Summerfield leaves Air Force basketball team

March 2, 2008 - 11:20 PM
THE GAZETTE

Air Force freshman basketball player Mark Summerfield has left the team and the academy “for good,” he said Sunday.

“Things didn’t work out,” Summerfield said from his home in West Virginia. “More or less it was overall the military-type stuff and other personal reasons.”

Summerfield, a 6-foot-3 guard, is the third member of the eight-player freshmen class to leave. Tom Parks left in early September, and Tyler Burke left in mid-December.

Spokesman Brett Ashworth said academy personnel could not comment because of the Federal Privacy Act and the fact that Summerfield has not yet withdrawn officially. Coach Jeff Reynolds, who said Feb. 21 that Summerfield was not practicing because of “personal issues,” could not be reached for comment.

Summerfield played 6 minutes in four games.

“I think it might have helped if I had played more, might have given me a little more incentive to stay, but that’s not really the main reason,” Summerfield said. “Basketball was some of it but not nearly all of it.”