A group of student athletes from Carver High School in Montgomery were about to receive  some great news for not participating in this fight.

Rotarian  Eric Lewis invited GreatNewsMontgomery.com to eat breakfast with the club and cover the activities.

Here are the earliest arriving of the bunch

From left to right we got Craig Sword, Joe Rudolph, Dominique Oliver, Ron Smith, Mark Jackson and Derrick Martin.

The fistacuffs drew enough attention when it happened about 6 months ago but check out the  above media link if you need your memory refreshed of how sorry the whole thing turned out. This fight and powerful video footage got lots of media exposure.

We are not talking about just local news, we are talking national news networks and affiliates around the country who couldnt get enough of the action  and thanks to high speed internet and free video hosting sites like YouTube and GoogleVideos the  entire world had access to that footage.

Montrell Holley and coach Jackson

Who knows how many million times that brawl was viewed? Add in comments and reactions from a multitude of everyday people  on  blogs, community posting boards and on Myspace/Facebook pages across the internet and its impossible to calculate  how badly Montgomery’s image  suffered because of the fight.  As far along as Montgomery has come  in terms of economic and social progress,  a video like that makes the work  easier for naysayers  to perpetuate negative racial and southern based stereotypes , after all  “evidence”  and “proof” of those stereotypes are available 24/7 on demand.

Do a basic google search for “carver basketball fight” or “carver basketball brawl” and see how many different results come up.  Page after page of negative publicity.

Now do a search for any of the young men’s name above and compare the results.

So perhaps now some of you all  who get most or all  of your news from Tv  can get an idea of how powerful the internet really is and how bad news can spread on the web faster than wildfire in a west coast forest. Well if bad news can spread so can  Great News it just requires more effort to get started and generally spreads at a slower rate.That where you all come into the picture.

You see folks this is a whole lot bigger than just some knuckleheads displaying poor sportsmanship and exhibiting lack of  self discipline.

It is bigger than just “rewarding” the kids who didnt fight  for doing the right thing.

This is about letting people all over the world see what values Montgomery citizens really respect and promote.  It is a chance for the often misguided youth to view benefits of an alternate and superior  form of behavior.  It is a chance for current  and future community leaders to leverage this recognition in order to hasten positive change in said communities…And it is a chance for those wanting to share Great News about Montgomery with the  world a chance to do so.

We believe it is wise and beneficent to promote the positive side of this story to our readers.

Just as it was wise and beneficent for  Sunrise Rotary  to invite the team to the Capital City Club to receive recognition.

Just as it was wise and beneficent for  Congressman  Bobby Bright and Mayor Todd Strange to attend the meeting, to speak encouraging words to those gathered and to award some very nice looking and meaningful commendations  to the young men.

Just as it would be wise and benficent to share this article and those like it with your own group of readers and listeners.

Of all the pictures took this is the only snippet of  Travaris Williams that exists in our camera. That why he is Missing In Photos

This ballplayer did monster crossover move on the camera.

Cortavious Orum was not able to attend, send us a pic and we will give you some well deserved credit.

If  any of the guys has ONE good shot that he wants to use to impress the ladies send it to editor@greatnewsmontgomery.com and we will post it.

Look we understand you athlete types already got things under control but no matter how well you are doing a little more great publicity wont hurt!!

More pictures will be put up soon. Stayed tuned as this post should have some life.

EXTRA EXTRA

Laugh all about it.

After the meeting  rumors circulated that  Mr Bright, the Mayor and Coach Jackson  held a secret practice in preparation of a breakdancing showdown vs a team from Valley.

Alabama High School Athletic Association ( AHSAA) asst. director Joe Evans is  supposedly going to be one of the judges.

We dont know what the competition  has but judging from the practice footage.

Valley is about to get served