April 10, 2008
That's Jacques Rogge, President of the International Olympic Committee, trying to contain the damage. Of course, he can't admit that Beijing was the wrong choice for the Olympics, but isn't it obvious? Rogge:
It is very easy with hindsight to criticise the decision. It's easy to say now that this was not a wise and a sound decision. Without any doubt, the bid of Beijing was the best. It offered something that no other country could: bringing sport and Olympism to one fifth of mankind. That was the reasoning behind awarding the Games to Beijing.
Did he really say "Olympism"?
Anyway, the lesson here is that the IOC lost its leverage when it awarded the games. Reform then reward, not the other way around. That's not hindsight. That's just common sense.
April 08, 2008
and Dean Mundy, who blew away the field in the Conglomerate Blog NCAA Challenge.
Dean called Kansas to win, but I suspect even he was having doubts with 2:12 to go and his team down by nine points. Memphis coach John Calipari had pooh-poohed the importance of free throws all year, but they lost a national championship last night because of their inability to convert at the line. Funny thing is, the guys who missed the free throws are actually decent shooters. Both averaged over 70% from the line over the course of the season, and they were shooting well in the tournament. But I assume that the hoop looks a lot smaller at the end of the national championship game.
Except for Mario Chalmers. We didn't watch the entire game, but my family was gathered around the television for that last shot. Wow!
Finally, after years of darkness, I have been enlightened about the "Rock Chalk Jayhawk" chant. This is from the KU website:
KU's world famous Rock Chalk Chant evolved from a cheer that a chemistry professor, E.H.S. Bailey, created for the KU science club in 1886. Bailey's version was "Rah, Rah, Jayhawk, KU" repeated three times. The rahs were later replaced by "Rock Chalk," a transposition of chalk rock, the name for the limestone outcropping found on Mount Oread, site of the Lawrence campus.
The cheer became known worldwide. Teddy Roosevelt pronounced it the greatest college chant he'd ever heard. Legend has it that troops used the chant when fighting in the Philippines in 1899, in the Boxer Rebellion in China, and in World War II. At the Olympic games in 1920, the King of Belgium asked for a typical American college yell. The assembled athletes agreed on KU's Rock Chalk and rendered it for His Majesty.
If you want to hear it (again), go here.
March 28, 2008
Two hours until game time, and I am calling Wisconsin BIG over Davidson tonight. Davidson hotshot Stephan Curry will get fewer than 20 points and Davidson will not reach 50. Unless Wisconsin slacks off during garbage time at the end of the game. But in any event, Badgers advance to the Elite Eight.
UPDATE: From ESPN re Wisconsin:
They play in the rough-and-tumble Big Ten, where it's often hard to tell when football season ended and basketball season began. Their trademark is their textbook defense -- they're allowing only 53.9 points a game, best in the country, and have allowed only seven opponents to score more than 60 points -- and their offense is often overlooked because it's so balanced. They're old-school, right down to the jerseys that have only a number on the back.
UPDATE2: Now you know why I am in the bottom third of the Conglomerate bracket.
March 21, 2008
Just in time for March Madness, Sneaker Wars has just come out, recounting the modest origins of the
now-multinational multi-billion-dollar sports shoe industry. I just happened to catch the book review in this morning's WSJ. The story begins with the Dassler brothers' little Bavarian shoe factory, started during the thick of WWII. Fraternal rivalry caused the brothers Adi and Rudi to part company in the late 1940s, when Rudi walked across the river to the other side of town--the medieval town of Herzogenaurach--to set up a competing factory. Adi Dassler's shoe became, of course, Adidas. Rudi developed the Puma brand. Together, the rivaling brothers and their rival brands came to dominate the world sports shoe industry for decades. Adi and Rudi pioneered what are today's standard marketing strategies for sporting goods and other consumer goods, giving away free shoes to athletes and later paying stars to wear the logo.
It's a treat for me to read about the history of Adidas. Anyone who played grade-school basketball in the 70s remembers the dominant basketball shoes--Converse All-Stars and the Adidas Superstar, with the latter gradually overtaking the former both in the pros and in the school yard. According to Wikipedia, three quarters of all NBA players in the mid-70s were wearing the Superstar. I remember well getting my first pair. They were navy felt with white stripes (I know, I know . . . but remember, this was the 70s). I was a mediocre basketball player at best, but at least the shoes looked cool.
The sports shoe industry took a big jolt in the mid-80s, when Phil Knight signed Michael Jordon for Nike and launched the Air Jordan, which became the best-selling basketball shoe ever. Nike has dominated the U.S. market ever since, though Adidas and Puma appear to be making comebacks. You can read about Adidas' recent comeback efforts with its signing of David Beckham in the Prologue to Sneaker Wars.
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March 19, 2008
Thanks to those of you who have entered a bracket in our annual NCAA challenge. Christine and I were talking about prizes behind the scenes today, so the winner can expect something really cool. But we don't want you to do it for the goods. We want you to enter for the glory!
In the interest of good fun -- and to show all of you that I am thinking more clearly this year -- I want to announce my pick to win it all: UCLA.
This pains me to no end because it would require UCLA to beat BYU in the second round (if the Cougars managed to get past the Aggies from Texas A&M ... and I realize that's no gimme). Also, it means that Steve Bainbridge would have gloating rights, which he stole briefly last fall, only to relinquish them in the Las Vegas Bowl. Most dangerous of all is that UCLA and BYU play in football again this fall ... though the Bruins have to travel to Provo, which is not called Happy Valley for nothing.
But I digress. In the sport of basketball, UCLA is simply the best team I have seen this year, despite some inconsistency and some questionable officiating. Kevin Love is great, and he deserves the praise he is getting. But the main reasons UCLA rises to the top are Darren Collison, Josh Shipp, and Russell Westbrook. Other teams have good guards, but not this many who are this good. If you don't know Darren Collison, yet, you will in a few weeks. It appears that some UCLA players may be battling the injury bug, which could affect the results, but if they stay healthy, Steve will be doing some gloating.
March 16, 2008
The best sporting event of the year is about to start. If you would like to join us in the 2008 Conglomerate Blog NCAA Basketball Challenge, follow the links.
March 12, 2008
The brackets won't be available until next week, but we are making preparations early this year. Last year, I made the mistake of picking Wisconsin to win it all. This year I am planning to play with my head and not my heart. No sentiment.
