MidlandsPreps: About Us

Gerald Davis is the assistant sports editor over high schools, community sports and NASCAR. He's been covering high school sports for more than 15 years in North and South Carolina. Gerald can be reached at gerdavis@thestate.com or 803.771.8442

Akilah Nelson covers high school sports. The New Jersey native began sports writing at the Daily Tar Heel in Chapel Hill, N.C., and was a high school football correspondent for The (Durham, N.C.) Herald-Sun. After graduating from the University of North Carolina in 2003, she covered the WNBA and minor league baseball as an intern at The Star-Ledger, Newark, N.J. She was an education reporter at the Public Opinion in Chambersburg, Pa., for 18 months before joining The State's sports staff in August 2005. Akilah can be reached at ainelson@thestate.com or 803.771.8419

Steve Wiseman has been with The State for six years, covering the Gamecocks from 2001-05. Prior to joining The State, Steve was an NFL beat writer for five years, covering the Carolina Panthers for the Herald-Journal in Spartanburg and the New Orleans Saints for The Sun-Herald in Biloxi, Miss. An Illinois native, Steve also covered high school sports in the Upstate and Winthrop basketball for the Charlotte Observer earlier in his career. Among the writing awards Steve has won are the Mississippi Press Association's sports news story of the year in 2001 and second place in the S.C. Press Association's sports feature writing contest in 2004. Steve can be reached at swiseman@thestate.com or 803.771.8472

John Devlin is a native of Phoenixville, Pa. Devlin, 57, has been a sportswriter since 1976, starting at The Evening Phoenix in his hometown. Devlin worked for 20 years in Denver, Colo., serving as the sports editor for the suburban Sentinel Newspapers chain in Aurora and Littleton before spending six years as a prep writer for The Denver Post. The Colorado High School Athletic Directors Association named him the sportswriter of the year in 1990. Since moving to South Carolina in 1997, Devlin worked at The High School Sports Report as a writer and editor before taking a job with Varsity Online, a national high school web site based in Minneapolis, Min. For the past five years, he has been a regular freelance contributor to The State and The Post and Courier in Charleston, among other in- and out-of-state publications. John can be reached at PhxPa@aol.com or 803.865.7896