Author Archives: Tom

The big-time college football arms race

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Okie%20STate%20stadium.jpgInasmuch as the NCAA prohibits direct monetary compensation of the professional athletes who provide entertainment for us by engaging in big-time college football, one of the ways in which universities provide indirect compensation for the athletes is by building luxurious “spa facilities” for the athletes to enjoy while providing their services for the benefit of the universities. This means of indirect compensation has resulted in an “arm’s race” of such spa facilities between various big-time college football programs. The latest institution to jump into the arm’s race is Oklahoma State University, which is riding the crest of the Boone Pickens’ $250 million contribution to the institution’s athletic programs. Check out this video depicting the new facilities that will result from Pickens’ contribution.
And this isn’t professional football?

A good scorching?

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Torrey%20Pines%2018.jpgThe United States Golf Association has been widely criticized often over the last several years for the absurdity of its setups for the U.S. Open. And we in Houston certainly know that golf course designer Rees Jones has endured more than a little criticism over his work. So, a few eyebrows were raised when GolfWeek‘s Rex Hoggard passed along the following tidbit about the Rees Jones-renovated Torrey Pines South Course — which is the site of next year’s U.S. Open — from the practice tee of this week’s PGA Tour event in Port St. Lucie, Florida:

Big talk on the practice range here at the Tesoro Club, site of this weekís PGA Tour stop, is on the wild fires that were raging in southern California.
One update late in the afternoon suggested Torrey Pines, site of the annual Buick Invitational and next yearís U.S. Open, is in danger of being scorched.
ìGood,î snorted one player, among the many who donít like the changes to the venerable South Course. ìThey need to start over anyway.î
Ouch.

Coach Leach channels Judge Ito

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Mike%20Leach.jpgSticking with the sports theme of today’s posts, Missouri’s surprisingly decisive victory over the Texas Tech Red Raiders last Saturday apparently prompted Tech head coach Mike Leach to channel the judge in OJ Simpson’s murder trial to explain the Raiders’ pratfall:

“What happens with players, [it’s] just like Judge Lance Ito gets in the middle of a big trial and decides it’s more important for him to be a movie star than it is to be a judge,” said Leach, referring to the 1995 O.J. Simpson trial. “He had problems doing his [job] from one snap to the next.
“So if it can happen to good old Judge Ito, I’m sure it can happen to 18-22-year-olds.”

It can happen to football coaches, too.
Leach has developed an idiosyncratic and generally effective offense at Tech, but he has largely ignored the development of a strong enough defensive component to make Tech a truly balanced, conference championship-caliber program. Earlier this season, immediately after Mike Gundy went batshit, Leach unceremoniously fired Tech’s defensive coordinator, who happened to be Tech’s most experienced and admired assistant coach. Leach elevated a position coach to defensive coordinator and Tech’s defensive limitations were disguised during its next three games, which were wins over teams with easily-defended offenses (Northwestern State, Iowa State and Texas A&M). However, when exposed to Missouri’s salty offense this past Saturday, the Red Raiders’ defense wilted, just as it did earlier in the season during the Oklahoma State game. The Red Raiders have suffered from a similar syndrome during each of Leach’s eight years at Tech.
Thus, Leach’s teams run up big scores and statistics against teams of inferior ability, but struggle against well-balanced teams of equal or better ability. Tech under Leach has never played in a Big 12 championship game. His treatment of assistant coaches is unlikely to result in the development of a strong coaching staff. Despite his relentless self-promotion, Leach’s Tech program appears to elevate form over substance and may well have peaked. If it has, the descent is not likely to be pleasant.
Update: Coach Leach has a selective memory, too.

Sizing up the 2007-08 Rockets

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Houston_Rockets_logo.pngThe beginning of the National Basketball Association‘s regular season is about a week away yawn, so Dave Berri provides this excellent statistically-based evaluation of the 2007-08 Houston Rockets. Despite the local mainstream media hype, Berri’s evaluation of this edition of the Rockets is the same as mine — probably quite good and better than last season’s good team, but likely still not good enough to beat any of the the top three teams in the Western Conference, Dallas, San Antonio and Phoenix.
For the record, it’s been over a decade since the Rockets won a playoff series.

A special moment at the sports book

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sports%20book.jpgAnyone who has placed a bet or two at one of the sports books in various Las Vegas casinos can relate to the hysteria that was generated by the end of last Saturday’s Florida-Kentucky game:

A new, but obscure college football rule caused some confusion and uproar in Las Vegas on Saturday after Florida defeated Kentucky, 45-37, barely covering the seven-point spread.
Kentucky scored a touchdown on the game’s final play, yet rather than attempt an extra point, the Wildcats, following an NCAA rule put in play last season, walked off the field while the Gators celebrated.
The rule states that “if a touchdown is scored during a down in which time in the fourth period expires, the try shall not be attempted unless the point(s) would affect the outcome of the game.”
Las Vegas Hilton sports book director Jay Kornegay said Kentucky backers thought they were going to get a push, and Florida supporters started to deflate.
“That all quickly changed when the crowd began to realize the rule,” Kornegay told the Associated Press.
“The reversal of fortune happened within just a few seconds. It was priceless.”
Kornegay said the game was probably one of the more heavily bet games of the day and most football fans don’t know the rule.
At the MGM Mirage, people went “nuts,” sports book manager Jeff Stonebeck said.

