Category Archives: News – Houston Local

I wonder what she thinks about the guys over at the Masonic Temple?

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Harris%20County%20DA%27s%20office.jpgPutting Chuck Rosenthal’s troubles aside for a moment, does anyone else think it’s time to clean house at the Harris County District Attorneys’ Office?:

Republican district attorney candidate Kelly Siegler told a judge last year that members of Houston’s Lakewood Church are “screwballs and nuts” and that she works to keep them off of juries.
Siegler made the comment while defending herself from a defense attorney’s suggestion that she struck a man from the jury pool in a capital murder case because he is black. It wasn’t the man’s race that prompted Siegler to eliminate the man from the jury pool, she said. It was the fact that he attends Joel Osteen’s megachurch.
“To start with, he’s a member of Lakewood Church. And we have had a running agreement, my partner Luci Davidson and I have, since we started, that people who go to Lakewood are screwballs and nuts,” Siegler said, according to the court transcript. “I’m very familiar with that church. We try our hardest not to put anybody who goes to Lakewood regularly on any jury, he’s a pretty devout member of Lakewood Church. That’s one reason that scared me about the man.”
Siegler went on to give other reasons why she didn’t want him to be on the jury including his membership in the NAACP, a group that opposes the death penalty.
Siegler confirmed today that she complained about Lakewood attendees on the record, but said the comment was taken out of context.
“I was talking to a juror who, in my opinion, was very weak on the death penalty,” Siegler said. She said she was obligated to give her reasons for striking the juror, “weak or strong, good or bad,” which indicated that he would be weak on the death penalty.
Siegler also said she had never been to Lakewood, and was talking about things she heard about the church. [. . .]
Siegler attends Chapelwood Methodist church. [. . .]
The jury eventually sentenced [the defendant that Siegler was prosecuting] to death.

And that comes from one of this DA’s office’s “best” prosecutors. Summing up the absurdity of what has been going on in Houston over the past couple of weeks, Slampo provides a multiple choice test to determine how well you have been keeping up on developments.

A Cheap Sucker Punch to a Classy Coach

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During the entire 35 years that I’ve lived in Houston, the head basketball coaching position at Rice University has been a thankless job.

Attempting to recruit good basketball players to Rice is hard enough, given the academic requirements and the greater university support for both the football and baseball programs. But attempting to recruit good basketball players to play at Rice’s home of Autry Court — which is a dump and not nearly as good a facility as most suburban high school gyms in the Houston area — is nearly an impossible task.

Nevertheless, for the past 16 years, Willis Wilson has toiled gamely as Rice’s head basketball coach. Although rarely have his teams been blessed with much talent, they have always competed hard and played to the best of their ability. Against overwhelming odds, Wilson has produced five Rice teams that have won at least 18 wins in a season and three of his Rice teams earned postseason NIT appearances. And through it all, Wilson has represented his institution as an articulate and professional gentleman.

Accordingly, most folks in the Houston community who have followed local college athletics for awhile like me were particularly pleased for Wilson last year when Rice undertook a long-overdue $23 million renovation of Autry Court that supposedly will bring the facility up to reasonably modern standards.

During the renovation, which is not scheduled to be completed until January of next year, the Owls are being forced to play their home games in several locations around town, including one high school facility that is 35 miles from the Rice campus. But as usual, the classy Wilson hasn’t complained a lick and is probably simply thrilled with being able to show off the plans of the renovated Autry to his players and recruits.

So, imagine my surprise when I picked the paper yesterday and saw this article from the Chronicle’s Rice athletics beat writer:

Perhaps it is cruelly ironic that after spending more than a dozen years spearheading the effort to renovate Autry Court, Rice men’s basketball coach Willis Wilson is facing a groundswell of criticism that might influence whether he coaches in the new facility.

In the midst of his 16th season at the helm of the Rice program, Wilson is enduring vitriol that is difficult to dismiss. [. . .]

