It seems like almost every week I get a call from someone telling me about a former Dallas County student accomplishing big things somewhere around the world. Spending the majority of my time covering sports, many of those calls are about collegiate athletes making their mark on the basketball court or on the football field.

This year those types of calls seem to be coming in more and more.

In December, Malcolm Riley led Texas Southern to a road upset over Final Four stalwart Michigan State. Riley scored 20 points in the game and brought down seven rebounds. After a brutal early season schedule, Texas Southern has quietly moved to 5-0 in the SWAC and should be considered the favorite from the conference to make the NCAA Tournament.

The argument can be made that no player with Dallas County ties has played better than Jasmine Peeples this season. Peeples, a junior at Alabama State, was recently named SWAC player of the week and has been an outstanding rebounder for the Lady Hornets.

Just this past weekend, former Selma High star Charles Eaton hit a game winning three-pointer to lead West Alabama past West Georgia. William Lee, who is one of the biggest recruits in history from the county, looks like he is finding his footing at the collegiate level. Lee had 11 rebounds in a game against Florida Atlantic a few weeks ago and a freshman already leads the Blazers in rebounds per game.

On and off the football field, NFL star Michael Johnson is doing great things. Johnson has helped area youth by paying for their way to a Tampa Bay Buccaneers game on Thanksgiving weekend and gave local families a shopping spree in Tampa and in Selma before Christmas. He remains a feared defensive player in the league, but off the field he continues to be the kind of role model Selma needs.

That’s not even counting athletes with Selma ties, such as Jake Peavy and Katy Freels. The list keeps growing too. National signing day is less than two weeks away and a handful more kids will sign to play college football all over the south.

I enjoy every second of it, but understandably it’s a lot to keep up with. There’s so many players in different places that it’s often hard to keep up with all of them and sadly there are many others I do not know about.

I’ve been in Selma for 19 months and during that time I’ve gotten to know a lot of our current local athletes, but I’m not as familiar with those who came before I moved to Selma.

That’s where I could use some help. There are surely other Dallas County athletes that are shining on the basketball court, the football field, tennis courts or in other sports that I’m not familiar with. I’d like to hear about them. If you have any information about a former Dallas County athlete that is playing at the next level, please email me at daniel.evans@selmatimesjournal.com or call 410-1736.