John McClain, the Houston Chronicle’s National Football League writer, apparently believes that the NFL is a bit like Garrison Keillor’s fictional Minnesota town Lake Wobegon, where “all of the children are above-average.” In today’s Chronicle here and here, McClain rates 23 out of the 32 NFL teams as having better than average selections at this past weekend’s NFL Draft.
As expected, the U.S. Supreme Court turned down football player Maurice Clarett’s motion to stay the Second Circuit’s order of earlier this week that bars Clarett and similarly situated underclassmen from this weekend’s NFL Draft pending the Second Circuit’s final adjudication of the NFL’s appeal of the U.S. District Court decision that enjoined the NFL from barring Clarett and similarly situated underclassmen from the NFL Draft. The SCOTUS’ reasoning was the same as the Second Circuit’s. Inasmuch as the NFL has already agreed to conduct a supplemental draft for Clarett and others like him before the upcoming NFL seaosn if the Second Circuit upholds the District Court’s decision, SCOTUS concluded that there was no material harm to Clarett and the others in barring them from this weekend’s draft pending the Second Circuit’s ruling on the merits of the NFL’s appeal.
The Maurice Clarett v. NFL case went to the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday as Clarett’s attorneys filed a motion requesting that SCOTUS stay the Second Circuit’s Monday ruling that barred Clarett from being eligible for this weekend’s NFL Draft.
Although I believe that Clarett’s position in this case is the correct one, my sense is that this motion to SCOTUS does not have much of a chance. The Second Circuit’s order barring Clarett from the draft was premised on the notion that the NFL had agreed to conduct a supplemental draft before the 2004 NFL season for Clarett and other underclassmen if the NFL lost on the merits of its appeal to the Second Circuit. Accordingly, the Second Circuit reasoned that there was little damage to Clarett by barring him from this weekend’s draft while the Second Circuit considered the NFL’s appeal on the merits. I suspect that Justice Ginsburg, who drew Clarett’s motion to SCOTUS, will likely have a similar view, although the inherent weakness of the NFL’s underlying case might persuade her that the NFL has no reasonable likelihood of success on the merits of its appeal, in which case she could justify staying the Second Circuit’s order barring Clarett from the draft.
In a surprising ruling reported here, a three judge panel of the the Second Circuit Court of Appeals barred former Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett from participating in next week’s National Football League annual draft of collegiate players. Here are the prior posts on the Clarett case.
From the news report, it appears that the appellate court simply issued a short order barring Clarett from the draft, reasoning that any damage to Clarett from the stay was minimal because the NFL has agreed to hold a supplemental draft for Clarett and other underclassmen who are not eligible for next week’s draft before the upcoming NFL season if Clarett prevails on the merits of the case. Consequently, look for the Second Circuit to issue a more detailed decision soon on the merits of the NFL’s appeal of the lower court ruling that made Clarett eligible for the next week’s NFL draft.
According to this Chronicle story, the NCAA filed a legal brief Monday in support of the NFL’s appeal to keep former Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett out of this year’s NFL draft. Previous posts on this lawsuit can be reviewed here.
NCAA President Myles Brand commmented that the NCAA is supporting the NFL not because of its economic interests (umm?), but rather because eliminating the rule would lead more college athletes to make poor decisions:
“If not reversed, this decision is likely to unrealistically raise expectations and hopes that a professional football career awaits graduation from high school and that education can therefore be abandoned,” Brand said. “The result could be a growing group of young men who end up with neither a professional football career nor an education that will support their life plans.”
This is an extremely disappointing position coming from Dr. Brand, who was supposed to bring some academic integrity to the NCAA. In short, Dr. Brand is taking the position that the NFL and NCAA should be allowed to engage in violations of anti-trust law to prevent a few young football players from making a bad decision (i.e., to opt for the NFL before they are ready over a subsidized college education).
Note to Dr. Brand — in America, people are generally free to make bad decisions. Rather than taking this dubious position, the NCAA should be working with the NFL to establish a true minor football league to accomodate the hundreds of football players who really have no desire or business being in college while preparing to take a stab at professional football. That system has worked well for years in baseball, and college baseball has flourished in the Sun Belt over the past decade as a result. Until NCAA football quits being a glorified minor league for the NFL, the college football scandals that arise annually will continue to undermine the integrity of intercollegiate athletics.