The current state of affairs combined with past failures, real and perceived, have legitimized the question of whether Wilson, the most accomplished coach in the program’s history, will occupy the bench next season when refurbished Autry Court will be unveiled. [. . .]

And what’s even more galling is that the comments in the article from Rice Athletic Director Chris Del Conte make it clear that he certainly didn’t want to dispel the rumors that Wilson’s tenure at Rice may be over after this season:

“Those are always looming concerns,” Rice athletic director Chris Del Conte said of the Owls’ recent lack of success. “They’re looming concerns because of the importance we’re placing on men’s basketball at Rice.

“We should be in a situation where we have a viably sustainable athletic program. A lot of private institutions understand the value that is placed on men’s basketball in terms of a key financial component of an overall athletic program. And I’ll take all those things into consideration as we move forward.”

If Rice allows Del Conte to can Willis Wilson after 16 faithful years and before he has had an opportunity to recruit players to — and have his teams compete in — a reasonably modern facility, then Rice will make the hypocrisy of Todd Graham look benign in comparison.

And with that kind of hyprocrisy wafting from South Main, just wait until the Marching Owl Band has an opportunity to comment.

The irony of what brought Rosenthal down

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Rosenthal%20011007.jpgIsn’t it ironic that tough-guy district attorney Chuck Rosenthal was ultimately brought down as a result of his refusal to stand up to the Harris County Sheriff’s Department?
As this Peggy O’Hare/Chronicle article reports, Rosenthal made the appalling decision to prosecute two brothers who were wrongfully arrested and roughed up by sheriff deputies for committing the heinous “crime” of unobtrusively videotaping from a neighboring property some questionable conduct of the deputies during a drug raid. What on earth was Rosenthal thinking in allowing such an absurd prosecution to go forward? No wonder he is in the middle of a wrongful arrest civil lawsuit.
By the way, the four deputies who wrongfully arrested the two brothers remain employed by the sheriff’s department. And the Attorney General is now looking into Rosenthal’s emails.

So Chuck, what did you plan on doing after public service?

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Rosenthal.jpgAbout the only question remaining regarding Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal is whether his holiday season was as bad as the Aggies‘?
First, there were the revelations in a civil lawsuit that Rosenthal placed his former mistress in a cushy administrative assistant position and used DA office email to send sweet nothings to her, all of which was picked up quickly by such national media outlets as the NY Times and the Wall Street Journal.
But if that were not enough, Rosenthal — in declining local GOP leaders’ requests that he step aside for the 2008 election — publicly stated that “the local Republican Party had never done much” for him in his 2000 and 2004 election campaigns and “that party leaders have become ‘Chicken Littles,’ unjustifiably fearful the scandal will damage the entire Republican roster of candidates in the county.”
Well, those remarks are certainly an interesting way of engendering loyalty among the party faithful. ;^)
Finally, Rosenthal still has some explaining to do in the civil suit regarding the apparent deletion of 2,000 emails. Was the D.A. involved in destruction of evidence? Sheesh!
I’m no political pundit, but when an elected official seeks to retain a position as hard as Rosenthal is attempting to keep his in light of the above, it’s a pretty good indication that it’s past time to replace that official.
As usual, Kevin Whited, Slampo and Cory Crow have insightful thoughts on the affair.
Update: Late on Wednesday afternoon, Rosenthal withdrew as a candidate for District Attorney in the Republican primary.

Stan Binion, R.I.P.

