Author Archives: Tom

Assessing priorities at TSU

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rudley 090208This Jeannie Kever/Chronicle article follows up on new Texas Southern University President John Rudley’s efforts to find a place for the institution within Houston’s changing marketplace for university education (prior posts on TSU are here).

Beyond academic programs that remain on probation and terrible financial problems, TSU’s core problem is that its former role as Houston’s open admissions university has been superseded by the University of Houston-Downtown, which is a far superior to TSU at this point in time. Rudley has brought over a team of administrators from the University of Houston to straighten out TSU’s thorny administrative and financial issues. But the even greater problem is that Houston may simply not need two open admissions universities, particularly in light of the growth of Houston Community College and various suburban community college systems over the past decade or so.

Although Rudley appears to be the type of administrator that TSU needs if it is going to survive, the following portion of this Ronnie Turner Chronicle blog interview with new TSU Athletic Director Charles McClelland reflects the entrenched mindset that Rudley will have to overcome if he is going to redefine TSU’s place in the local education marketplace:

RT: At what stage are you in negotiations with the Dynamo on a partnership for a football stadium?

CM: Well, we’re still in the same stage with the Dynamo. We have all of our talking points. We’ve brought in a consultant to help us close the deal with the Dynamo to ensure that we have all of our t’s crossed and i’s dotted. Once that’s done, we’ll have to get it to our board for approval. My understanding is that the Dynamo have moved forward on their end to help get the funding that’s needed, and we’re still extremely optimistic that the stadium will generate the type of notoriety, revenue and resources (needed) for us to take our football program to the next level. We’re extremely excited about the opportunity with the Dynamo.

As noted earlier here, unless the terms of TSU’s proposed deal for use of the soccer stadium are changed radically in TSU’s favor, no responsible TSU administrator or trustee would ever approve the deal. However, rather than pursuing such a dubious deal, shouldn’t TSU administrators and trustees really be asking themselves why a financially-strapped institution such as TSU is continuing to support notoriously unprofitable intercollegiate athletic programs at all?

Good luck, President Rudley. You’re going to need it.

Richard Justice Crosses the Line

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As regular readers of this blog know, I have often wondered why Chronicle sports columnist Richard Justice is writing about sports. He is highly subjective in his views, does not back them up with objective facts and doesn’t reason well. Beyond that, he does just fine.

As a result of the foregoing, Justice is a controversial fellow among Houston sports fans. His blog is a rollicking place where mostly anonymous readers who comment on Justice’s blog posts regularly engage in competing insults with Justice. Not my cup of tea, but different strokes for different folks.

At any rate, after the Texans’ meaningless pre-season loss against Dallas a couple of weeks ago, Justice published this post in which he harshly criticized Texans offensive line coach Alex Gibbs — who is widely-regarded as one of the best offensive line coaches in the NFL — for yelling at his players.

The post was odd, but nothing out of the ordinary for Justice, who had applauded the hiring of Gibbs this past January. Inasmuch as Justice noted that Gibbs has a policy of not talking to the media, many readers commenting on the post speculated that Justice’s criticism of Gibbs was simply sour grapes for Gibbs’ refusal to talk with Justice.

However, one particular reader who commented on Justice’s post was not interested in engaging in the usual name-calling that is common on Justice’s blog.

Stephanie Stradley, who previously blogged on the Texans for the Chronicle and who now blogs on the Texans over at AOL Sports Fanhouse, posted a comment to Justice’s post in which she challenged the factual basis of Justice’s assertion that Gibbs’ players were tuning him out because of his yelling. Stradley is a first-class blogger who analyzes the Texans much more objectively and effectively than Justice does.

In response to Stradley’s comment, Justice responded with shrill comment (since deleted) in which he reiterated his point about yelling and then insulted Stradley. Despite Justice’s insult, Stradley inquired in a subsequent comment about the basis of Justice’s contention that Gibbs’ players did not respond to him, to which Justice responded with another condescending comment. Tasteless, but again nothing out of the ordinary for the often childish nature of Justice’s blog.

But what Justice did next may very well have crossed the line.