You will be filling out the brackets anyway, so drop one into our competition. Just click here, and you will be taken to a sign-in page. If you have an account with SportsLine, sign in. If you do not have an account with SportsLine, you need to register.
Once you have signed in, you will need the group password, which is Glom. Completing the brackets once they are available couldn't be easier.
Just don't whine if I beat you ...
March 02, 2008
SI describes the plight of Daniel Smith (no relation), a young man from Boise who orally accepted an offer of a football scholarship from the University of Hawaii last April. After Hawaii Head Coach June Jones decided in January to accept an offer to coach Southern Methodist University, one of the assistant coaches at Hawaii called Smith to rescind the scholarship offer. According to Smith, he had promised Hawaii that he wouldn't entertain offers from other schools, so he was left without a scholarship for this fall. Smith sued.
Anyone who follows college football knows that the rules governing recruiting are heavily regulated by the NCAA, but the system of extending "offers" and receiving oral "acceptances" is very fluid. A player often "commits" orally to play for one school, then changes his mind and "commits" to another school. Likewise, many coaches make offers, only to rescind the offers when a better prospect comes along. In short, while severing relationships is not pleasant, most everyone involved in the process seems to understand that the commitments made during recruiting are non-binding. The deal is done only when the player, his parents, and an institution's athletics director all sign a "letter of intent" (LOI). That letter commits the school to providing financial aid for one year -- assuming the athlete is admitted -- and it marks the point at which recruitment of the athlete by other schools must cease. (More here.)
Stories about jilted athletes and coaches are legion, but this is the first time I have seen such a case go to court. Smith's attorney is relying on the doctrine of promissory estoppel, and according to Smith, the promise from then-defensive line coach Jeff Reinebold went something like this: "If we offer you a scholarship, we want you to be 100 percent committed to us, and we'll be 100 percent committed to you." While SI quotes one source suggesting that such a promise would be out of character for Reinebold, that sort of talk is consistent with many recruiting stories with which I am familiar. In any event, let's assume for the sake of argument that Reinebold made the statements. Does Smith have a viable claim under promissory estoppel?
Smith seems to have strong case of reliance (he stopped working with other football programs), and his reliance appears to have been detrimental (he missed out on the possibility of other scholarships). But the question remains: was Smith justified in relying on Reinebold's purported promise?
Well, first there is the matter of agency law. Was an assistant coach authorized or apparently authorized to make such a statement? According to the SI story:
Daniel said he never spoke to Jones, Hawaii's head coach. And while most schools require the head coach to sign off on any scholarship offer, Hawaii's assistants under Jones sometimes did offer scholarships on their own. Greg Brown, a Las Vegas personal trainer, said Miano offered his son, Corbin, a scholarship last year. Corbin, a safety from Spring Valley High, called Miano in September to commit to Hawaii.
Good facts for Smith. But what about the fact that everyone knows that pre-LOI commitments are non-binding? Maybe Smith is so new to the system that he doesn't know what everyone knows. Or perhaps Hawaii was signaling its intention to transact on a different basis from other schools, to allow itself to be bound where other schools would not. Nevertheless, I have a hard time imagining a court siding with Smith in this case, largely because Hawaii will bring all sorts of evidence showing that these pre-LOI arrangements are not the basis for reasonable reliance. Even if Reinebold made a statement like the one above, it looks more like salesmanship than contract. Given the emphasis during recruiting on the formal LOI, Smith probably should have understood that the oral "commitment" was nothing more than rah-rah talk.
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February 16, 2008
That's Mark Schlabach on ESPN. From where I sit, the baffling thing about the Kelvin Sampson affair is that Indiana hired him in the first place. Reputation markets have dead spots where information doesn't circulate, but that was not the problem in this case. Everyone knew Sampson's history with Oklahoma. Why take on that baggage?
December 22, 2007
We were screaming in the Smith household when BYU defensive tackle Eathyn Manumaleuna got a hand on a field goal by UCLA as time expired. (Game recap.) The so-called experts were predicting a BYU blowout, but I assumed that UCLA would play inspired football for their interim coach DeWayne Walker. And they did. It looks like UCLA is intent on hiring Rick Neuheisel as its new head coach, but Walker did an impressive job of putting his team into a position to win this game. He should get a shot at the top spot somewhere.
Given the religious orientation of BYU, close wins in big games often receive some sort of nickname that implies Divine intervention. My first exposure to this phenomenon was in my freshman year at BYU, when Jim McMahon engineered an amazing comeback against SMU in the Holiday Bowl. That game has since become known as The Miracle Bowl. Lavell Edward's last game, a win against Utah, has been called One Last Miracle for Lavell. Last year's last-second victory over Utah has been dubbed The Answered Prayer. There are others, but you get the idea.
So the race is on to name this game. Some people have suggested "The Hand of God," but that's already taken. Given that Eathyn Manumaleuna's nickname is "Manu," it seems to me that "The Hand of Manu" is the obvious choice. By the way, Manu is a true freshman, and in about one month, he will enter the Missionary Training Center in Provo to begin preparations for two years in Oklahoma.
UPDATE: Here's a photo ...
December 16, 2007
December 13, 2007
... is not that Trent Plaisted is 6' 11" and still has that sort of leaping ability.
No. The most amazing thing about this play is that he missed the shot!
December 03, 2007
Have you ever been asked to complete the US News survey that is used to rank law schools? Do you try to game the system for the home team? Well, maybe a little bit, right?
What would you expect of college football coaches? Here is an interesting graphic showing how each coach with voting rights cast those votes in the final ballot.
Hmm, let's see. Jim Tressel? Ohio State is #1, a point on which 46 of the 60 coaches agree.
Les Miles? LSU is #1. (No way a Michigan man could vote for Ohio State!)
Frank Beamer? LSU beat Virginia Tech, so LSU must be #1. But Virginia Tech is #2.
Bob Stoops? Of course, Oklahoma is #1. (Biased you say? Not at all. Steve Spurrier agrees with him.)
The only other team with a #1 vote ; Hawaii. Thanks to Hal Mumme, coach of New Mexico State, which is also in the Western Athletic Conference.
December 02, 2007
Gene Wojciechowski rails against the BCS (again), but he is all about who should be in the so-called "national championship." Sure, LSU v. Ohio State is silly, but can you name any single game that would not look silly as the "national championship" after this season? Would this problem be solved with a Plus One? No. Yet there is no prospect of a playoff in college football ... at least in the largest division.