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12th%20green%20fr%202nd%20green3.JPGHouston lost one of the true gentlemen of the Houston legal community on Christmas Day.
Longtime Houston trial attorney, Stan Binion, died on Tuesday at the age of 71. Stan was a charming man who was a fixture of the local trial bar over his 40+ year legal career, primarily on the defense side in business cases. I met Stan as a young attorney back in 1982 shortly after I started my original law firm with a couple of other young friends, and he could not have been more gracious and supportive. Over the years, I worked on the same side and against him in several cases, and it’s a tribute to Stan’s fine character that he was just as cordial and professional to me when he was opposing counsel as he was when we were co-counsel.
Born in Brownwood in West Texas, golf actually brought Stan to Houston. An outstanding high school golfer, Stan was recruited to the University of Houston by the legendary UH golf coach, Dave Williams. Stan sunk a key birdie putt late in the final round of an NCAA Golf Championship in helping the Cougars to one of their record 16 NCAA National Championships that they won under Coach Williams.
After graduating from UH, Stan became one of the finest amateur golfers in the area and one of the best players at Champions Golf Club, which is saying something. Over the years, Stan and stout local amateur John Paul Cain won several Champions Cups, the annual amateur golf tournament at Champions that consistently generates one of the best fields in amateur golf. Stan also qualified to play in the US Senior Open and several US Senior Amateurs.
Stan graduated from UH with a business degree in 1960, obtained his law degree from UH Law Center in 1962 and went on to become a tireless supporter of his alma mater. He was a former president of the UH Alumni Association and a lifetime member of the H Association of former UH letterman — in fact, I bumped into Stan at most UH football and basketball games that I have attended over the years. Stan also donated his time in helping fellow UH golf alums Jim Nance (the CBS sports announcer) and PGA Tour pros Fred Couples and Blaine McCallister in developing and putting on their successful Three Amigos Charity Golf Tournament, which raised funds for the UH Athletic Scholarship Fund and other charities.
Finally, one anecdote sticks out in my mind in remembering Stan. In the mid-1980’s, Stan donated his time in representing the UH in connection with an NCAA Infractions Committee investigation and subsequent hearing. In the 1990’s, when Stan found out that I was involved in representing a UH coach in a UH-related NCAA Infractions Committee investigation, he called me and offered to provide any help, insight and background information that I needed. We were able to resolve that investigation favorably for the University, so I didn’t need to call on Stan’s assistance. But I deeply appreciated his offer — it says much about the kind of man Stan Binion was.
A Memorial Service for Stan will be conducted this Saturday at 2 p.m. at George Lewis & Sons at 1010 Bering and the family will receive friends at a reception afterward. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made payable to “University of Houston” with “Stan Binion Memorial Fund” on the memo line addressed to the UH Athletic Department, 3100 Cullen Blvd., Houston, Texas 77204-6002.

Damning with faint praise

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mic_full%281%29.jpgAs this earlier post noted, Houstonians are currently enduring a glut of sports talk radio stations. With the rare exception of a show such as Charlie Pallilo‘s, the shows on these stations range from merely unlistenable to truly offensive. To make matters worse, Houston’s mainstream professional sports teams are currently horrid, from the Texans’ historic mediocrity, to the Rockets’ decade of playoff incompetence, to the Stros’ downward trend. What on earth is there to talk about?
At any rate, while cruising around doing pre-Christmas errands the other day, one of my sons had a local sports talk radio show on his car radio. One of the talk show hosts made the following observation about the Rockets — who have lost 14 of their last 21 games — and the Texans, who had just been thoroughly waxed by the Colts:

“Compared to the Rockets, I am quite optimistic about the Texans.”

My son and I cracked up laughing. The host, on the other hand, was dead serious. That pretty well sums up the quality of discourse on Houston sports talk radio these days.

Art Briles Moves from Houston to Baylor

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Art Briles resigned last week as head coach of the University of Houston football program and accepted the same position at Baylor University and the change generated the usual knashing of teeth some sectors of the UH community that typically follows such moves.

However, Briles’ move surprised no one, except for perhaps a few folks in West Texas who figured that he would hold out at Houston until Mike Leach at Texas Tech moved on and Briles could lay claim to his dream job.

Although Briles was reasonably successful at Houston, he never really seemed at home as the Cougars’ coach.

Most folks don’t realize that Houston’s program is still relatively young by college football standards and Briles never was comfortable with the multi-tasked job of leading the Houston program into a Bowl Championship Series conference.