Inasmuch as Justice’s criticism of Gibbs was so poorly-reasoned, readers continued to mock Justice in the comments to his blog post, prompting Justice to post a follow-up post to defend his position. But in so doing, Justice made the following comment (scroll down to comment at 9:49 AM) in response to a reader who suggested that he owed Stradley an apology for his earlier tasteless comment:

I don’t know what Stephanie’s real name is, but she creeps me out. She writes a little too often, wants to discuss and debate. She has her own blog, so why is she so interested in mine? Ask yourself that question. Maybe I’ve watched Fatal Attraction too many times. If something happens to one of my rabbits, she’s going to be in big trouble.–Richard

Incredibly, if that weren’t bad enough, Justice followed up that libelous comment with this one in responding to another reader’s comment (scroll down to comment at 10:13 PM):

Oh so you only use English when you feel like it? Be sure and put that on your resume. Listen, Cronkite, don’t get into an insult contest with me. You’ll end up in a fetal position whimpering and begging me to ease up. Find something you’re good at and dedicate yourself to that. I don’t know what that would be, but this ain’t it. Go hang out with that Glenn Close woman. She’d probably find you fascinating. Speaking of Stephanie Stradley, I woke up this morning and saw our rabbit cage was empty. ”Stephanie!” I screamed. Turns out, the little feller was sleeping beneath a chair.–Richard

In a patient and classy manner, Stradley recounts the entire bizarre episode here.

Beyond their utter tastelessness, both of Justice’s comments associating Stradley with a homicidal maniac appear to meet the requirements of defamation per se. As a result, Stradley has viable damage claims against both Justice personally and the Chronicle.

Ironically, Justice’s Monday blog post asserts that many Stros fans owe GM Ed Wade an apology. Absent the Chronicle and Justice heeding his advice and issuing an immediate public apology to Stradley, I hope she tees off on both of them.

The Chronicle has some very good reporters. But in these challenging times for newspapers, can the Chronicle survive the likes of Richard Justice?

2008 Weekly local football review

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Chase Clement (Previous weekly reviews from the 2004-2007 seasons are here).

Rice 56 SMU 27

As noted earlier here, I think the Owls (1-0/1-0 CUSA) are a good bet to surprise this season. They have an excellent and experienced QB in Chase Clement and an All-American caliber senior WR Jarrett Dillard. The Owls’ offense is explosive and difficult to defend. As usual, the defense is undermanned, but they executed reasonably well in defending SMU’s new Run ‘N Shoot-type offense and really just need to play well enough to give the Owls’ offense an opportunity to outscore the opposition. The Owls travel next Saturday to play another CUSA opponent, Memphis (0-1). Don’t be surprised if the Owls start out 2-0.

Houston Cougars 55 Southern 3

New Houston (1-0) coach Kevin Sumlin unleashed the Cougars’ new spread offense on undermanned Div I-AA Southern and the result was over 600 yards of total offense and a convincing win. The Coogs have an experienced and talented QB in redshirt sophomore QB Chase Keenum (33-43/390 yds; 5 TD’s) as well as a deep receiving corps (11 different receivers caught passes during the game). The Cougars defense also has some playmakers, to this team has the potential to contend for the CUSA title if it continues to develop. The price of poker goes up next week, though, as the Cougars travel to Stillwater to take on a talented Oklahoma State (1-0) team that dusted off Washington State in Seattle over the weekend.

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The best Gulf Coast hurricane information source

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Gustav.A2008243.1605.2km Hurricane Gustav is another powerful hurricane bearing down on the Gulf Coast, so I wanted to recommend Chron science reporter Eric Berger’s SciGuy blog as the best source of hurricane information for the Gulf Coast region.

Eric and I got to know each other over the fateful weekend of August 27-28, 2005 when we each posted one of the first blog posts in the blogosphere noting the dreaded turn of Hurricane Katrina toward New Orleans during the early morning hours of Saturday, August 27. Although we both recommended that New Orleans residents seriously consider immediate evacuation, local governmental officials in New Orleans did not do so until much later. We now know the result of that misjudgment. With that disaster in mind, at least I doubt that such misjudgments will be a problem this go-around, as New Orleans lawyer Ernie Svenson explains.

