SLIDELL — Nick Houston is an excellent tap dancer.
But you would never know it by the way he tackles on the football field. Houston was contacted by Delta State after his senior season. After a visit and some talking, Houston signed a scholarship with the Cleveland, Mississippi school to play football.
“I sent my highlight tape to a few schools, and then Delta State called me one day. They thought I was a good tackler and had good awareness,”?Houston said.
Houston is an actor who has been performing in plays at the Slidell Little Theatre since he was in seventh grade and is also trained in tap dancing. He wants to major in theater in arts because of his background, but until he has a degree in hand, Houston will be playing college football.
Delta State is one hour north of Jackson, Ms. It’s a Division-II school that won the national championship in 2011.
“Even though the school is out in the middle of nowhere, I think it’s good becasue it’ll help me to focus more. The whole town is about football, so that’s cool,”?Houston said.
The 18-year-old said it wasn’t until his junior year that he started becoming athletic. In fact, after his freshman year he wanted to quit, but decided to give it another shot as a sophomore.
Houston’s dad played college football, but fractured his neck so he had to stop, and his second uncle played for the Oilers and Redskins in the NFL.

“I’m nervous about being so far away from home. It’s going to be a mixture of emotions, but this isn’t something I would pass up doing,”?Houston said.

SLIDELL — Jordan Cornish is only 16 years old, but he just made one of the biggest decisions of his life.
The 6-foot-5 basketball player from Slidell verbally committed to the Tennessee Volunteers basketball team over other schools like Oklahoma, Purdue, Vanderbilt, VCU, Texas A&M and the University of Houston.
Cornish is a junior at Brother Martin High School, and was first contacted by Tennessee as a freshman. But Cornish truly got his start in the Slidell Youth Basketball Association and Biddy Leagues that were coached by guys like Ricky Suprean and Chris Jean.
“Jordan was raw as raw could be, but you could see he had tremendous athletic talent,” Suprean said, who has been coaching in the SYBA for over 20 years.
Cornish started playing in the SYBA when he was nine years old. His team went 17-0, and Cornish, who was already 5-foot-8 played point guard.
“We would have people come up to us and say, ‘How old is that tall kid?’ I’d tell them, ‘He’s nine years old and he’s our point guard,’” Suprean said.
Getting that experience as a point guard is what has helped Cornish stand out as a 6-5 guard.
At 10 years old, Cornish and his team went 38-0 on the season. Then at age 11, Cornish played in a 12-year-old tournament in Slidell, and his team upset New Orleans, and another Slidell team, but then lost to Kenner. It was Cornish’s first loss in 57 games.
“That was a great team. He was 6-feet tall and a point guard at 11 years old playing against 12 year olds,” Suprean said.
Clearly, Cornish was special from the rest. He said he chose Tennessee over the other schools because of the tradition the Volunteers have.
“Coach was always straight forward with me, and when I go up, I’ll have a shot at playing right away. I couldn’t pass that up,” Cornish said.
The teenager said he remembers playing in the SYBA league very well.
“Ricky (Suprean) and Chris (Jean) got me into it, and I really liked it,” Cornish said. “Those guys are great. They start us off young, and got me the proper training that I needed. Once I stopped playing with them, I just kept going forward.”
Suprean said Cornish is a very unique player.
“What makes him so special is that he will pass to everybody. He gets everybody involved, and he’s a tremendous defensive player. He works harder than anybody on the court. The kid was off the charts from the beginning, and all the kids loved being around him,” Suprean said. “He never had a swellhead.”

When Cornish was 10 years old, he met Chris Duhon, who is a Salmen High School graduate and NBA player with the Los Angeles Lakers. Suprean said Duhon and Cornish were eye-to-eye.

“I kept thinking, ‘This kid is 10 years old, and Chris is an NBA player. They’re the same height,’” Suprean said.
Cornish is an only child and the first in his family to play at a Division-I school. He is currently playing in the middle of the Nike EYBL season with Nike Team Louisiana and is averaging 10.7 points per game against some of the top competition in the country.