The Houston program burst on to the national stage during the 25 year tenure of Bill Yeoman, the outstanding and innovative coach of the Cougars from 1960-85. When UH hires a new head coach to replace Briles, that will be the sixth head coach in the 22 years since Coach Yeoman retired. And during that span, there have been even more UH athletic directors than football coaches.

In many ways, the UH football program reflects the struggles of the University overall.

As noted repeatedly on this blog, the University of Houston is a relatively young state research university (only since the 1963) that the State of Texas has consistently shortchanged in financial support in comparison to Texas’ two flagship research institutions, the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University.

Inasmuch as the UH football program is also relatively young in comparison to the UT and A&M programs, it pales in terms of fan and financial support in comparison to its older and better-endowed competitors.

Nevertheless, Houston’s football and other athletic programs competed quite well with its better-endowed neighbors during the 20 year period in which UH participated in the old Southwest Conference. As with the University of Houston generally, the UH athletic program has produced more “bang for the buck” than any other athletic program in Texas over the past 50 years.

Despite that legacy, when Briles took over in 2003, Houston’s football program had been lagging badly for a decade coinciding with the demise of the Southwest Conference.

Former Coach Yeoman campaigned hard at the time to have UH hire his former player Briles (who was a Texas Tech assistant coach at the time), even though it was clear even then that Briles had his eye on the Texas Tech head coaching job. Briles has been angling for the Tech head job for years because Tech Coach Leach apparently has been trying to get out of Lubbock almost continuously since he got there.

Unfortunately for Briles and other prospective coaches for the Tech job, Leach apparently doesn’t seem to perform nearly as well in those pre-hiring interviews as he does while directing his high-powered offense on Saturday afternoons.

Thus, when the Baylor job came open, Briles elected to take it and stake his claim to a program in a Bowl Championship Series conference.

And that’s the real difference in the two jobs. Houston has the potential to be one of the top non-BCS conference programs, but Baylor is already in a BCS conference. Thus, Baylor has the advantage of having access to a share of the considerable sums of money that the BCS pays to the BCS-member conferences.

As a result, even a downtrodden program such as Baylor in a BCS conference is likely to have more resources than a potentially better-situated but non-BCS conference program such as UH, at least for the time being.

My sense is that Briles is a reasonably good hire for Baylor. He is West Texas through and through, and that should fit in well in Waco. He did a good job at UH, although his teams’ offensive flair was offset by often-poor defensive play.

Briles took over a UH program that had gone 8-26 in the previous three seasons, including an ugly 0-11 slate in former UH Coach Dana Dimel’s second season in 2002. Briles immediately brought in talented freshman QB Kevin Kolb, around whom he built his innovative offense, which includes variations on the spread, the Wing-T and the Single Wing offenses.

Briles and Kolb led the Cougars to a 7-5 record in that first season, including a close bowl loss to Hawaii. In 2004, the Cougars took a step backward during an uninspired 3-8 season, but bounced back the following season when they went 6-6 with a blowout bowl loss to Kansas in the Fort Worth Bowl.

In 2006, everything came together for Briles, Kolb and the Coogs as they went 10-4, won UH’s second Conference USA championship and lost the Liberty Bowl in a close game to South Carolina.

This past season, Briles led the Coogs to an 8-4 record and Texas Bowl berth in his first “after-Kolb” season, although Houston’s progress appeared stunted late in the season around the time the Baylor job came open.

I don’t know if Briles’ interest in the job had anything to do with that downturn, but Briles and a number of key members of his staff have bailed out on coaching the Cougars in the Texas Bowl. I’m reasonably sure that has not left a pleasant taste in the mouth of UH Athletic Director, Dave Maggard.

Although Briles’ did a good job of turning around the UH program, it would be a stretch to say that his UH record was outstanding.

Based on final Massey Composite ratings, Briles had one top 70 team at UH, the 2006 C-USA championship team. UH under Briles was 6-24 against teams that finished in the Top 75, including 1-8 against non-conference teams in the Top 75.

