Criminal Defense Attorney in Savannah, GA.

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have produced exceptional athletes who have left an indelible mark on the National Football League (NFL). One such athlete is the legendary Shannon Sharpe, a Hall of Fame tight end. In the NFL, tight ends are often overlooked, seen merely as extra blockers in an offensive playbook. However, Sharpe shattered this perception and revolutionized the position.

Who is Shannon Sharpe

Born in Chicago, Illinois, Sharpe was raised in Glenville, Georgia, by his grandparents alongside his brother Sterling Sharpe and sister Sherra Sharpe. Growing up, he excelled in multiple sports, including track, basketball, and football. It was on the football field where he truly shone, earning numerous accolades and ultimately receiving a scholarship from Savannah State University, an HBCU, where he further established his reputation.

Rising the HBCU Ranks

Sharpe's college career at Savannah State was remarkable. As the driving force of the offense, he displayed an incredible ability to make big plays, using his vertical leap and speed to outmaneuver defenders. Throughout his four-year college journey, Sharpe amassed an impressive 192 receptions for 3,744 yards and 40 touchdowns. His outstanding performance earned him recognition, including the 1989 Co-SIAC Player of the Year and the College Player of the Year in Georgia.

Shannon Sharpe thoroughly loved his Savannah State experience, often talking about how it made him the man that he is today.

“What you gave to a young, skinny kid from Glennville, Ga., was hope and the belief that I can be anything, I could go anywhere and I could hold my head up high and proud and say this is what Savannah State cultivated,” Sharpe said in a quote obtained by The Root.

Sharpe also spoke about playing for an HBCU over attending a bigger HBCU and how your talent can get you noticed wherever you are.

“A kid that has the grades to get into those schools, he wants to play on television in front of 80,000. He believes his opportunity will be brighter to get to the next level if he goes to a bigger college than an HBCU and that might be true. But, as my college coach Bill Davis told me, ‘Son, if you’re good, they’ll find you.’”

An Unconventional Road To Stardom

Despite his tremendous success and achievements in college, Sharpe was not initially highly regarded as he entered the 1990 NFL Draft. However, fate had much more in store for him. Sharpe defied all odds when he was selected in the 7th round by the Denver Broncos, a pivotal moment that marked the beginning of a truly remarkable 14-year professional career.

What set Sharpe apart was his unparalleled skill set as a tight end. Not only could he seamlessly block with power and precision, but he also possessed the agility and finesse of a top-tier receiver when it came to catching the ball. His exceptional speed added another dimension to his game, making him a true force to be reckoned with on the field.

During his tenure with the Broncos, Sharpe's talent and dedication were recognized with an impressive 8 Pro Bowl selections. As a key contributor to the team's success, he played an instrumental role in helping the Broncos secure 2 Super Bowl championships, one in the 1990s and another in the early 2000s.

In 2000, Sharpe embarked on a new chapter of his career when he joined the Baltimore Ravens. His impact was immediate and profound, as he contributed significantly to the team's victorious journey to the Super Bowl XXXV.

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Shannon Sharpe The Media Mogul

After retiring from his illustrious football career, he seamlessly transitioned into the world of sports media. Utilizing his extensive knowledge and charismatic persona, he began his journey as a commentator for the CBS Sports pregame show, sharing his insights alongside fellow NFL personalities. His sharp analysis and engaging commentary quickly caught the attention of viewers, paving the way for even greater opportunities.

With his undeniable talent and magnetic presence, Sharpe went on to co-host the immensely popular sports debate show “Undisputed” on Fox Sports 1, joining forces with renowned sports commentator Skip Bayless. Their dynamic on-screen chemistry and thought-provoking discussions captivated audiences worldwide, solidifying Sharpe's status as a beloved figure among sports fans.

Continuing to expand his influence in the media landscape, Sharpe ventured into the podcasting realm, launching his own highly-acclaimed show titled “Club Shay Shay.” In this podcast, he showcases his exceptional interviewing skills by engaging with celebrities and former athletes, delving deep into their personal stories and experiences.

