begin his freshman year at Martin Methodist College.
Golf
- Collette Murray was the medalist with a 74 from the green tees at Valleybrook in the Chattanooga Women's Amateur Championship qualifying round Monday. Leslie Nelson was the senior medalist with an 81. Today, Murray and Nelson will be joined in the championship flight, using the green tees, by Miranda Rich, Zacori Hill, Carol Massey, Ryan McCuistion, Ashley Holland, Mary Melissa Manuel and Seong Glickman. There also are second and third flights from the red tees. The senior division is off today but plays again Wednesday, the tournament's final day.
- Georgia Northwestern's first golf season after a year-plus interruption of the program will begin Sept. 10-12 at the Wallace State Invitational tournament in Cullman, Ala. Then the Bobcats of new coach Eddie Jackson will play Oct. 8-10 in the U.S. Collegiate Athletic Association nationals in State College, Pa., and Oct. 22-24 in the Berry College Invitational at Stonebridge Golf Club in Rome, Ga. The fall schedule ends with the Trojan Invitational hosted Nov. 12-14 at Montgomery by Central Alabama Community College.
Rowing
- A new Chattanooga rowing team, the Tennessee River Rowing Association, started this summer with girls from Baylor School, Girls Preparatory School and Chattanooga Junior Rowing in a specialized camp, and the TRRA fared well -enough at the national club regatta in Cincinnati this past weekend to earn lead status in a USRowing story: "First Times and Fast Times at Club National Championships." Larkin Brown and Kathryn Nash placed fourth in under-19 pair, and Nash and Meagan Haustein were seventh in under-19 double sculls. In the article Brown acknowledges that getting used to new teammates and the challenging training was hard at first, "but after the first week we were able to get together and pick it up. I'm really glad that I did it." Continuing, she said, "This experience has definitely helped me get stronger, mentally and physically. I'm just going to take this, grow from it and bring what I've learned back to my school team." The TRRA coaches are Anders Swanson and David Hall.
Football
- Sam McKenzie Jr., a Chattanooga native and the father of former Tennessee Volunteers football standouts Reggie and Raleigh McKenzie - and the grandfather of current Vols defensive tackle Kahlil McKenzie - died last Thursday at the age of 82. Another son is Samuel McKenzie, who is an operations manager for Oak Ridge National Laboratory and a former member of the Knox County Commission. Reggie played five years in the NFL and now is the general manager of the Oakland Raiders, after working for the Green Bay Packers for 18 years. Raleigh played 16 years with the Washington Redskins, with whom he helped win two Super Bowls, and now is a Raiders scout. Their father was born in Chattanooga in 1935 and graduated from Howard High School in 1953 before earning a bachelor's degree at Tennessee A&I State University. He worked for 34 years for the Tennessee Department of Human Services.