Since that time, Eric has developed his blog into the go-to source in the blogosphere for information on hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico. Bookmark it and check it regularly for updates on Gustav.

At this time, it looks as if Gustav will make landfall along the Louisiana coast just west of the New Orleans metropolitan area (check out this cool WSJ map that compares the projected path of Gustav with those of the deadly 2005 storms, Katrina and Rita, and this slick new MSNBC hurricane tracker). That track would put much of New Orleans in the storm’s northeastern quandrant, which is the most damaging part of the storm.

If that path holds, then post-landfall rainfall next week will be the main problem for the Houston area. The storm is expected to slow down somewhat after making landfall and become a tropical storm or depression in northwestern Louisiana and then northeastern Texas. The Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex has been in the throes of a drought for the past several months (as was Houston until the past couple of weeks or so), but that should end next week if Gustav continues its current course.

"Darrell, I don’t think we could go through that again"

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bellard-emory_photo With the beginning of the college football season this week, it just feels right to pass along this OU Insider interview of one of Texas’ legendary college football coaches — Emory Bellard, the inventor of the Wishbone offense.

Numerous National Championship teams from Texas, Alabama and Oklahoma used the Wishbone during the two decades after Bellard implemented the formation as an assistant coach with the Texas Longhorns during the 1968 season. Although Bellard went on to a mercurial tenure as the head coach at Texas A&M in the 1970’s, he is best remembered for developing the Wishbone, which was a devastatingly effective triple-option offense (Paul Johnson at Navy and now at Georgia Tech runs a variation of the Wishbone today). OU Insider interview focuses on Bellard’s memories and thoughts about the Wishbone, which include the following pearls:

On the criticism that the Wishbone was an ineffective passing offense:

".   .   . The biggest mistake I made in the passing game was assuming that we needed something short, but we didn’t. We just needed to throw deep. We did not need to throw short because everybody was coming up this way trying to stop the run. So as long as we kept out deep threats, post patterns and the streak patterns — that’s what we should have been placing the emphasis on."

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The shoe drops on Judge Kent

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Judge Kent 082908_3 Here is the Chronicle article on the unusual federal aggravated sexual harassment abuse and contact indictment against U.S. District Judge Sam Kent. The previous posts on this matter are here. Here are the public statements of Judge Kent and his main accuser, and a related article (see also here) on Judge Kent.

Judge Kent will apparently defend himself by what amounts to confession and avoidance — that is, conceding that sexual advances were made, but that they were consensual in nature. In my view, that will be an extremely difficult defense for a defendant-judge to sustain in front of a jury.

This one has the potential to be very ugly indeed.

Update: Serious questions (see also here) are already being raised about the Fifth Circuit Judicial Council’s handling of the investigation and sanctioning of Judge Kent.

Justice Fumbles Leach

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Even when chronically-wrong Chronicle sports columnist Richard Justice gets something right, he immediately follows it with more poorly-reasoned blather.

In this blog post, Justice pays tribute to former Texas Tech football coach Spike Dykes, who is truly one of the nicest men ever to be a successful head coach in the big-time college football.

But rather than leave well enough alone, Justice proceeds to engage in more myth-making about current Tech head coach, Mike Leach:

Not many Division I schools would have hired Mike Leach, either. Not many Division I coaches look or sound like him. He’s funny, arrogant, off-the-wall and occasionally infuriating.

He’s also a great coach. He wins games and graduates his players. His ninth season begins with high hopes on the South Plains. The Red Raiders are 12th in the AP poll, the highest they’ve been at the start of a season in 31 years.

Tech has sold every season ticket for the first time in the 84-year history of the program. The Red Raiders have 18 starters back, including WR Michael Crabtree and QB Graham Harrell. There’s depth all over the place on offense, and if Ruffin McNeill’s defense plays the way it did after he took over last season, Texas Tech could be in the BCS mix.

Where to begin?

