Princeton's game notes for Saturday have been posted here. The Tigers, chosen last in the conference's preseason poll, can claim a share of the Ivy League title should they beat Dartmouth and Cornell knock off Penn. From the Princeton game notes:
A Princeton win would assure the Tigers no worse than a second-place finish in the Ivy League. Only one team picked to finish eighth has ever finished
Rabu, 14 November 2012
The Commissioner's Authority: 2012 Edition
In an unabashed fire sale, the Miami Marlins have agreed to trade virtually every player making significant money to the Toronto Blue Jays in exchange for younger, and cheaper, talent. Making the 1,500-mile trip north from Miami to Toronto, along with $160 million in committed salary, is any good will Marlins team owner Jeffrey Loria has generated since purchasing the team. The outstanding question is whether this action will trigger MLB Commissioner Bud Selig to respond and veto this trade.
While teams have the right to trade salaries for potential, as illustrated by the blockbuster Red Sox / Dodgers trade this past August, this maneuver by the Marlins feels entirely different. Under the rubric of full disclosure, I’m a Red Sox fan and was thrilled the Dodgers don’t have an accountant on staff to realize they assumed $250 million in payroll.
Despite only being around for a decade, salary dumps have already marred the Marlins’ short franchise history. Following the 1997 and 2003 seasons the Marlins ripped apart their team by unloading virtually all of their assets as well, but those trades followed world championships and had a different feel. This time around there doesn’t even appear to be the pretense of improving the talent on the field.
Despite only being around for a decade, salary dumps have already marred the Marlins’ short franchise history. Following the 1997 and 2003 seasons the Marlins ripped apart their team by unloading virtually all of their assets as well, but those trades followed world championships and had a different feel. This time around there doesn’t even appear to be the pretense of improving the talent on the field.
In the past year, Loria manipulated the city of Miami to contribute $360 million of public funds into the construction of their $515 million ballpark, traded away a National League Rookie of the Year and three time All-Star in Hanley Ramirez, and fired the fiery and Fidel Castro loving manager Ozzie Guillen. Yet none of these maneuvers seem as offensive as the latest move to enhance the team’s bottom line. Statements of exasperation and frustration are emanating from executives from around the league as well as from the Marlins’ players left behind.
The question is whether commissioner Bud Selig will invoke his legal right to protect the “best interests of the game” and quash this trade. If he does, he has legal precedent behind him. In 1976 Charles Finley, owner of the Oakland Athletics, tried to sell three of his teams stars—Vida Blue, Rollie Fingers, and Joe Rudi—to the Boston Red Sox for $3.5 million. Bowie Kuhn, the MLB commissioner at the time, struck down the deal because it was “not in the best interests of baseball.” Despite a legal challenge by the MLBPA’s Executive Director Marvin Miller, Kuhn’s legal right to block the trade was upheld in the seminal Finley v Kuhn decision.
More recently, in December of 2011 the NBA’s commissioner David Stern vetoed a proposed trade of Chris Paul by the New Orleans Hornets to the Los Angeles Lakers. While the facts were slightly different because the NBA owned the Hornets at the time Stern rejected a trade based on what he felt was best for the league—and every owner outside of Los Angeles hailed this decision.
Has the recent trade by the Marlins reached the level of absurdity forcing Selig to take action? If MLB does veto this trade, has it met the threshold necessary for a Commissioner to successfully invoke “the best interest of the game” defense under law? Stay tuned.
Selasa, 13 November 2012
1980 Wangler/Carter Video Asking Students to Arrive Early at Big House
How bad have the late arrivals in The Big House student section been this season? This bad:
Yes, Jordan Kovacs and Roy Roundtree had to make a YouTube video asking fans (read: students) to arrive early for the Northwestern game (they didn't).
Appalling.
Can you imagine students leaving large chunks of The Big House student section empty when Bo was coach?
We could.
In fact, while the actual video was lost, we here at the MZone discovered the following transcript in the Bentley Historical Library. It's from a shoot on November 11, 1980 at Michigan's old practice facility. It was supposed to be just quarterback John Wangler and wide receiver Anthony Carter. But it didn't turn out that way.
Here, for the first time, is the transcript from the shoot:
JOHN WANGLER: Hi, I'm John Wangler.
JW: And we need you at the stadium Saturday for our game against Northwestern.
AC: Please come early to the largest stadium in college foot--
BO SCHEMBECHLER: What the hell is going on in here?!
BO STORMS OVER TO WANGLER AND CARTER.
JW: We're making a 16 millimeter film.
BO: What goddam 16 millimeter film?!
AC: One for if they ever invent a way for people all over the world to watch and share short clips on their TRS-80s some day.
BO: What the hell is this film about?!
AC: Asking students to come early to the game.
JW: So they don't show up late.