Moreover, Briles tenure at UH coincided with a downturn in the quality of C-USA teams as teams such as Rice, Marshall, SMU, and UTEP entered the league and powers such as Louisville, Cincy and USF left.

In C-USA games, Briles’ teams were 5-14 against C-USA teams with a winning a record and won only one road game against a C-USA team that had a winning record.

Briles’ teams were 28-4 against teams that finished out of the Top 75 or were Division 1-AA, so his teams didn’t lose much to bad teams — about once a year. UH’s best win under Briles was over Oklahoma State in 2006, but really Briles’ record at UH is nothing out of the ordinary.

Whether Briles’ decision made a good decision in taking the Baylor job is a tougher call.

While Briles could have had as long a contract as he wanted at UH, Baylor has become a coaching graveyard.

Recently-fired coach Guy Morriss is a well-respected coach within the profession and he couldn’t get over the hump in the five seasons that he coached there.

Briles’ Baylor contract calls for $1.8 million annually over seven years, but a buyout of that contract is almost certainly far less than that.

So, if Briles stinks up the joint in Waco over his first three seasons, then he could very well be looking at the same fate as Morriss while making considerably less than if he had simply stayed at UH.

Expectations at Baylor at this point are not the same as UH, so Briles first goal will simply be to get the Bears to a .500 season in the Big 12 South. Taking a peak at the 2008 Baylor schedule, that does not appear to be likely in his first season:

Aug. 30 Wake Forest (probable loss)
Sept. 6 Northwestern State (toss up)
Sept. 13 Washington State (toss up)
Sept. 20 at Connecticut (probable loss)
Oct. 4 Oklahoma (loss)
Oct. 11 Iowa State (toss up)
Oct. 18 at Oklahoma State (probable loss)
Oct. 25 at Nebraska (probable loss)
Nov. 1 Missouri (loss)
Nov. 8 at Texas (loss)
Nov. 15 Texas A&M (probable loss)
Nov. 22 at Texas Tech (loss)
Toss ups: 3
Probable losses: 5
Sure losses: 4

3-9 overall and 1-7 in the Big 12 looks likely, so Briles’ honeymoon in Waco will probably be short. And the Big 12 South is not a friendly place in which to experience short honeymoons.

Who should UH hire to replace Briles?

Within the coaching profession, the UH head coaching position is considered an attractive one, albeit not one without problems. My sense is that the UH should hire an experienced coach who has recruited in the Cougars’ usual pipelines for players and who has experience in raising funds.

The next big step for the Houston program is either the upgrade of Robertson Stadium into a decent college football stadium or the construction of a new stadium. Either of such endeavors is going to cost between $100-$150 million, so hiring an experienced coach who is interested in working in Houston for the long term while being involved in a facilities fund-raising campaign makes a lot of sense.

Kind of makes you wish that there were still college football coaches like Bill Yeoman out there, doesn’t it?

The real issue behind the Ashby high-rise

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Bissonet%20high%20rise%20112907.jpgDon’t miss this Christof Spieler post in which he identifies the real issue that needs to be addressed in regard to the controversial Ashby high-rise condominium project — the issue of the project’s scale in relation to the rest of the neighborhood. Thus, enacting a “hurry-up” city ordinance addressing a not-as-important issue (i.e., alleged traffic congestion) is a prescription for making poor public policy. Solid analysis. (H/T Charles Kuffner).

Todd Graham’s Inferno

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the-mobRice University gave Todd Graham his first opportunity to be a head coach of a college football program. And Graham was quite successful in his only season on South Main, leading the Owls to their first bowl game since the early 1960’s.

But Graham’s stay on South Main was anything but platonic. After being named Conference USA Coach of the Year and renegotiating his contract with Rice, Graham announced a couple of weeks after the bowl game that he was leaving to replace his former boss as head coach at the University of Tulsa. By virtually all accounts, Graham handled the job change about as badly as possible.