Sharpe's incredible journey, from his humble beginnings in an HBCU to reaching professional football's peak, inspires aspiring sports journalists. His dedication, pursuit of excellence, and passion for the game have propelled him to unparalleled success in both athletics and media. As Sharpe famously said, “If you're good enough, they will find you,” reminding us that with talent, determination, and resilience, any obstacle on the path to greatness can be overcome.

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SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTGS) — Another large hotel chain is making its way to the Hostess City with plans for a Ritz Carlton in downtown Savannah approved by the Historic District Board.

The Historic Savannah Foundation's director of preservation and historic properties, Ryan Jarles, said the 15-story building at 2 E. Bryan Street was built in 1915, towering over the rest of the buildings within the historic district.

"So this is a beautiful bank building that was originally constructed as a bank, so all offices and spaces for that. It is the tallest building in Savannah, and it's on Savannah's first and largest square, so it's kind of a central staging point for the city and a pretty prominent space," Jarles said.

Jarles wanted to clarify some confusion regarding the renovations and alterations that would come with the project.

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He said plans like raising the building by three floors and incorporating a pool deck are for the building next door, which would be a part of the hotel but has no historical significance.

"So the historic building is going to be rehabilitated. Nothing new is happening to that other than awnings on the lower levels," said Jarles. "The additions and everything are happening to the non-historic building that's touching it. So you know, the ugly rectangle right there, so that's going to have some alterations, and then they are adding some additional height to that building."

Mayor Van Johnson said having a prestigious brand like the Ritz make its way to the city acts as a benchmark for the growing tourism industry here.

"Well, we don't have a five-star hotel here, so the Ritz Carlton, in some ways, means that we've really grown up," said Johnson. "You've got to be a pretty balling city to have Ritz Carlton, and now we'll have a Ritz Carlton, so obviously, it's a major move for Savannah as a destination city."

Jarles added that some are concerned about the many large hotels continuing to make their way downtown and the effect that has on available living and office space for residents.

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He said that on the bright side, plans to incorporate a restaurant and bar on the ground floor could bring more foot traffic to the area.

"I think some good things that may come out of it is they are showing uses on the ground level that aren't there currently, so it's going to activate this area. People will be coming to it more often, and we will get to see this building live on for longer and longer," said Jarles.

The project includes a 100-room hotel in the historic building and 20 residences in the neighboring one, with no timeline yet for construction.

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The building, often referred to as the "Savannah Skyscraper" overlooking Johnson Square, was recently sold for $14.2 million.

SAVANNAH, Ga. (WSAV) — Here to promote her book and talk to Savannah State students, the mastermind behind the Slutty Vegan brand, Pinky Cole-Hayes, is an inspiring entrepreneur reimagining veganism.

“When you think about Slutty Vegan, it’s not just about burgers, pies and fries, but it’s a movement, and people get excited to be a part of that movement,” said Cole-Hayes.

Named in the Times 100 Next List 2023, nominated by the NAACP for her book “Eat Plants B*tch” and awarded the Champion of the League by the Urban League of Greater Atlanta with her husband, Cole-Hayes says this is her season.

The business that started it all

Opening in Atlanta in 2018, Slutty Vegan is a $100 million company that combines everyone’s two favorite things: sex and food. It grabs your attention with burgers named “One Night Stand” and “Sloppy Toppy.”

She wants us all to be “sluttified,” which she defines as opening up your consciousness to think “Vegan food is not that bad.”

When you enter a Slutty Vegan, you are introduced to a culture of all inclusion, with cooks and hosts celebrating your arrival whether it’s your first time or tenth.

“When you come to Slutty Vegan, you can be Black, white, blue, yellow, green, you’re going to have a good time, you’re gonna come in the name of food and love and you’re gonna fellowship like nobody’s watching,” said Cole-Hayes.

Slutty Vegan does this to set themselves apart and bring community to whoever enters any of the eight stores across the country.

“By far, by society standards, we are supposed to be an anomaly because when you think about vegan, you don’t think about it being slutty,” said Cole-Hayes.