Tiger’s peer effect

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uncle-tiger-wants-you.jpgAll those PGA Tour players who have folded like limp dish rags while paired with Tiger Woods over the years will be a bit skeptical of the conclusions of this recent study (H/T to Tim Harford):

This paper uses the random assignment of playing partners in professional golf tournaments to test for peer effects in the workplace. We find no evidence that the ability of playing partners affects the performance of professional golfers, contrary to recent evidence on peer effects in the workplace from laboratory experiments, grocery scanners, and soft-fruit pickers. . . . We offer several explanations for our contrasting findings: that workers seek to avoid responding to social incentives when financial incentives are strong; that there is heterogeneity in how susceptible individuals are to social effects and that those who are able to avoid them are more likely to advance to elite professional labor markets; and that workers learn with professional experience not to be affected by social forces.

In other words, PGA Tour pros do not generally suffer from peer effects. Except while playing with Tiger Woods, that is. ;^)

Ben Stein’s worst nightmare

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Ben%20Stein%20102307.jpgFirst, Larry Ribstein became NY Times business columnist Gretchen Morgenson’s worst nightmare by exposing the vacuous nature of her columns.
Now, Felix Salmon has become part-time NY Times business columnist Ben Stein’s worst nightmare (see also here) in much the same way:

Stein’s main point is that reality is fine; it’s just the media which is making things look bad. “Newspapers (which often sell on fear, not on fact) talk frequently about a mortgage freeze,” he says. Although if you do a Google News search on “mortgage freeze”, you find exactly one newspaper article: this one, by Stein. Meanwhile, he says, and I swear I am not making this up, “there is still a long waiting list for Bentleys in Beverly Hills”. Well in that case there couldn’t possibly be a housing crisis!
“This country does not look like a country in economic trouble,” concludes Stein. Well, maybe if you live in Beverly Hills and you have lots of money invested in the stock market, then that might seem to be the case. But Stein doesn’t seem to consider that most Americans might not fall into that category.

Read the entire post. Do the Times editors even review Stein’s blather before publishing it?

Sizing up the 2007 World Series

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fenway_park.gifThat northern breeze you felt in Houston yesterday was actually a huge sigh of relief heaved by Major League Baseball and network television executives on Sunday night as the Boston Red Sox beat the Indians in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series to advance to the 2007 World Series against the National League champion Colorado Rockies. Nothing against Cleveland, but the TV ratings of a Cleveland-Colorado World Series would have been about the same as a non-major PGA Tour event.
A few tidbits about this year’s series:

The opening day payroll for 25-man roster of Colorado Rockies was $54,424,000, while the opening day payroll for the Red Sox was $143,026,214. The highest paid Red Sox player is LF Manny Ramirez at $18 million per year, while the Rockies’ highest paid player is 1B Todd Helton at $16.6 million annually.
The Rockies have played only two series at Fenway, one in 2002 and one this past June during interleague play. Colorado outscored Boston 20-5 in winning two of three during during that latter series.
The Rockies have won 10 straight games and have won 21 of 22, but the eight days they have had off in-between postseason games is the longest such break in the history of Major League Baseball. The Rockiesí 10-game winning streak entering the World Series is also impressive, but not the longest streak coming into a World Series. The 1960 Yankees had a 15-game streak and the 1970 Baltimore Orioles had a 14-game streak. The Rockies are the ninth different team to represent the National League in the World Series over the past 10 seasons, and the seventh wild-card pennant winner over all in the past six years.
Red Sox hitters scored 61 more runs than an average American League club would have using the same number of outs (RCAA, explained here) and Red Sox pitchers saved 163 more runs than an average American League pitching staff would have saved in the same number of innings (RSAA, explained here). In comparison, Rockies hitters generated a solid 41 RCAA and the club’s pitchers produced a respectable 78 RSAA. Thus, based on regular season statistics, the Red Sox are the clearly superior club, but Colorado has the advantage of being hot when it counts, although one has to wonder how much of the Rockies’ winning edge wore off during that eight day layoff. A pdf of the player statistics for the two clubs is here.

Finally, for disappointed Indians fans, this insightful Russell Roberts post reminds us that failure — even in baseball markets — is often a necessary precursor of success.