Mike DeCourcy of The Sporting News is reporting that Frank Haith, 38, associate head basketball coach at the University of Texas for the past three seasons, will be named the new head coach of the University of Miami Hurricanes basketball program this week.
Haith has been a key recruiter for the strong Texas basketball program over the past several years. Although Texas is known more for its football team, the Texas basketball program has actually been better than the football program lately. The Horns have made it to three straight NCAA Tournament Sweet Sixteens and reached the Final Four in the 2002-03 season. Haith also has also worked as an assistant coach at Wake Forest, Texas A&M, Penn State and UNC Wilmington.
Some of my non-Texan friends chide me that the phrase “Texas culture” is an oxymoron. However, Texas actually is a place rich in many distinctly interesting cultures, and the following are a few noteworthy books and movies that explore those cultures.
Texas author Larry McMurtry has brilliantly explored the diversity of Texas culture in many of his novels. His Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “Lonesome Dove” and the extraordinary television mini-series based on the book (with Robert Duvall and Tommie Lee Jones in th lead roles) captures many of the frontier aspects of Texas culture. Similarly, Mr. McMurtry’s “Last Picture Show,” — which Peter Bogdanovich made into a fine movie — is an exceptional depiction of West Texas culture, just as his alternately hilarious and heart-wrenching “Terms of Endearment” (also made into a wonderful movie starring Shirley McLaine, Debra Winger and Jack Nicholson) is an insightful view into the upper crust of Houston culture.
One of my favorite movies about Texas is John Sayles‘ movie “Lone Star,” which is a fine murder mystery set in the complicated culture of Texas’ Rio Grande Valley near Texas’ border with Mexico. As the characters in this movie remind us on several occasions, “This isn’t Houston, ya know.”
But one of the most popular books about Texas culture is H.G. Bissinger‘s “Friday Night Lights,” the definitive book on the fascinating culture of Texas high school football. In this fine book, Mr. Bissinger examines the spirit of one of Texas high school football’s most successful programs: the Odessa Permian Panthers. Set in a city in decline in the West Texas desert, Mr. Bissinger explores the town, the school, the coaches, the team, its players, and how — for better and for worse — the team becomes the town’s identity. The picture is not always pretty, but the image is impossible to forget.
“Friday Night Lights” is now about to become a movie. This Chronicle article describes the current Houston-area filming of the new movie, which stars Billy Bob Thorton. Here’s hoping that this movie can live up to the standard of the above-described movies in portraying yet another fascinating aspect of Texas culture.
Skip over at The Sports Economist posts this interesting story about how the scandal involving the University of Colorado football team is emboldening the economist-president of the University to push the University’s Board of Regents and the Colorado State Legislature to grant the University “enterprise status,” which would make it a semiprivate institution with more independence over financial matters such as raising money and setting tuition rates.
Skip comments insightfully on this development as follows:
This issue is not unique to Colorado. The University of Virginia is a well known example where state funding has become a small percentage of operating expenditure. Clemson has the same problem. The issue is not just “managing finances,” but having the freedom to make autonomous decisions on numerous margins which affect the university. Given the dry well in public funding, schools want to be released from regulatory constraints on what they do. Increasingly, good state universities are obtaining a more private character. Schools that do not move in this direction will surely suffer in the national competition for quality students and faculty.
This is a development in public school financing that we Texans should be watching closely. Public financing of universities in Texas has long been a controversial issue, with the University of Texas and Texas A&M University long enjoying an absurdly and unjustifiable favored financing status over all other public universities in Texas. As a result, leaders of Texas public universities in areas of great fund-raising potential (three examples would be the University of Houston, North Texas State University, and Texas Tech University) would be well-advised to follow the “enterprise status” initiative at the University of Colorado. It may well be a way for those universities to break out of the politically imposed financial limitations that have constrained their overall advancement for many years.
Because of NCAA sanctions, the University of Alabama football team cannot go to a post-season bowl game for awhile. However, that sanction sure does not stop former UA coach Mike Price from getting it on with the current UA president. Priceless.
This NY Times article indicates that New York City might finally have decided upon a viable deal to develop the long-awaited West Side football stadium.