The problem with our national championship fetish is that it distracts us from the other perverse effects of the BCS system, all of which relate to the huge dollars sloshing around the BCS. Most teams have no shot at the mythical national championship, but getting into a BCS bowl is a realistic aspiration for many programs, if they game the system. And the payoff is huge. The lesson from this year: schedule like Kansas, whose non-conference games were against Central Michigan, SE Louisiana, Toledo, and Florida International. ALL AT HOME!!!
A subsidiary lesson -- this time for conferences -- is that you shouldn't have a conference championship game. The Big 12 knocked Missouri out of the "national championship." The ACC may have cost Boston College a chance to represent the conference as a second BCS team. The big winner is the Big Ten, which gets Ohio State into the big show and three-loss Illinois into the Rose Bowl. (Sorry Christine and Vic, but that is the biggest scandal after Kansas making the Orange Bowl.)
What about Hawaii? Shouldn't the only undefeated team be playing in the "national championship"? Not if they come from the WAC. Hawaii takes a scheduling penalty in the minds of pollsters because they have a soft schedule. The problem here is that no one wants to play Hawaii! They might lose!
Hawaii coach June Jones wanted his football team to open the season at Michigan. The Wolverines wouldn't play the Warriors and instead hosted Division I-AA Appalachian State, which beat Michigan 34-32 in one of the biggest upsets in college football history.
Hawaii was scheduled to play Michigan State this season, but the Spartans paid $250,000 to cancel the game. Jones tried to replace the Spartans with Southern California, but even the Trojans wanted no part of quarterback Colt Brennan and the Warriors' high-octane offense.
By the way, I just heard an interview with Bronco Mendenhall, in which he was talking about a hole in BYU's schedule created by Nevada's decision to replace BYU with Grambling State on Nevada's 2008 schedule. (The reason? Nevada's schedule was too difficult!) Bronco said that BYU has had inquiries from some Division I schools (rumor: Florida State), but BYU is not interested. After watching Hawaii march into the BCS by beating the likes of Northern Colorado and Charleston Southern, BYU has learned its lesson. When you have a choice, schedule like Kansas.
November 12, 2007
With Christine blogging about college football, I was feeling a bit left out. So here is an update on happenings in the Mountain West Conference, which you probably can't see for yourself because the conference is still stuck in it's pathetic television contract.
First, and most importantly, as far as I can tell, BYU is the only two-loss team in the country that is not ranked in the Top 25. The early loss to UCLA really hurts, especially since UCLA is threatening to lose out, finishing the season without a bowl.
Second, the Utah-Wyoming game has generated a lot of heat in these parts because of Utah's decision to try an onside kick in the third quarter when leading 43-0. That decision lead to this reaction from Joe Glenn, Wyoming's head coach ...
Glenn initially said he couldn't remember making the gesture, but he later apologized. (The title of this post is a quotation from Glenn.)
Why would Utah do it? Utah's coach Kyle Whittingham apparently was motivated by the fact that Glenn has "guaranteed" a victory over the Utes during a student luncheon earlier in the week. Whittingham was still worked up after the game, talking about "accountability." You can see the interview about three minutes into the following video.
After sleeping on it, Whittingham expressed remorse for the call:
My emotions got the best of me, and after thinking about it, I wouldn't have done it in hindsight. But emotions were running high as you could tell — both from what we did and the reaction on the other team. That's the nature of sports, I guess. At times your emotions get in the way of sound decision-making. You've got to guard against it. I'm not making excuses. I'm just saying that was what happened.
Fair enough. Any college football fan should immediately recognize the stupidity of the call, which will not be forgotten in Laramie when the Utes visit next year, but stuff happens in the heat of battle. Whittingham is a decent guy and a good coach, and I hope he continues to succeed at Utah ... except when they play BYU.
November 11, 2007
I usually leave the football blogging to Gordon, but surely we must take note when Illinois defeats a #1 ranked team for the first time in over 50 years by playing an almost perfect game of football! Great job!
An inside joke in our house is the "transitive property of football," which refers to the quite-frequent complaint of a former acquaintance around bowl time that "[My team] should not be ranked [1 + X] because they clobbered the #1 team in the regular season!" By the transitive property of football, his team obviously should have been ranked #1.
Therefore, by the transitive property of football, Illinois is #1!!
October 28, 2007
October 25, 2007
The undefeated Boston College Eagles (7-0), ranked No. 2 in the country, play No. 8 Virginia Tech Hokies (7-1) in an Atlantic Coast Conference showdown tonight at Lane Stadium/Marshall Field in Blackburg. This should be a classic Thursday night college football game, covered live on ESPN at 7:30 pm ET. Tech boasts a 9-4 advantage against BC in the series but, in Thursday night games, BC has a 3-2 edge.
BC entered the ACC in 2003-04, exiting the Big East. Apart from joining a conference with great universities, including Duke, North Carolina, Virginia and Wake Forest, and generating increased TV revenue to fund other BC athletic programs, a principal goal was to increase BC’s visibility to younger people in the south.
Demographic trends indicate a growing pool of undergraduates from the region. BC surveys showed it enjoying least name recognition among potential recruits there compared to other parts of the country. The school’s gridiron prowess in the ACC seems to be yielding recruiting dividends—and may whatever the outcome of tonight’s game.
The outcome is important for BC quarterback, Matt Ryan. He probably needs to win big to keep serious attention as a possible Heisman Trophy candidate. Having watched Ryan the last few years while on BC’s faculty, I’m rooting for him and for the Eagles, despite my recent move to GW, on the Virginia line. Go Eagles.
October 21, 2007
If you know anything about the recent revival of BYU football, you know the name Bronco Mendenhall. He came to BYU in 2003 as the defensive coordinator under then-head coach Gary Crowton, who is now the offensive coordinator for LSU. Bronco took over as head coach after Crowton's "resignation," and many of us were skeptical. Bronco was 38 years old, one of the youngest head coaches in major college football. He was not BYU's first choice. Utah's then-defensive coordinator, Kyle Whittingham, declined the job, opting instead to succeed Urban Meyer as head coach of the Utes. Bronco also had a reputation for being almost insanely intense, and he had a strong preference for the idiosyncratic 3-3-5 defense, despite BYU's traditional problems recruiting high-quality defensive backs. In his first season as head coach, BYU finished 6-6, and I assumed Bronco was not long for this world.