“This is an ecosystem of a restaurant chain that’s having people learn about financial literacy, having our philanthropic effort support the community while selling food and giving them a really good experience,” said Cole-Hayes. “There will never be another Slutty Vegan.”

Passion and purpose

In 2019, Cole-Hayes started The Pinky Cole Foundation to elevate her community by giving out LLCs, paying the debt of students to graduate, fundraising to help entrepreneurs grow, partnering with the Department of Juvenile Justice, DJJ, and the list goes on.

“Giving back is what really means the most to me. The restaurant does well, people come to the restaurant, but there’s a certain joy that comes with knowing that I can use my resources to make other people better is exhilarating,” said Cole-Hayes.

She tells us that she wants to be an example and role model to others — to be an example of success for her community.

“You have to know what your ‘why’ is, and be super intentional about that,” said Cole-Hayes.

She notes that you want to start a business with an ethos and a persona beyond just selling a product and craft a mission behind the movement.

“People can smell when it’s a fraud, they can smell when it’s a fake, but they also recognize when it’s authentic, genuine and real,” said Cole-Hayes.

She believes in the notion of “eating with your eyes,” because the little things matter. Things such as making sure the floorboards are clean and the bathrooms are spotless.

Grateful for her team, she highlights the importance of having a tight crew that is on the same page.

“The team has to be as strong if not stronger than you; as smart if not smarter than you,” Cole-Hayes said. “They gotta be as hungry if not hungrier than you, and if you don’t have that, it will affect your brand that you will not be happy about.”

The failure and lessons learned

“I Hope You Fail” is the title of her new book, which she says is “for all the failures.”

“I wanted people to understand that you don’t have to wallow and marinate in the hard things. You can navigate above that and you can reprogram your mind to understand that there’s a lesson in the process,” said Cole-Hayes.

She labels herself as a certified failure, which she defines as a person who finds inspiration in the losses. All her failures have set the tone for her foundation today.

“First of all, it is not easy being an entrepreneur,” said Cole-Hayes. “Even with my first restaurant I had a grease fire and I lost everything, but what I realized is, when you are a sophisticated business owner, you really just gotta continue to grow,” said Cole-Hayes.

With a lot on her plate as a mother, a wife, a sister, a daughter, an author and an entrepreneur, she wants to show other women like her that they can do it, have it all and have fun.

From a Caribbean household, she learned the importance of discipline from her mother, which she implements not in order to balance her life but to fulfill her purpose.

Not only is she on a mission to provide delicious vegan burgers, but she is also paving the way for her five children and one on the way by not telling but showing.

“I want my kids to value the idea of freedom, and unlocking that level of freedom to be able to go and do the things that you want to do and I am setting them up from now,” said Cole-Hayes.

Looking for a location in the area, Savannah may soon be sluttified.

“Savannah is on my list,” she said.

Cole-Hayes will be holding a book signing at 6 p.m. Tuesday and talking with Savannah State students at 4 p.m.

For Savannah Morning News and Savannahagenda.com

The “Savannah skyscraper” is set to become a Ritz Carlton after plans were approved to renovate the 15-story building overlooking Johnson Square.

The historic structure at 2 E. Bryan St. joins the Manger building across the square, which is being converted into a hotel by New York-based LEFT LANE. In addition, Marriott, which owns the Ritz Carlton brand, recently purchased the HunterMaclean building a few blocks away at 200 E. Saint Julian St. And the historic Realty Building at 24 Drayton St. was also recently sold for $14.2 million, although plans have not been publicly announced by the buyer.

TMGOC Ventures selected the historic building for the Ritz-Carlton project because the Charleston-based development firm was attracted to the opportunity of bringing a different type of hotel experience to the city, according to Co-founder and Managing Partner Sunju Patel.

"There's not many products in the market at this rate structure, luxury and services," Patel said Friday. "Hence, we feel pretty good about our development."

In addition to the 100-room hotel, TMGOC will be renovating the neighboring 10-story building at 14 E. Bryan St. and adding three floors to accommodate 20 residences, a rooftop pool and lounge. The ground floor will also be opened up to the public with a restaurant and bar.

