KAEO -------- Jason Cherry

I recently received an e-mail from former UMass kicker Jason Cherry. He's still active in arena football.

Since 1998 Cherry has played a number of Area Football teams

• Johnstown Riverhawks (3 seasons)
• Huntington Heroes ( 1 season)
• Fayetteville Guard (1 season)
• Richmond Raiders (1 season)

Jason is 89 points from 500 Career points in arena football. He's set single season points records for three different teams (Johnstown, Huntington and Fayetteville). He also had the first successful dropkick extra point in league history. His dropkick extra point is on YouTube.

Jason is still tied for the most UMass PAT's in a post-season game (7 at Georgia Southern) in 1998. He is currently 3rd in UMass career PAT percentage (.681) and 4th in career PAT's made (79).

Cherry continues to follow UMass football and is going to attend the Michigan game this year.

Thanks for the update Jason!

Jason Cherry kicks for the Huntington Heroes

Kudos to UMass Football Blog reader who left this link to a story about former UMass kicker Jason Cherry kicking for the Huntington Heroes Arena team. The original comment is in the Chris Koepplin blog post.

The Heroes web page is here .

Cherry's UMass bio page is still available here .

Jason's seven PAT's against Georgia Southern in 1998 is a UMass postseason PAT record that is likely to stand for some time.

UPDATE: Cherry also holds the record for the longest field goal in UMass postseason history (34 yards against Furman in 1999)

Jason Cherry still getting a kick out of football

Former UMass kicker Jason Cherry is still playing football. He is currently trying out for the Arizona Rattlers.

There is an article here about his current status.

Cherry was a big part of UMass' 1998 National Championship. He scored 13 points (2 field goals and seven extra points) against Georgia Southern.

The image to the right is a scan from the 1999 UMass Press Guide.

Good luck Jason!

UMass Football News--Jason Cherry carries the banner

 

Click on image and Blogger displays a full-rez size.

Jason Cherry, who was the place kicker during the glory years of Whipple's first tour sent me an e-mail saying he was at the UMass hockey National Championship game.

He had the very same UMass banner that his parents carried at the UMass Football National Championship game in 1998.

That banner qualifies as a UMass relic that should receive some serious veneration. The script "UMass" emblem was designed by UMass coaches, not a marketing firm and has always been one of my favorites.

Jason said he hopes to carry it at future Minutemen football victories.

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I was watching the Northeast conference championship game on ESPN3 a couple of days ago.

Joey Isabella caught at TD for Duquesne. Isabella went 17-194 and 2 TD's as a freshman.

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Friday---June 10, 2011

I received an E-mail from Jason Cherry. He's going to hang up his cleats as kicker in professional indoor football. Jason played seven seasons for six different teams, including the Arizona Rattlers and the Columbus Destroyers. He ended up with 430 points and 32 tackles (a statistic, he says, kickers are not enthusiastic about). His totals included the first successful extra point drop kick in the AIFA league.

Jason is still tied for the most PAT in a post season game (seven against Georgia Southern 1998). He's third in all time UMass career field goal percentage (.681 15-22 1998-2000)

He and his wife welcomed Margaret Penrose Cherry (UMass class of 2023) into their life on April 19th, 2011. He says he's still a UMass fan and hopes to go to some of the MAC games when UMass plays Akron or Toledo.

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Eagles Blog "BC Interruption" adds UMass to his hate index.

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UMaine is concerned about future conference affiliation.

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The Charolette 49ers might end up in the CAA now that the Big South and the Southern Conference have turned down Charolette's bid to join those two leagues.

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Austin Lane, a 6-6 304 pd OL lineman for Syracuse picked the Orange over the Minutemen.

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UMass Football News--June 29th, 2024

 UMass loses an administrative staffer to the NFL.

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2024 MAC opponent Miami (Ohio) is favored to repeat as conference champion. 

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Athlon ranks the MAC (and five UMass opponents) for 2024. 

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Former UMass football player Jason Cherry is an accomplished author. His recent book "William Trent:Factor of Ambition" came out in March 2024 to rave reviews. He dedicated the book to his UMass teammate Corey Mitchell who passed away in 2020 from covid complications.

The book opened as the #1 history book of the Colonial period on Amazon. It won praise by prestigious Journal of the American Revolution. Cherry was also interviewed in a 45 minute podcast about the book here.