Last year, however, the Cougars finished with a 11-2 record, including a thrashing of the Oregon Ducks in the Las Vegas Bowl. This year, like last year, the team suffered two early non-conference losses, but BYU appears to be the class of the Mountain West Conference again, having already defeated the second and third place teams in the conference.
But all that is just about wins and losses. What has so endeared Bronco to BYU fans -- and so intrigued me -- is the way in which he has transformed the meaning of his football team. One of the first telephone calls he made as a head coach was to Paul W. Gustavson, a BYU alum and Silicon Valley management consultant. Here's one version of what happened next:
The two proved to be a perfect match. Gustavson was a wellspring of ideas, and Mendenhall was a model student. Regularly flying to Utah to meet with the coach, Gustavson would present ideas and leave articles and books on management. By the time Gustavson would return, Mendenhall would not only have underlined and scribbled notes all over the texts but also have taught the principles to his assistant coaches and built team activities around them.
"He’s a master learner," says Gustavson of Mendenhall, who is now a subscriber to the Harvard Business Review. "He reads, he underlines, he ponders, he prays about it."
Gustavson typically breezes through lesson one, creating a sustainable competitive advantage, in an afternoon. With Mendenhall, he spent two months. Gustavson emphasized that to compete successfully, an organization cannot be just like its competition. The principle meshed with Mendenhall's developing vision of BYU football.
"It became clear to me that I was to make the football program as distinct and different as possible," says Mendenhall, "because this institution and its purpose are distinct and different and unique. BYU isn't like anywhere else. It wasn't designed to be."
Gustavson also stressed that "all organizations are perfectly designed to get the results they get." BYU's most recent results were three losing seasons and off-field problems. So if Mendenhall wanted penetrating change, Gustavson insisted, he couldn't just add a fresh coat of paint to the same structure.
So Bronco changed the structure. Among other things, he embraced BYU's Honor Code -- rather than apologizing for it -- and his recruiting pitch started to sound like those television ads for the Marines ("the few, the proud, the Marines"). Naturally, this challenge appealed to many young men, and BYU suddenly found itself again an attractive destination for many of the most talented Mormon football players in the country.
Bronco doesn't make excuses for his players, who are expected to perform in the classroom, in the community, and on the field. The average GPA of the football players has risen substantially, and all of the players perform community service. Over the past two years, he has suspended a number of the team's best players for violating the team's rules, and my sense from talking to some of the players is that they admire Bronco's integrity. The transformation of the program is not yet complete, but progress has been astounding.
On Friday night, my family and I attended a "fireside" sponsored by the football team. Two players (Travis Bright and Garret Reden, both offensive lineman) spoke, as did both Holly and Bronco Mendenhall. The players also sang Church hymns. None of the speakers was eloquent and the messages they offered were simple -- mostly describing the responsibility they feel to represent BYU. The team stages these firesides for both home and away games, and BYU fans come in droves.
Afterwards, my son and I noticed that people were hanging back from Bronco, so we decided to go up to the front and shake his hand. I introduced myself and told Bronco that we had just moved from Wisconsin, where we spent the last several years of fall Saturdays huddled around our computer, listening to BYU games streamed across the internet. But more importantly, I wanted him to know that he and the players had a profound effect on my son. Bronco was clearly more excited to shake my son's hand than he was to speak with me, and after they spoke for a minute or two we parted. Bronco's parting advice to my son as he clasped his hand and looked in his eyes: "Make good choices." I appreciate Bronco.
UPDATE: I promise that I didn't see this article before I wrote the foregoing post. Here is a funny anecdote from the article:
[Stew Liff of Los Angeles, author of "Seeing is Believing" on Visual Management and former chief of Veteran's Benefits Administration's Human Resources Division] toured the Rose Bowl after BYU played UCLA in September, and one of the tour guides remarked how impressed he was that BYU's team actually cleaned up after itself. Most football teams leave it like a party out of "Animal House." When asked about how UCLA treats the Rose Bowl, the guide told Liff, "They still have work to do."
October 11, 2007
Dennis Franchione's Texas A&M football team is 5-1 on the season, but his job is in jeopardy. For the past three years, "Coach Fran" has been selling a newsletter called the VIP Connection for $1,200/year to selected boosters without the knowledge of Texas A&M Athletic Director Bill Byrne. According to ESPN, Byrne said:
I think the whole thing started as something well-intended, to keep a number of people who were good donors to the university forever informed about things that were going on. It just got out of control.... My supposition is someone came to Fran and said, 'You mind if we do something like this for some people?' His thought was, 'No. Go ahead.' My guess was he never saw it after that. He concentrates on football.
Let me get this straight: Franchione sells what purports to be inside information about the football program, but he has nothing to do with generating that information? I suppose Franchione could have some lackey write the newsletter, but for $1,200/year, I would expect a bit more.
According to A&M, Franchione's activities generated $80,000 of revenue and a net profit to Franchione of $37,806.32. This for a fellow whose contract [UPDATE: It appears that this contract is not Franchione's current contract (see comments). Though many of the non-numerical provisions seem to be the same as those discussed below, Franchione apparently received a raise in 2006.] provides for an annual salary of $1,700,000/year, plus two vehicles, a country club membership, and incentive payments for winning the Big 12 Championship ($37,500), appearing in a bowl game ($37,500 for a non-BCS bowl, $75,000 for a BCS bowl, or $100,000 for the "national championship" game), being named Coach of the Year ($25,000 for Big 12 coach of the year and $50,000 for national coach of the year), or winning the national championship ($100,000). Did I mention the $3 million life insurance policy? Or $12,000/year expense allowance?
Forget Aggies. How about Hogs?
But did he breach the contract? Almost certainly. Here are some possibilities:
- "Franchione will not ... engage in any business transactions or commerce ... that may cause discredit to the University."
- "Franchione will not ...knowingly engage in, support, or tolerate any action violative of any governing constitution, by-law, rules, regulation,policy or procedure of the Conference or the NCAA or the University."
- "Franchione will not ... accept or receive any monies, benefit or any other gratuity whatsoever from any University booster club or other benefactor if such action would be a violation of NCAA legislation now or hereinafter enacted."
- "Franchione shall report annually in writing to the President of the University through the Athletic Director ... all athletically related income from sources outside the University.... This disclosure of outside income is required by Article 11.2, of the NCAA Bylaws."