Patel said his company expects to close on the property and begin construction in May next year following the Historic District Board of Review’s approval of the restoration plan last week.

First Look:An early peek at the proposed Ritz Carlton in downtown Savannah

Ch-ch-changes coming to Forsyth Park neighborhood

Meanwhile, some property owners are in the process of getting approval to demolish three buildings across from Forsyth Park's southwest end in order to build an office complex and underground garage on the site.

The planned office complex is needed to counter the loss of office space to hotels and prevent Savannah’s downtown from becoming solely for tourists, said David Paddison, president of Sterling Seacrest Pritchard, which owns and uses one of the buildings at 1001 Whitaker St. as the insurance broker's Savannah headquarters. Paddison said he anticipates the complex will accommodate 250 to 300 people and that some of the businesses being displaced by the hotel conversions would be a natural fit for the new complex.

“In a perfect world we'd like to see an excess of 100,000 square feet of rentable office space and an excess of 300 parking spaces,” he said. “If we can get more than that, we think it makes sense, but we don't have a preconceived notion.

"We're just trying to do it in a way that is pleasing to the neighborhood, is pleasing to the business community, is pleasing to the city and has an economically sustainable model."

The area surrounding Forsyth Park is no stranger to office buildings. The Bouhan Falligant office building is located on the park’s south end, across Park Avenue. And the company that built that building, West Construction Company, recently purchased another office building on Whitaker Street, across from the park’s southeastern corner.

The construction company is planning to relocate from Chatham Parkway into the building by the park, after a medical office moved out, according to President Matt West.

“We've always liked the area and are excited to get down there,” West said.

Eric Curl was a Savannah Morning News reporter for 14 years. After leaving the News, he launched Savannahagenda.com, to grow awareness and engagement with local planning, zoning and development decisions, business development and community causes.

When European settlers landed in America centuries ago, they founded towns all throughout the Atlantic Coast. While not all of them still stand today, this is why the oldest surviving towns in America are on the East Coast, even if some predate the founding of this country. Easy access to the ocean made it easy for explorers and settlers to come together and create towns and cities that were spread out from each other, meaning that there are hundreds of old townships in every state bordering the Atlantic, all of them with rich histories and different stories to tell. Some are still around and can be visited, with much of their past still intact.

Plymouth, Massachusetts

On the shores of Massachusetts Bay lies one of the most famous old towns in the United States: Plymouth! Plymouth is one of the earliest English settlements in America and was founded in 1620 by Pilgrims who fled the religious persecution of England at the time. Visitors can see Plymouth Rock, where the first Pilgrims landed that same year. People can also see the Plimoth Patuxet Museums, which are active with costumed historians ready to teach visitors about the Pilgrims and Native Americans by stepping back in time. Plymouth is also known for being one of the first places of celebration for what we know now as Thanksgiving, where Pilgrims and members of the Wampanoag Tribe feasted following a good harvest in 1621 after an awful winter the year before. Had the Natives not helped the Pilgrims, those who made it likely would not have, and Plymouth would only be a name today.

St. Augustine, Florida

St. Augustine was founded in 1565 by Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles, a Spanish explorer. It predates the founding of the United States by over two hundred years and remains to be the longest-occupied European settlement, with a little over 14,000 residents today. Plenty of reminders like museums, monuments, and parks are still present in the town, from a time when the Spanish Empire held all of modern-day Florida. Enchanting monuments still stand tall, like the Castillo de San Marcos, which was built in the late 17th century, making it the oldest masonry fort still standing in the United States. The town is also home to one, if not the oldest, wooden schoolhouse in America, showing up on tax records as early as 1716, although the exact construction date is unknown. St. Augustine became an official American town in 1821, splitting its history between the Spanish and the Americans in half, totaling an almost 500-year-long occupation so far.