2007 Weekly local football review

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DeMeco%20Ryans%20on%20Collins.jpg(AP Photo/Dave Einsel; previous weekly reviews here)
Titans 38 Texans 36

The local mainstream media view of the Texans (3-4) — most recently reflected by Richard Justice’s Sunday column of yesterday (see also this earlier column) — is that the team has improved dramatically under second year coach Gary Kubiak and that it’s just a matter of time before the team becomes a playoff contender. As noted in my annual preview, I’m not so sure.
When Texans owner Bob McNair decided to fire original Texans General Manager Charlie Casserly and head coach Dom Capers after the team bottomed out with a 2-14 record during Year Four (2005), he changed the management model of the team from its original “strong GM” model to the “strong head coach” model that the Broncos have used during the Shanahan era. Inasmuch as Kubiak had no head coaching experience when McNair hired him to lead the Texans’ strong coach model, I thought the decision at the time was certainly open to question.
Through seven games of Kubiak’s second season, the decision remains open to question. Kubiak had a pass during his first season (6-10) last year and probably has another one this season as he incorporates a new QB into his system. The team’s personnel has certainly improved, but that would have happened under virtually any competent coach that McNair would have hired. The Texans’ offense — Kubiak’s supposed speciality — remains generally awful as Kubiak overpaid for an aging and marginally productive running back this past off-season rather than upgrading the chronically deficient offensive line, which has become hazardous to the health of Texans QB’s.
So, the clock will be ticking quite loudly next season unless the Texans begin to show dramatic improvement (even Justice is starting to question Kubiak). After losing four of their last five and with a West Coast swing against the Chargers (3-3) and the Raiders (2-4) coming up over the next two weeks before the Texans’ bye week, the under bet on my pre-season over/under number for Texans’ victories (7) is starting to look pretty good.

Texas Aggies 36 Nebraska 14

The Ags (6-2/3-1) trampled the outmanned Cornhuskers (4-4/1-3) into submission in the Buyout Bowl. Unfortunately for the Aggies, each of the Aggies’ remaining opponents have the ability to slow down A&M’s rushing attack. And we know what happens when the Ags have to utilize such modern innovations as the forward pass. The Ags host Big 12 surprise team Kansas (7-0/3-0) at Kyle Field next Saturday.

Texas Longhorns 31 Baylor 10

The Horns (6-2/2-2) allowed Baylor (3-4/0-3) to hang around for most of the game and almost paid for it. The Horns have struggling Nebraska (4-4/1-3) at home next Saturday before closing at Okie State (5-3/3-1), home against Tech (6-2/2-2) and at A&M (6-2/3-1). Incredibly, a BCS Bowl game is not out of the question if the Longhorns win out.

Houston Cougars 49 Alabama-Birmingham 10

This one was over before halftime as the explosive Coogs (4-3/3-1) finally put together a complete game against the overmatched Blazers (2-5/1-2) at a nearly deserted Legion Field (holds around 75,000 or so) in Birmingham. The Cougars have generated over 1,200 yards in total offense and 15 touchdowns in the past two games. The Cougars will likely have a considerably tougher game next Saturday in El Paso against UTEP (4-3/2-1), though.

Memphis 38 Rice 35

The Owls (1-6/1-2) generated over 500 yards to total offense and lost because their injury-plagued defense cannot stop a hard-chargin’ marching band, much less a reasonably competent offense. The game was played before less than 10,000 fans at Rice Stadium, which holds over 70,000. Isn’t Conference USA football great? The Owls have a winnable game next Saturday against winless Marshall (0-6/0-2).

Continuing to rationalize a boondoggle

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Metrorail%20car-Houston102207.jpgThe big transit news in these parts last week was the announcement that the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s board Metro’s board approved the final route for the east-west University line and decided to deploy the much more expensive light rail rather than bus rapid transit in four other transit corridors. Kevin Whited, Lou Minatti and Tory Gattis were among the local bloggers commenting on this development.
What is perhaps most galling about all of this is the sheer lack of any perspective from the local mainstream media regarding the dubious nature of Metro’s urban economics. The Chronicle article on Metro’s announcement is typical of the vacuity of media coverage of Metro — the fact that light rail systems are notoriously uneconomic and underused relative to cost is not even mentioned. Meanwhile, Metro continues to insist upon investing billions of tax proceeds in an inflexible light rail system that will cost millions in additional annual tax proceeds to subsidize. To make matters worse, the money that Metro is throwing away on what will be a underutilized and expensive light rail system would go a long ways toward dramatically ameliorating the Houston area’s flood control problems and traffic hotspots, two public works projects that would provide far more benefit for far more Houston area residents than the light rail project. In short, wasting huge amounts of public funds on a boondoggle simply does not occur in a vacuum. Such waste will negatively impact more pressing public works projects in Houston for decades.
Transit expert Randall O’Toole recently published this Cato Insitute policy analysis, Debunking Portland (related blog posts here and here), on the failures of Portlandís light rail system, which was built in a far more densely-populated area than Houston and is often touted by light rail advocates as an example of one of the rare successful systems. As O’Toole points out, the Portland system has not been a success. 9.8% of Portland-area commuters took transit to work before the region built its light rail system, while today, just just 7.6% of the area commuters use the system. The fact that Portlandís light rail system led to billions of dollars in economic development is largely a ruse — such development received billions of dollars in subsidies and, before the city started offering those subsidies, not a single transit-oriented development was built along the Portland light rail line. Finally, light rail cost overruns forced Portland to raise bus fares and reduce bus service.
As O’Toole observes, thatís considered a success?