Cherry's seven extra point kicks in the 1998 championship game was an FCS record at the time.

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ROUTINE

UMass scientists develop groundbreaking device for advanced quantum computing.

People are saying in the comments to the article that the device is a dead ringer for a flux capacitor..

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Thursday--April 5th, 2012

The first half of the April 28th Spring Game will be varsity against alumni. A number of former UMass players will be on hand for one more appearance at McGuirk.

I had an e-mail from Jason Cherry, who recently ended a successful career in arena football. I've blogged about Jason a number of times in the past.

He'll be at the Spring game. He also had part as an extra in the next Batman movie "The Dark Knight Rises".

From his e-mail:

"Last August 6th they shot the Dark Knight Rises batman movie in Pittsburgh and they called me and other former professional football guys for a scene shot at Heinz field.  Though I was just standing on sidelines in uniform, I was placed on the Gotham City Rogues team with 10 of the Pittsburgh Steelers as Gotham's kicker wearing #1.  Bill Cowher was also the coach for Gotham City.

 We had a fitting in the locker room at heinz field under the code name Magnus Rex so that media wouldn't hound the sets.  On the fitting day they dressed by position and the guys ahead of me were given equipment and uniforms for the team, the Rapid City Monuments. When I was called I was told I would the kicker for Gotham City.  In fact the real mayor of Pittsburgh Luke Ravenstahl who was a kicker at Washington and Jefferson college got to kick a kickoff with that team to Gotham City Rogues returner real Pittsburgh Steeler Hines Ward. Hines runs the kickoff the whole way and as he scores, Bane the villian blows up the entire field with explosives leaving nothing left.  Myself and the rest of Gotham players cheered like he was returning it for real then they yelled cut.  This all came with 10,000 volunteers who showed up as Gotham City football fans.
  I had my own locker with my name on it and I was given #1 and it said Gotham on the front of my jersey. It does not say my name on the back however, though Ben Roethlisberger, Ike Taylor, Troy Polamalu and Hines Ward have their names and actual numbers for Gotham.  Ironically, the uniforms are also black and gold."

Hope we have a big turnout for the spring  game!

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Scout.com looks at the head coaches of the MAC East and gives Coach Molnar a positive review.

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Rivals.com looks at the MAC and does a spring preview of UMass.

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Victor Cruz advances to the final eight for the cover of Madden 2013.

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Thursday--July 19th, 2012

Matty V. has an article on former UMass kicker Jason Cherry's role in the new Batman flick "The Dark Knight Rises."

Remember I did a blog post on this back in April.

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The Bleacher Report has a post on the upcoming MAC Media Day.

The MAC Blog "Hustle Belt" reacts to yesterday's post about a fictional college draft. UMass would get USC's Matt Barkley.

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Vladimir Ducasse joined Mark Sanchez's "Jets west" camp.

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Yet another commentary on the Pats safeties, including James Ihedigbo.

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More on Victor Cruz's book release here and here.

Rant Sports says the Giants should sign Cruz before Linsanity kicks in.

Victor has been thinking about who should play his girlfriend in a possible movie about his life.

Image from Details & Complex Magazine

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The Kansas City Star looks at the rule changes in college football for 2012.

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Sunday--April 21st

Click on image for a larger view

It was a chilly. but inspiring day yesterday for UMass football. Coach Molnar didn't get 5,000 for the game, but it was the biggest turnout I've seen in my decades of watching Spring Football games.

The first and longer half featured a blended alumni team and the varsity. Things got faster in the second half with an all-varsity scrimmage  The second half featured some nice catches by the rookie UMass receiving corps.

The UMass website has the story, images and video.

MassLive has a story about the team honoring the Boston Marathon runners. One of the runners had a very personal connection with one of the victims of the tragedy.

Matty V has a story about the ceremony  honoring the runners. He also has an article about a link between a UMass player, a runner and a MIT police officer.

The Boston Herald also covers the Spring game.