- "Franchione may not be compensated by an individual or commercial business outside the University for employment or assistance in any manner or from any source where such outside or third party compensation would be in violation of NCAA Rules or the rules of the rules of the Conference with which the University is affiliated."
Again from ESPN: "The AP also obtained copies of Franchione's annual outside income reports, and none include income from Web sites." The ESPN story also lists other possible NCAA and Big 12 rules violations connected to the newsletter.
If Franchione is fired for cause based on the breach of contract, he would lose his right to liquidated damages under the contract. That's $141,667/month until the contract expires. The bright side is that the contract expires in December 2008. [UPDATE2: According to news reports, Franchione's new contract, granted in 2006, extends through 2012.]
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September 17, 2007
As luck would have it, I was in Boston this weekend and got a chance to hear the hometown perspective on the Patriots' version of "spygate"--Coach Bill Belichick videotaping the New York Jets' defensive signals. As one would expect, there were plenty who believed that the punishment (fines on both the coach and the team as well as the potential loss of a first round draft pick) was too harsh, particularly because many felt that others in the league were guilty of similar conduct. But there were also those who felt that the punishment was both necessary and appropriate, and hoped that the team could just move on. In the end, though, it seemed that many were simply disheartened by the conduct and the shadow it would cast over the team and the game of football. As a fan of both the Patriots and the NFL, I would have to put myself in that final category.
On a broader note, however, the debate regarding the appropriateness of the punishment reminded me of the debate regarding individual vs. collective liability in the corporate context. Thus, many people's arguments seemed to suggest that the most appropriate penalty and the one most likely to deter future misconduct was one that focused on the individual--in this case Belichick. As a result, these people scrutinized the $500,000 fine levied against Belichick. Some thought it set the right tone--it was the highest fine ever levied against an NFL coach and according to ESPN, represents 12% of his 2007 salary. But many others were dissatisfied and questioned why the fine was not stiffer and did not include any game suspensions. For these any team penalty harms players and fans who had no control over the misconduct, but also because such a penalty was perceived as less effective than one that focused on the individual.
Others seemed to believe that the most significant penalty should be aimed at the team, arguing that the only way to ensure that this kind of misconduct does not occur in the future is to hold the team responsible, which would create incentives for the team and its owner to more effectively monitor its coaches. Most of these people were not happy with the $250,000 fine imposed on the team and thought it needed to be significantly higher to get the attention of management, and encourage them play a more active role in weeding out misconduct. There also was debate about whether stripping the Patriots of its first round draft pick if the team made the playoffs was enough. Regardless of how people resolved this debate, however, most people who focused on the team penalty seemed to think that such a penalty (and not whatever was imposed on Belichick) was the most important one and the one that would prove most effective in sending a message aimed at deterring future misconduct.
Certainly in the corporate realm we have seen a lot of debate regarding whether and to what extent individual executives or their corporations should be subjected to liability for misconduct. And just like in the corporate context, the resulting punishment seems to satisfy very few. More importantly, however, similar to the corporate context, there was an effort to impose both individual and collective liability, based on the recognition that both the individual and the corporation, or the team in this case, not only bear some responsibility for the misconduct, but also appear to reap whatever benefits flow from the misconduct.
For my part, while I do think we should ask questions that allow us to fully understand the extent of the misconduct and the reasons behind it, I nevertheless hope for the day when we can talk about the Patriots without hearing the word spy--or worse, the word cheater
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September 16, 2007
I have to confess I'm really only a casual observer of baseball and other professional sports these days, but after the Moneyball revolution, I've learned to appreciate just how sophisticated (or seemingly so) baseball economics has become. I learned by accident this morning that A-Rod will likely be a free agent this year (who's A-Rod?). Also that he's making $27 million a year, but his agent says he's worth $30 million. For 30 million bucks, what would the buyer get? A 2008 season with A-Rod hitting better than .303, with a better than .404 on-base percentage, and a better than .601 slugging percentage, that's what! So says Nate Silver of Baseball Prospectus, according to today's NYT. I say "better than" because these predictions assume he stays with the Yanks. Moving out of Yankee stadium would give A-Rod some slightly better numbers, since that venue is viewed as unfriendly to RHBs.
I thought, wow!, that's some pretty high-tech (or highfalutin) predicting. But it gets better. The Giants could expect to win 8 more games if they bought A-Rod; to the Blue Jays, he's worth 9 more victories. And that's probably as much as any team can expect over time, as A-Rod is probably topping out right about now and will decline over time.
Is he worth the $30 million? Not according to Silver. For teams in marginal playoff contention, each extra win produces another $2.6 million in revenue. Do the math. If A-Rod is worth 9 extra wins now and fewer in the future, it's hard to justify the annual $30 MM bill.
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September 09, 2007
In blogging about this weekend's game between BYU and UCLA, Steve Bainbridge observed: "There was an interesting article in the LAT this week on the perennial question of whether going on a mission hurts the development of Mormon athletes, especially QBs. Max Hall's making the case that there is no adverse effect, while Olson's struggles - win or lose - likely will restart the grumbling around campus."
Steve is right about this question coming around again and again. For BYU fans, the mission question is a constant source of entertainment, frustration, and anxiety. When BYU succeeds, you can guarantee that someone will play the age card. Last week, for example, Arizona head coach Mike Stoops was asked about BYU's ability to compete in a BCS conference*:
They're pretty good. They can compete, I would think, as well as anybody. They have a whole team full of Spencer Larsen's. [Larsen is a returned missionary.] I'd take one hundred Spencer Larsen's if I could get them. That's what you have to realize, they have maturity, they go on missions for two years, their average age is probably 22-24, I would think, and that's just the way they do it. They go to school for a year, they learn the system, they go on a mission for two years and then they redshirt them. Who knows how old some of those kids were but they were very physical. I think you notice it more with their linemen than you do with their skill (players).
What is often missed in this conversation is the enormous burden placed on coaches by the mission program. The burden is the result of several factors: (1) young men** are eligible to serve missions at the age of 19, which means (in most cases) that coaches must decide whether to use a year of eligibility before the mission or to burn a player's redshirt year; (2) young men who serve missions become eligible for transfer after their missions, meaning that they must be recruited all over again by the home school (in some instances, BYU loses players after missions, and in some instances, BYU gains -- see Ben Olson and Max Hall, respectively); (3) missions change people both physically and mentally (some great prospects are never the same after a mission, and others require a substantial period of adjustment to return to pre-mission form -- the phenomenon known in these parts as "mission legs"); and (4) programs change, so that returned missionaries often must adjust to new coaches or new expectations when they return.