(Ben Taylor is the caretaker at Camp Salmen Nature Park, which is located on Hwy. 190 across from the Grand Theater, and writes a weekly column to talk about some of the features that the camp offers, which is open to the public. Information can be found at www.campsalmennaturepark.org)

SLIDELL — The No. 29 Northshore baseball team had a tough road ahead of them?Tuesday night when they played No. 4 Ruston in the first round of the Class 5A playoffs.
Unfortunately for the Panthers, the local team lost 10-0 in five innings.
“They hit everything we threw up there, and their pitcher was very good. That’s the hardest anyone has thrown to us all year,”?Northshore Head Coach Rick Mauldin said.
Northshore finished the season 15-18 overall and 4-8 in District 6-5A play. NHS had four hits against Ruston.
Last week, Mauldin announced he would be resigning at the end of the season, which would conclude 38 years of coaching. However, on Tuesday, he said he had a change of heart.
“The administration convinced me to stay,”?Mauldin said.
NHS?Principal Dr. Michael Peterson and Athletic Director Tom Gainey, along with friends and family, told Mauldin they didn’t think he should stop coaching just yet.
Mauldin said he has had a bad back for years now, and it was the worst it has ever been this season.
“I’ve been in a lot of pain, and I?didn’t think I could continue with it like this. I’m 50 years old now, not 16,”?Mauldin said.
But both Peterson and Gainey told Mauldin to take off the summer and winter to rest his back. Mauldin said he will likely have surgery this summer to repair it.

Northshore is graduating six seniors and two senior managers from this year’s squad.

SLIDELL – Clay Harris is back at Slidell High School.
The 2001 graduate played pitcher and third base at Slidell, where he helped lead his team to two district titles. He went on to sign a scholarship with Louisiana State University where he played for four years. In 2005, he was drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies in the ninth round. He played there for four seasons total and finished up in Double A. However, he had to retire because of knee problems.
Now, Harris is an assistant baseball coach back at his alma mater, where he is doing what he believes he was called to do.
“I have had knee problems for quite a few years now. I could still hit, but as far as running around, moving, playing the field — it was really hampering my abilities. A couple of days before I was supposed to report for the 2009 season, I called and said I wasn’t coming in,” Harris said.
The third baseman’s knee problems stemmed from cartilage problems that were leading to arthritis settling in. There was no cushioning or padding in the knee – it was just bone on bone. Harris had surgery after the 2007 season, which was a procedure that punctured holes in his bones that would eventually turn into scar tissue to act like cartilage in his knee. However, the surgery didn’t work, and although Harris worked it out, he was not able to return to the sport he loves.
“I couldn’t really watch baseball after that. I was living in Baton Rouge, so I re-enrolled in LSU and finished up my degree. I did some baseball lessons with travel teams for two years, but that was it, along with school,” Harris said.
He then got his degree in history, and started working in sales for Sherwin Williams.
“I wanted to coach and teach, but I needed a certificate that I couldn’t get right away. So I decided to try sales,” Harris said with a bit of a chuckle.
“I soon found out I could get my certificate quicker than I thought, so I immediately started applying for jobs in Baton Rouge that had baseball coaching jobs,” Harris said.