Alumni players (both lists from game program):

• CJ Koegal '07
• Frank Fay '86
• Matt Goldstein '04
• Rob O'Connor'0
• Larry Cabelli '06
• Jason Cherry '02
• Gregory Ward'02
• Matt Murphy '99
• Lamar Newsome '91
• Vincent Westcarr '12
• John Benzinger '86

Alumni Attending:

• Jeron Alston
• EJ Barhel '07
• Clift Bolden '01
• John Burgess '61
• Ed Campbell '02
• Ned Dean '77
• Bill Deflavio '73
• Peter Ditomasso '82
• Deyate Haygood '99
• John Hendry '77
• James Ihedigbo '07
• Andrew McClay '90
• Dan Markowski '96
• Lance Overby '00
• Joe Sabella '95
• Brian Smith '01
• Kevin Sullivan '80
• Darryl Thomas '00
• Todd Tinker '94

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12,500 showed up for Wisconsin's Spring game.

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Boston College received verbals from two Massachusetts players Kevin Cohee and Jon Baker.

BC Interruption reacts.

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Around the MAC:

The Cleveland Plain Dealer says the Spring Games of Akron and Kent State featured the running game.

Defense dominated in NIU's game.

Ball State's Keith Wenning has thrown for 7, 254 yards and 57 TD's and he still has his senior year to go.

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Thursday Morning-before-the-Big-Game-with-Richmond articles

The UMass Daily Collegian has a pair of Richmond game articles here and here .

The Richmond Times has a UMass-Spiders article here .

The Harrisonburg Daily News says the New England CAA schools are the rust belt of the league .

David Coulson has his weekly "Around FCS" column here .

Bruce Dowd has a long recap of last week's Richmond-JMU contest (with images) here .

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Speaking of JMU, they may have lost two linebackers for the season during the Richmond game.

The season for the Delaware Blue Hens just keeps getting worse . And more worse .

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Matty Vautour says that more than forty members of the 1998 UMass National Championship game will attend this week's Richmond game.


This list of attending players is from the UMass website:"Here is a list of 1998 football players who have RSVP'd that they will be attending the 10 Year Anniversary at the UMass-Richmond football game. In no particular order: Head Coach Mark Whipple, Marcel Shipp, Pete Cariello, Greg Ward, Andy Maclay, Sean Higgins, Mike Wynne, Bryan King, Dan Schneider, Cliff Bolden, Bryah Gifford, Matt Murphy, Khalil Blakely, Bill Barry, Scott Shearer, David Melendez, Chris Tobiaz, Kevin Quinlan, Lance Overby, Jason Cherry, Jeremy Robinson, Aaron Parker, Christian Erhartic, Mim Hill, Mike Smith, Todd Bankhead, Kole Ayi, Eric Bross, Ed Campbell, Chris Price, Dan Healey, Kerry Taylor, Adam Quitt, Adrian Zullo, Khari Samuel, Deyate Haygood, Jamel Thomas, Saud Paul Bolden, Compton Webster, Steve Ley, Tyler Laubach, James St. Fort."

UMass Football News--March 7th, 2020

The UMass website has a post on Cato June joining the UMass coaching staff.

Wolverine Wire also has a story on former Michigan player Cato June being added to the Minutemen coaches.

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2019 UMass Special Teams intern Tim McGrath has joined the Texas Tech staff.

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Former UMass administrative assistant Jason Cvercko has joined Nick Rolovich's staff at Washington State.

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Troy head coach Chip Lindsey is pleased with Spring practice.

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College Football News previews Appalachian State's 2020 schedule and predicts 11-1 for top end and 6-6 on the low side.

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New Mexico will return to its traditional silver helmets and cherry jerseys for home games in 2020. UMass will play at New Mexico on October 7th.

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New Mexico State and fellow Independent loses their starting QB to the transfer portal.

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A Sea of Red looks at five questions for Liberty to resolve in Spring practice.

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Hatchell Brothers play big for UMass

Celeste Whittaker has an article in Cherry Hill Courier-Post about the Hatchell brothers. The article includes two nice images of the Hatchells.

Senior DE John Hatchell 6-2 270 has been a two year starter for the Minutemen on the defensive line. Last year he had 14UT 22 At 36TT 1-7 sacks 5.5-23 TFL

His brother Jason Hatchell 6-0 224 has started the last two years at LB. He had a breakout year in 2005 43UT 65AT 111TT 1-7 sacks and 1 PBU.

The above image is by David Moler. The Springfield Republican has a image gallery of the UMass-Stony Brook game here .