If you think missions are a great advantage, you might ask yourself why coaches outside of BYU do not embrace this advantage. While some coaches have learned to tolerate missions -- especially if the prospect is very talented -- many view missions as an unwelcome complication. For a recent example, USC coach Pete Carroll conditioned starting fullback Stanley Havili's scholarship offer on Havili's commitment to forego a mission. Some other coaches promise during recruiting to facilitate missions, but later attempt to dissuade the players from actually serving.
In the final analysis, the effect of a mission on a particular athlete is unpredictable and may be impossible to distinguish from other factors. Has Ben Olson's ability been impaired by his mission, or would he have faced similar struggles without missionary service? I don't know because he redshirted prior to his mission, but I admire him for making the decision at 19 years old to devote two years of his life to the service of others. If his experience was anything like mine, he will not regret that decision.
* Note that the question is about BYU's ability to compete in a BCS conference without the recruiting advantages and resources advantages currently enjoyed by teams who actually play in those conferences.
** Women serve missions, too. My wife served in Sweden, for example. But this post is focused on football, so I refer to young men.
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September 07, 2007
I have been debating whether to blog about tomorrow's football match between BYU and UCLA, but Steve Bainbridge leaves me no choice. Steve has taken the audacious position that #13 ranked UCLA -- a one touchdown favorite in Vegas -- will prevail on its home field against its unranked non-BCS opponent, BYU. Steve is so confident in his team that he is willing to wager some "fine California cheese" (admittedly the second best source of cheese in the U.S.) against Utah's official snack food -- Jello. This seems roughly the equivalent of the old "dollars to doughnuts" bet.
In addition to playing on its home field, UCLA has the advantage of starting a quarterback who is a former Mormon missionary. Ben Olson has immense potential -- and I hope he realizes that potential someday -- but he has yet to prove himself against a top defense. BYU's front seven are fast, and based on what I have seen, Ben Olson will not handle the pressure he is going to feel tomorrow.
The issue with Ben Olson is generalizable to the entire UCLA football team: the hype is mostly about potential. This is a team returning many of its starters from last year, but last year these players finished with a 7-6 record, including a lopsided loss to a mediocre Florida State team in the Emerald Bowl. UCLA's marquee win was in its rivalry game against USC. Beating USC anytime is impressive, but rivalry games always have a different dynamic.
Last week, the lowly Stanford Cardinal gained 331 yards passing and, if you exclude QB sacks, almost 100 yards rushing against UCLA's vaunted defense. BYU has one of the best offensive lines in the country and more than a handful of offensive weapons, including a trio of punishing Tongan running backs. I foresee a long and tiring day for UCLA's defense.
This game will be close ... for the first half. BYU will pull away in the second half when UCLA's defense wears down. My prediction: BYU 28 UCLA 14.
Steve, anything from the Marin French Cheese Company would be fine with me.
UPDATE: Congrats to UCLA and to Steve. BYU had me believing in my own hype at the beginning of the fourth quarter -- Ben Olson looked rattled and BYU was dominating the time of possession -- but an untimely turnover sealed BYU's fate. It was a fun game to watch, even though I didn't like the result.
September 04, 2007
Kyle O'Neill of the Detroit Free Press is launching a new sports blog and his topic is -- surprise! -- Michigan's loss to Appalachian State. The title of his first post: "U-M fans, media should calm down and other thoughts on the historic loss."
I don't know Kyle, but it struck me as very clever that he would launch his blog today featuring that topic and the message "calm down." The last thing that any new sports blogger wants is calm readers. The whole point of such a blog is to get people agitated. And I suppose nothing could get the Maize and Blue more agitated than being told to calm down. It's brilliant!
August 30, 2007
Classes started on Monday here at BYU, and the first college football games of the year are being played today. It's official ... fall is here.
BYU is preparing to dismantle the University of Arizona on Saturday (no repeat of last year, Darian!), and one BYU fan has offered some rules for BYU football fans. Most are patronizing, some are a bit dated, and a few would only appear on a BYU fan board, but with a bit of editing, many of the rules might have broader application. Like these:
1. Do not EVER bring "something to do" to a game.
16. Stadium dogs just taste better.
35. We have to stay to the end of blowouts. That's the part where we can see next year's players.
August 10, 2007
How low is the Tour de France? Discovery (nee US Postal) -- which has won eight of the past nine Tours de France -- can't find a sponsor and is disbanding. Alberto Contador, this year's Tour winner, is facing questions about doping. A couple of weeks ago, Iban Mayo was confirmed positive for EPO during the Tour, and Astana just suspended another of its top riders (Andrey Kashechkin). This is in addition to all of the doping casualties during the Tour itself. What a mess!
If our professional baseball, basketball, and football leagues took doping this seriously, would they fare any better? Sure, Barry Bonds, Shawn Merriman, and a few other professional players have been tainted by scandal, but these sports have managed (pretty well) to isolate the problems. My guess is that the owners are watching cycling and thinking, "That's a rock we would just as soon not turn over." Then again, they may not have any choice. At some point, it may become a credibility issue for the game, and they will be forced to clean house.
Or maybe not. Perhaps American sports fans are willing to continue looking the other way. (For a nice essay on this point, see Chuck Klosterman.) Not that Europeans are more righteous. Why did cycling became a target for such close anti-doping scrutiny? Could it have had anything to do with the desire to bring Lance Armstrong down off the pedestal? Here's my hypothesis: the anti-Lance investigations -- prompted in (large?) part by anti-Americanism -- generated enormous energy and momentum in the anti-doping crusade, and that crusade has swept up the cyclists who remained after Lance's exit.
American sports fans are not likely to launch a crusade against our own boys. We just want to see Superman in action.
July 06, 2007
I realize that July is a slow month for American sports, but ESPN's "Who's Now" contest is one of the dumbest ideas I have seen in some time. Please stop.
Speaking of July, I am still interested in the Tour de France this year, though I am weary of doping stories. I am hoping some young riders step forward out of the shadows.