“I was really hoping for anything, but when (Slidell principal) Mr. Percy contacted me and said there was a possible opening, I got excited. I didn’t think it would be a possibility,” Harris said.
Harris commented that his parents and brother, Will, also graduated from Slidell High so he wasn’t hesitant at all to teach and coach at his former school. Right now, Harris and his wife of six years, plus their five-year-old daughter and eight-month-old son, are renting a house in Abita Springs. However, if his wife can find a teaching job in Slidell, they will move here.
Since being at Slidell High, Harris said he has felt very comfortable.
“There’s a lot of faculty here that taught me, and there are some that I went to school with. There’s a lot of alumni teaching here, so it’s like we are a big family. It’s been great. The people I get to work with have made my first year a lot easier. I couldn’t imagine doing this at a school I wasn’t familiar with. Having some former teachers mentor me has helped a lot, too,” Harris said.
As far as coaching high school students, Harris said they don’t all know about his background.
“It was cool if they knew me, but I feel like I wanted to win them over. It’s been a great experience on the baseball field. I’ve been working with hitters and infielders, and it’s been a lot of fun getting to know the guys. Coming in, I didn’t know any of them, and at the beginning of the year, they would come into my classroom, and I didn’t know them as baseball players yet,” Harris said.
He said the biggest adjustment is going from playing to coaching.
“You pick up parts of the game when you play as far as situations go. One of the difficult things is relaying my knowledge in terms that the players can understand. I was a hitter, but now it’s about telling them how to hit the baseball. That’s been something that I’ve been trying to get better at,” Harris said.
The Slidell Tigers played in the first-round of the Class 5A playoffs on Wednesday, after the Slidell Independent’s deadline. But Harris said he was looking forward to the postseason.
“We kind of limped across the finish line, but our goal at the beginning of the season was to make the playoffs. Now it’s a clean slate and everybody is 0-0. You never know. There are plenty of wild cards who win the World Series, and it doesn’t matter your record or what seed you have now,” Harris said.
The former LSU player added that while some day he would like to be a head coach, he is happy with where he is right now being part of the Slidell High baseball team.
“I don’t see that changing anytime soon,” Harris said. “I love being part of these teenagers’ lives.”
Harris’ brother Will was drafted by the Colorado Rockies in 2006. On April 3 of this year, he was picked up off waivers by the Oakland Athletics.

SLIDELL — After waiting three days, Northshore High School graduate Chris Faulk got his call.
Faulk signed a free-agent deal with the Cleveland Browns to extend his football career.
Originally, Faulk was thought to be a first-round draft pick, but in 2012, during a practice after LSU’s season opener, he tore two ligaments in his right knee. Faulk, who is 6-feet-6 and 325 pounds, was still hoping to go as high in the draft as the third round. In fact, several analysts were predicting him to go in the third round. He was rated the No. 11 offensive tackle and the No. 112 player overall by NFLdraftscout.com.
“I had no clue what was going on, or where I was going to go. I was just waiting to get called,” Faulk said. “I kind of figured once the third round was over that I would sign a free -gent deal. The teams were really going to work with me.”
Faulk said that because of his injury, he was not drafted in the projected round.
“I talked to quite a few teams including the New Orleans Saints. I talked to every team in the NFL, and I am excited. I signed my contract Tuesday with them, and everything is what I thought it was going to be,” Faulk said.
Because of his injury, which required two surgeries, he was unable to run or do drills during pre-draft workouts. One week prior to the draft, Faulk met with the New Orleans Saints, according to Northshore Athletic Director Tom Gainey.
“I’m pretty much 100 percent or close to it. I feel good. The Browns are going to work with me, and make sure I get back to 100 percent,” Faulk said. “I’m just going up there to compete. I know it’s going to be different, and I know nothing is going to be given to me. I’m looking to do the best job I can.”

(Chrissy Smith is Sports Editor of the Slidell Independent, and a former college athlete. She can be reached at chrissycsmith@gmail.com.)

SLIDELL – Shawn Paretti, who has won two state individual swimming titles at Northshore High?School, has signed with Nova Southeastern University.
Paretti said he contacted the school early in September.
“I wasn’t fast enough for them then, but after my state swim meet, I contacted them again and they were interested. We talked a little bit about my times and we set up a visit in Ft. Lauderdale,”?Paretti said. “I liked it a lot, and the coach said my times were good and that I’d probably be on one of the top relay teams.”
At last year’s state meet, Paretti swam the 50-free and 100-free. In the 50, he had a time of 21.30, and in the 100, his time was 46.65.
Paretti was considering walking-on to the LSU swim team, but he said he felt like he’d have more of an opportunity to shine at NOVA.
The senior’s goal is to swim in college, and maybe some day go to the Olympic trials.
Paretti’s mom Kenta actually swam for Northshore swim coach Ed Kelly in her prep days, and the teenage-swimmer said Kelly has helped him out a lot in getting him where he wants to go.
“I’m excited to go to the next level and start college training. I feel like I have a lot of room to improve,”?Paretti said. “My family is happy with my choice, too.”
Paretti wants to major in business, and plans on joining the Marines or being part of the Navy Rescue Team after college.