In his eight years at Tech, Leach has a 65-37-0 record, which works out to a 63.7% winning percentage. Although that is the best mark of any long-time coach at Tech over the past 70 years, a substantial component of Leach’s success has been his 25-5 (83.3%) record against non-Big 12 opponents, which have been mostly sacrificial lambs.

In fact, of those 30 non-conference games, only five have been against other BCS-conference teams — Ohio State (loss), Mississippi (2 wins) and North Carolina State (2 losses). Moreover, the last time that Tech even played a non-conference game against a BCS-conference opponent was five years ago in 2003.

Meanwhile, Tech under Leach has feasted on cupcakes such as Division 1-AA teams Stephen F. Austin, Sam Houston State, Indiana State, Southeastern Louisiana and Northwestern State and undermanned Division I outfits such as SMU and New Mexico. Heck, ten of Tech’s non-conference games under Leach have been against SMU and New Mexico. That Tech wins over 80% of such games is certainly no feather in Leach’s cap.

On the other hand, Tech’s Big 12 conference record under Leach is another story — 35-29 (a 54.6% winning percentage). Leach-coached Tech teams are only 3-13 against Texas and Oklahoma and his teams have had only a 4-4 Big 12 conference record in four of Leach’s eight seasons at Tech, including the last two.

Finally, Leach has used extremely poor judgment in some of his public remarks about assistant coaches on his staff.

In short, objective evaluation of Leach’s career at Tech reveals that his teams run up big numbers, but they don’t often beat teams with comparable or better talent because those teams can control the ball enough to keep Tech’s offense from scoring a winning number.

And despite what Justice suggests, Tech’s defense under Leach has never stopped any good offensive team.

Tech is rated highly this season in pre-season polls (14th in the USA Today Coaches Poll), but their non-conference schedule is again largely a joke — two D-1AA teams (Eastern Washington and UMass) and a rebuilding SMU should again be easy wins for the Red Raiders. In an unusual twist, Tech will have a reasonably difficult non-conference game this season when they travel to Reno on September 6 to play a well-seasoned Nevada Wolfpack team from the Western Athletic Conference.

But I’ll wait to see how Tech fares in the Big 12 before conceding that the Red Raiders have reached a new level under Leach. So far, Leach’s success at Tech looks more like good public relations to gullible sportswriters such as Justice than any major elevation of the program.

The genesis of a mortgage fraud hotspot

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Florida Dealbreaker’s essential Opening Bell yesterday included the following note about the connection between the state of Florida and mortgage fraud:

Florida tops 1Q mortgage fraud list (AP)

This is not surprising… Florida is already a key location of the housing bubble. What’s more, Florida tops every fraud list. Hello, Boca Raton? Clearwater? These cities are to fraud what Hungary is to Paprika. It’s an industry. Plus, doesn’t Florida have really lax mortgage/bankruptcy laws as it is?

However, what’s most interesting about Florida is how relatively well the state has turned out given its checkered history. In his fine Throes of Democracy: The American Civil War Era 1829-1877 (HarperCollins 2008) (earlier blog post here), Walter A. McDougall provides the following colorful overview of Florida’s evolution from the epitome of a backwater port:

From the day of the of the pirates to our day of offshore bank accounts, hedonistic resorts, and drug smuggling, Americans have found in the Caribbean an escape from their own laws and morals. The sand spit that Juan Ponce de Leon baptized La Florida was no exception.

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Glass Houses

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Dan Slater of the Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog notes the Kremlin’s recent refusal to grant parole to former OAO Yukos CEO Michael Khodorkovsky, who is serving an eight-year prison sentence in Siberia for tax evasion and fraud.

Khodorkovsky’s conviction and prison sentence are widely viewed within the U.S. as evidence that the Russian business and judicial systems remain largely corrupt and not conducive to honest commercial investment.

Maybe so, but what does the same reasoning conclude about a system that produces barbaric injustices such as these, to name just a recent few?

People who live in glass houses .  .  .

Joe Cocker, captioned for the clear-headed

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Come to think of it, I always have wondered what lyrics Joe Cocker was singing during his famous rendition of "With a Little Help from My Friends" at Woodstock in 1969 (H/T Craig Newmark).