June 02, 2007
Last fall I wrote about The mtn -- a new sports network formed by the Mountain West Conference. The idea of having a conference sports network is a good one that seems to be catching on. (See the Big Ten Network, which will launch this fall.) So I admire the entrepreneurial spirit of the MWC, but their execution has not matched their vision.
Actually, what little programming I have seen from the network is pretty good. The problem lies in accessing that programming. The mtn is partly owned by Comcast, a cable operator, and not surprisingly, it has been unable to close a deal with either of the major satellite television providers. As I noted last fall, that has MWC sports fans hopping mad. And when sports fans are angry, university presidents hear about it. For several months, the word on the street has been that certain MWC university presidents are feeling aggrieved and are agitating for action by the league. Now this:
Brigham Young University and the University of Utah may be rivals on the athletic field, but the two schools do agree on one thing: The Mountain West Conference's television contract with CSTV isn't what they were promised.
To that end, BYU and Utah have retained a sports broadcasting attorney to explore all possible options in improving the distribution of athletic broadcasts.
Kelly Crabb is a partner in the Los Angeles office of the international law firm Morrison & Foerster and a BYU and Columbia Law School graduate. He has represented the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee in connection with the negotiation of 2008 Olympic broadcasting agreements worldwide, as well as other Olympic and major sports leagues and personalities.
It's Crabb's job to find BYU and Utah other options to distribute the television broadcasts of their athletic events.
As a BYU fan, I find this entire story quite irresistible, but the most interesting aspect of this latest move is that BYU and Utah have struck out on their own. Why didn't the MWC hire an attorney? Some fans are suggesting that this is a vote of no confidence for embattled MWC Commissioner Craig Thompson. Others are suggesting that it reveals a deeper rift between BYU and Utah, on the one hand, and other members of the conference, on the other. BYU is insisting that it has only one goal -- get the satellite deals done! The MWC declined to comment.
May 16, 2007
Texas is a state of skiiers without a ski slope. Texas has gotten by being so close to New Mexico and Colorado, but apparently some developers think they would rather stay in their own backyard. According to the WSJ, investors are building the Bearfire Resort near Fort Worth. WSJ story here. The resort will feature an outdoor, 25-story mountain with fake snow for year-round skiing. Although the snow isn't cold, fans and blowers will keep the temperature 20 degrees colder than the prevailing temperature. (This sounds great, but in the summer when it could be 105 degrees, is exercising in 85 degree weather a great improvement?)
Marketers believe that Texans (especially those in the DFW metroplex) will even prefer Bearfire to flying to Colorado or elsewhere for skiing in the winter. Hmmm. I don't think I would see it as a substitute for skiing, but maybe a substitute for some other form of area activity, like going to the zoo or to a theme park (both of which are less expensive). I might see Bearfire as a way to test out whether my kids would like to go skiing before flying to real skiing and being stuck on a mountain with a crying, whiny mini-skier all day, though.
May 15, 2007
NBA fans are atwitter after the conclusion of the Phoenix-San Antonio game last night. (Full disclosure: my oldest son somehow become a Phoenix Suns fan, so I am a fan vicariously.) The question of the day: will the NBA suspend Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw for leaving the bench have Robert Horry leveled Steve Nash?
The answer to that question revolves around the following rule: "During an altercation, all players not participating in the game must remain in the immediate vicinity of their bench."
Jemele Hill opines: "It's an ironclad rule that isn't open to interpretation."
Obviously, Jemele Hill has never been to law school. Steve Nash, on the other hand, has a future beyond basketball. His defense is straightforward: "There wasn't a fight."
You see, one problem with the "ironclad rule" theory of the case is that "altercation" is not defined. Picking up the theme, Steve Kerr suggests that "if the league decides to suspend Diaw and Stoudemire, it may have to suspend Tim Duncan and Bruce Bowen as well." More:
In a play that went entirely unnoticed until well after the game was over, both Duncan and Bowen actually left San Antonio's bench early in the second quarter after Francisco Elson and James Jones were entangled. Replays clearly show Duncan walking several steps onto the court as Elson and Jones appeared to be ready to get into it. Bowen then followed Duncan onto the floor, grabbed him and led him back to the bench. If the league does indeed follow the letter of the law, both Spurs players would also be suspended for Game 5.
I haven't seen the replay, but that seems sort of silly. Which I assume is Kerr's point. Suspending Stoudemire and Diaw would be silly, especially after the league failed to suspend Bruce Bowen for what seems to me unquestionably dirty (and potentially hazardous) play. The most sensible thing I have read about the affair comes from Marc Stein:
Stoudemire and Diaw never made it near the scrum,* as Suns assistant coaches scrambled them back to the bench. Nor did Monday's incident ever become an actual brawl,* with referees Joe DeRosa and Javie getting between Nash and Horry before it could escalate. There is also a growing perception, most of all, that Bowen was shown a good deal of leniency by the league office after being accused of intentionally kicking a dunking Stoudemire in Game 2 and kneeing Nash in Game 3 ... and going unpunished in both cases. Doesn't the league have to balance that against the notion of "staying consistent" on leaving-the-bench suspensions?
Unlike Jemele Hill, NBA Commissioner David Stern is a lawyer and he knows why lawyers never say, "It's an ironclad rule that isn't open to interpretation." Stern should let them play.
* "Scrum"? "Brawl"? "Altercation"?
UPDATE: Alas, Stoudemire and Diaw were suspended for the next game, and Horry was suspended for two games. Based on past actions, I assumed this would be the result, but the league's appeal to the demands of "consistency" to justify the action ring hollow given the special treatment of Bowen.
UPDATE2: I just noticed that the league addressed the play mentioned by Steve Kerr involving Tim Duncan and Bruce Bowen, using the same reasoning that I suggested it could use to avoid suspending Stoudemire and Diaw (ESPN):
The Suns countered by saying that Duncan and Bruce Bowen were guilty of a similar leaving-the-bench offense in Game 4's first half when San Antonio's Francisco Elson fell on the Suns' James Jones after a dunk. That play was also reviewed, but [NBA executive vice president of basketball operations Stu] Jackson -- while conceding that Duncan "should not have been on the playing court" -- said that the league determined there was "no cause for the suspension rule" to be applied because the Elson-Jones tangle was not deemed to be an altercation.
Of course, Jackson portrayed the rule as insusceptible to interpretation: "The rule is the rule. It's not a matter of fairness. It's a matter of correctness."