Jersey City, New Jersey

Founded by Dutch traders, Jersey City is somewhat contentious among historians. The settlement itself was established as New Netherland by the Dutch around 1617, while the name Jersey City is pointed to in land grants dated around 1630. So, while Jersey City's founding can be dated to either of these two years, the time between is somewhat insignificant, as it'd still mean the settlement is several centuries old. The city wasn't formally a part of the United States until 1820 when it was named the City of Jersey. It'd be renamed in 1838 as what we now know as Jersey City. Right across from Manhattan, Jersey City was and still is a prime stop for traders and commerce, which was integral to its success. Jersey City is the second largest city in New Jersey today, with close to 300,000 residents as of 2020.

Jamestown, Virginia

In the East of Virginia along the James River, Jamestown is regarded as the first permanent English settlement in America, predating the founding of the United States by 169 years, founded in 1607. British colonists faced many hardships in Jamestown, with death, disease, and starvation being rampant in its early years, along with conflicts with the local Native American tribes. Today, people can visit the site of the original Jamestown, with its fort and church tower still intact. There's also a living history park and museum only a mile away from the original site called the Jamestown Settlement. Here, people can learn through replica constructions of historically significant locations, like the James Fort and replica ships that the settlers would have used.

Lewes, Delaware

The city of Lewes in Delaware Bay is "The First Town in the First State." as their motto says. But what does that mean? There are other towns and cities that claim to be the first, but Delaware wins through technicality. After the land was first discovered on a voyage by Henry Hudson in 1609, Dutch settlers made a trading post around where modern-day Lewes is now called Zwaanendael, which translates to Swan Valley. The name would be changed to Lewes, to be named after a town in England with the same name. Lewes was the first settlement in Delaware, and because Delaware ratified the United States Constitution first, that made it the first state. So, The first town in the first state is Lewes. Plenty of 17th and 18th-century buildings still exist today and hold lots of information about early Delaware's history.

New York City, New York

New York City was once known as New Amsterdam and has a lot more history than people might think. The Dutch West India Company bought the land of Manhattan in 1624, shortly before founding the town of New Amsterdam. They wanted to protect the opening of the Hudson River from other European powers, so they built a fortification called Fort Amsterdam in the South of Manhattan Island. This proved to be very profitable for the Dutch West India Company, as their protected land proved invaluable for trading, with beaver pelts being their most prized possession. Several decades later, the town would be taken over by the English and renamed New York, and the rest is history. A lot of the original Dutch architecture is gone due to several fires and rebuildings, but the original heritage still remains through different street names throughout the city.

Portsmouth, Rhode Island

Portsmouth is one of Rhode Island's oldest towns, being founded in 1638 by religious dissenters from the Massachusetts Bay Colony seeking religious freedom. The Portsmouth Compact was a document signed that year by the dissenters, creating the settlement as the second oldest colonial community in Rhode Island. The Portsmouth FriendsMeetinghouseParsonage and Cemetery is a historic meeting house built sometime near the end of the 17th century, with it being used as a Quaker house of worship and school. British troops would occupy the building during the Revolutionary War. Plenty of preservation efforts have taken place in Portsmouth, like the Portsmouth Historical Society, which is a museum that collects and archives artifacts important to the town's history.

Savannah, Georgia

Located on the Savannah River, less than 20 miles from the ocean, Savannah is the oldest city in Georgia, being founded in 1733 on the same river. This made it very important during the American Revolution and the Civil War as a strategic port city for supplies. The town was taken by the British during the Revolution and hosted several battles during that time, like the Siege of Savannah in 1779. Savannah is known for its large amount of historic districts and greenery, with an early nickname being "the Forest City", because of the large amount of oak trees in the area. The Savannah Historic District is one of America's largest and includes a lot of preserved 18th and 19th century architecture, which brings in millions of tourists and visitors every year.

The Takeaway

From top to bottom, the East Coast has always had tons of history, whether that be old towns or landmarks. Everyone has the chance to visit and learn about these towns and cities through museums, old architecture, historical societies, you name it. Plenty of preservation efforts will make sure that this history won't be forgotten and will remain for a long time. There are plenty of places to visit and learn about on the coast, and there are also plenty of people willing to teach the rich history, too. It just so happens that these coastal towns and cities are beautiful as well.