Well, as predicted in my post at the time of Graham’s job change, it was just a matter of time before Rice’s notorious Marching Owl Band (“the MOB”) would have an opportunity to comment on Coach Graham’s antics, and that opportunity presented itself this past Saturday during halftime of the Rice-Tulsa game at Rice Stadium. The MOB performed a halftime show entitled “Todd Graham’s Inferno,” which concluded with the following comment over the stadium public address system:

Childish for sure, but nothing out of the ordinary for the MOB. And it was certainly not even as clever as the MOB’s theme for their halftime show during Rice’s bowl game against Troy last year — “Troy Loses. Read Homer”

So, how did the University of Tulsa respond? By doing precisely what the MOB probably wanted — fueled the inferno by filing a complaint against the MOB with the C-USA commissioner:

The University of Tulsa has sent a formal complaint to Conference USA regarding Rice’s halftime show during the Golden Hurricane-Owls football game on Saturday.

The performance by the Rice marching band was titled “Todd Graham’s Inferno” and depicted a search for the former Owls coach through different circles of Hell, based on Dante’s “Divine Comedy.”

After taking numerous jabs at Graham, the show ended by calling the Tulsa coach a “d—–bag” over the public address system.

“We filed a formal complaint with the conference and that’s where it stands now,” TU athletic director Bubba Cunningham said.[. . .]

When asked what he wanted the complaint to accomplish, Cunningham said, “We need to provide an environment where a student-athlete can participate and fans can enjoy college athletics in a very positive way.”

Sportsmanship has been a point of emphasis in C-USA, the Tulsa athletic director said. “When we don’t meet those standards, we need to look at ourselves as a league and find how we can make that experience better,” he said.

Yeah, that was real sportsmanship displayed by Cunningham and Tulsa last year when they lured Graham away from Rice right in the middle of recruiting season.

At any rate, all of this provides the opportunity to pass along again the following anecdote about football coaches that legendary Houston sportswriter Mickey Herskowitz tells:

In the mid-1960’s, the Los Angeles Rams had hired George Allen off of the coaching staff of George Halas in Chicago.

Halas was furious that the Rams failed to ask for his permission and threatened to take Allen to court. At a league meeting after the issue was resolved, Halas used the occasion to vent his anger at his former defensive coach.

“George Allen,” Halas raged, “is a man with no conscience. He is dishonest, deceptive, ruthless, consumed with his own ambition.”

At that point, Vince Lombardi leaned over to the owner of the Rams and whispered:

“Sounds to me like you’ve got yourself a helluva football coach.”

Hedging the Trial Penalty

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Although some have questioned his business ethics, no one has ever questioned that legendary Houston oilman Oscar Wyatt is good at hedging risk.

After Wyatt was sentenced yesterday to a year in prison as a result of his plea deal (previous posts here), my sense is that Wyatt hedged the trial penalty risk (i.e., a life sentence) in an reasonably effective manner.

Meanwhile, in another plea deal, a tenured economics professor at the University of Pennsylvania faces a likely prison sentence of four to seven years for bludgeoning his wife to death. The professor says he “just lost it.”

What must Jamie Olis think about that as he finishes serving what will almost certainly be a longer sentence than the professor will serve?

And what about Chalana McFarland, a first-time offender who was sentenced to 30 years in prison in connection with a mortgage fraud scheme. Ellen Podgor is following that case.

Or former Enron executive Jeff Skilling, who continues to serve a 24-year sentence for simply availing himself of a forum in which to defend himself against charges that are far more nebulous than murder or mortgage fraud?

Finally, tomorrow afternoon in Houston federal court, the NatWest Three, three former bankers from the U.K. who have been forced to live in Houston apart from their families in the U.K. for the past year and a half, will likely enter into a plea deal in order to hedge the considerable risk of a lengthy prison sentence if they were to defend themselves in a U.S. court from Enron-related charges that U.K. authorities concluded were too weak to merit a prosecution there (see previous posts.

Is the draconian trial penalty in the American criminal justice system really generating the type of results that a truly civil society wants?

Update: The real NatWest Three deal.