May 14, 2007
William Birdthistle, a Conglomerate Junior Scholars Workshop alum (deadline one week from today!) and professor at Chicago-Kent, is guest blogging this week at Volokh Conspiracy. Although we know William as a corporate/securities expert, he apparently has also developed an expertise in the internal law of soccer. I'll be reading!
April 28, 2007
After returning from an overnight camp with my sons, I collapsed on the couch this afternoon. (Literally. My back hurt so much, even after sleeping on an air mattress, that I couldn't walk.) I have never watched the NFL Draft, but I was curious to see where BYU quarterback John Beck would be drafted. Well, the program could not have been less exciting, but Miami nabbed Beck early in the second round. (Told ya.)
The only suspense involved Brady Quinn, who suffered a lot of embarrassment today. But he handled it with an immense amount of class, and ultimately got a good result from a personal standpoint. He gets to play for his childhood favorite team, and he has Joe Thomas to block for him! Anyway, I never watch professional football, but he made me a Brady Quinn fan today.
April 22, 2007
Apparently, folks in Tuscaloosa, Alabama don't have many entertainment options: 92,138 people showed up for the spring scrimmage!?
Now my confession: we went to the UW spring game.
But at least I had a good excuse. We had to vacate our house for a showing. And we only stayed for about half of the game.
By the way, if Wisconsin can get this quarterback thing figured out, they could be very good next year.
April 02, 2007
Florida completed an amazing year for the school, winning national championships in football and basketball. James Fash, a student in my Business Organizations class, won the first Conglomerate Blog NCAA Basketball Challenge.
We had an unusual scoring system, which awarded one point for each correct winner and additional points for the winner's seed. James won by correctly calling 49 of 63 games, but two other students -- Brian Grill and Matt Gardner -- each called 50 games correctly. Well done!
I am not sold on the scoring system. Doug Hoffer successfully picked the Final Four teams, but ended up in 21st place!
March 13, 2007
Remember the ESPN commercial featuring the kissing couple from Ohio State and Michigan? You can find it here. Anyway, the video below shows the collateral damage that can be caused by mixed marriages. Here is the YouTube description: "I graduated from NC State. My wife graduated from UNC. This video, filmed after the 2007 ACC Championship game that UNC won, proves that my indoctrination of my son is working."
By the way, my wife graduated from the University of Utah, and I graduated from BYU.
March 07, 2007
I am not one to obsess over sports uniforms. My views on this are pretty simple: like officials, uniforms should not determine the outcome of the game. Unfortunately, four teams entering the NCAA tournament next week have sealed their fate by teaming with Nike. See here. (Good news for the Wisconsin Badgers!)
Then again, fashion-wise, the teams could do much, much worse than Nike.
March 02, 2007
Yes, or at least among professional tennis players, says a paper by Hebrew University's Daniele Paserman. See the write up by Slate's Steven Landsburg. Paserman assigns an "importance" to each point in the match, and "choking" means committing more unforced errors on the most important points. Several competing theories--that fatigue correlates with both important points (played late in the match) and unforced errors, for example--are refuted. It'll be interesting to see the peer review on this!
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February 28, 2007
I suppose we have all had the experience of having a song stuck in our brain, replaying over and over in an infinite loop. Since watching Pat Summitt last night on Sport Center, I can't get "Rocky Top" to stop playing. And it is always off key! Of course, I still don't know the words (nor do I want to learn them), so the song goes, "Na na na na na na Rocky Top na na na na na naaa." Over and over again.
Now, I have no particular gripe against the University of Tennessee -- indeed, I was thrilled to see their men's basketball team had whipped the Gators -- but that song and I have a history. I was in attendance at the first BCS championship football game in 1998, when Tennessee handled Florida State. By the end of the game, I had heard "Rocky Top" about 300 times and I couldn't get away from the Tennessee band fast enough.
I feel the same way about the Notre Dame fight song. It's a perfectly fine fight song, but having been in Notre Dame's stadium for two losing efforts by my BYU Cougars, I associate that song with nausea.
Of course, all of this made me wonder whether sports traditions -- like the singing of "Varsity" at Wisconsin games -- are more about creating a sense of tradition and community among the home team or about annoying the visitors. Close call.
P.S. On a somewhat related note, I heard the "overrated" chant at the end of the Tennessee-Florida game. Please, students everywhere, you are making yourselves look ridiculous when you do this cheer. Give your team some credit!
February 25, 2007
Going into this weekend, John Beck may have been the most underrated player in this year's NFL draft. He was generally regarded as a second-day draft pick, but today at the NFL Combine he put up some amazing numbers. The most interesting number to me was this one:
Ball speed: 61.1 mph
This is a football, folks!
The reason this is interesting to me is that many announcers who covered BYU's football games this past year wondered whether Beck had what it takes to make the NFL throws. Of course, the people who repeated this evaluation had done some homework: they had listened to the other announcers. What they hadn't done is make an independent evaluation of Beck's abilities. BYU fans remembered a younger Beck throwing so hard that the receivers couldn't catch up with the ball, and all of this talk of Beck's "average arm" got BYU fans so defensive that they became a standing joke.
Fortunately for Beck, arm strength is measurable, and people are noticing.
Now, about those "measurables." How important are they? Well, if your goal is to get drafted, they are pretty darn important, but if your goal is to play good football, we all know that there is more to it. At the beginning of this past season, BYU fans were engaged in a nauseating discussion of whether Beck had "it." As far as I can tell, "it" is some intangible attribute that cannot be taught, but somehow means the difference between winning and losing. A player may demonstrate that he or she has "it" on a single play.
By the way, the announcer who comments on Beck's "amazing arm strength" is Todd Christensen, a BYU alum and NFL star with the Raiders. He also is the father of one of Beck's former receivers, so he knew better than to credit what so many other announcers were saying.
February 16, 2007
Gordon's mere presence at an institution may create better sports programs, but apparently my presence is enough to solve offensive Native American imagery disputes. Long-time readers may remember how during my three-year stint at Marquette, the debate over whether the team name should be "the Warriors" was reopened and then closed again, with Marquette resolved to be the Golden Eagles for the foreseeable future.
Well, the Chancellor of the University of Illinois has announced today that Chief Illiniwek will not perform at any more sporting events. This concession will get Illinois off the NCAA "bad list." The announcement didn't say whether the "Chief" logo, which seems to be very popular, would be retired.