BO: Are you [BLEEP] kidding me?! Give me that damn camera!
BO GRABS THE CAMERA AND POINTS IT DIRECTLY AT HIMSELF. HE GLARES INTO IT:
BO: You are students at the greatest university in the country. You have an opportunity for a very short period in your lives to watch and support the winningest college football team in the history of intercollegiate athletics. In The Big House. Where legends like Fielding H. Yost and Fritz Crisler coached. Where players like Tom Harmon, Jim Mandich and Rick Leach brought home Big Ten titles. Where the best marching band in America plays the greatest college fight song in all the land.
GETTING AGITATED, BO STARTS POINTING AT THE CAMERA. SEEMINGLY RIGHT AT THE VIEWER.
BO: A Michigan Man does not need to be asked to come watch his team play. A Michigan Man doesn't have to be begged to support his school. A Michigan Man shows up before the band takes the field and doesn't leave until the final whistle. Win or lose. Rain or shine. I will give the tickets away to the thousands of real Michigan fans who would drive across the entire state for the chance to watch the University of Michigan football team play before I let a bunch of Michigan students in name only show up late. If they can't show up on time, I don't want them in my damn stadium! And I will close the goddam student section down before I beg students to come watch their team!
BO MOTIONS TO THE CAMERAMAN.
BO: Now turn this [BLEEP] camera off.
BO TURNS TO FACE WANGLER AND CARTER.
BO: And you two get your asses back on the practice field.
BO STORMS OFF, GRUMBLING AS HE GOES.
BO: Begging students to come to a Michigan game. Over my dead body.
Yes, Jordan Kovacs and Roy Roundtree had to make a YouTube video asking fans (read: students) to arrive early for the Northwestern game (they didn't).
Appalling.
Can you imagine students leaving large chunks of The Big House student section empty when Bo was coach?
We could.
In fact, while the actual video was lost, we here at the MZone discovered the following transcript in the Bentley Historical Library. It's from a shoot on November 11, 1980 at Michigan's old practice facility. It was supposed to be just quarterback John Wangler and wide receiver Anthony Carter. But it didn't turn out that way.
Here, for the first time, is the transcript from the shoot:
JOHN WANGLER: Hi, I'm John Wangler.
ANTHONY CARTER: And I'm Anthony Carter
JW: And we need you at the stadium Saturday for our game against Northwestern.
AC: Please come early to the largest stadium in college foot--
BO SCHEMBECHLER: What the hell is going on in here?!
BO STORMS OVER TO WANGLER AND CARTER.
JW: We're making a 16 millimeter film.
BO: What goddam 16 millimeter film?!
AC: One for if they ever invent a way for people all over the world to watch and share short clips on their TRS-80s some day.
BO: What the hell is this film about?!
AC: Asking students to come early to the game.
JW: So they don't show up late.
BO: Are you [BLEEP] kidding me?! Give me that damn camera!
BO GRABS THE CAMERA AND POINTS IT DIRECTLY AT HIMSELF. HE GLARES INTO IT:
BO: You are students at the greatest university in the country. You have an opportunity for a very short period in your lives to watch and support the winningest college football team in the history of intercollegiate athletics. In The Big House. Where legends like Fielding H. Yost and Fritz Crisler coached. Where players like Tom Harmon, Jim Mandich and Rick Leach brought home Big Ten titles. Where the best marching band in America plays the greatest college fight song in all the land.
GETTING AGITATED, BO STARTS POINTING AT THE CAMERA. SEEMINGLY RIGHT AT THE VIEWER.
BO: A Michigan Man does not need to be asked to come watch his team play. A Michigan Man doesn't have to be begged to support his school. A Michigan Man shows up before the band takes the field and doesn't leave until the final whistle. Win or lose. Rain or shine. I will give the tickets away to the thousands of real Michigan fans who would drive across the entire state for the chance to watch the University of Michigan football team play before I let a bunch of Michigan students in name only show up late. If they can't show up on time, I don't want them in my damn stadium! And I will close the goddam student section down before I beg students to come watch their team!
BO MOTIONS TO THE CAMERAMAN.
BO: Now turn this [BLEEP] camera off.
BO TURNS TO FACE WANGLER AND CARTER.
BO: And you two get your asses back on the practice field.
BO STORMS OFF, GRUMBLING AS HE GOES.
BO: Begging students to come to a Michigan game. Over my dead body.
Catalyzing Sports Fans (and the Rest of Us)--early draft now available
From Dan Markel at PrawfsBlawg:
I'm happy to say that my co-authors Howard Wasserman, Michael McCann, and I have a short shitty first draft to read -- Catalyzing Sports Fans (and the Rest of Us) -- if anyone's interested. The paper is *not* about retributive justice in any dimension. It's about sports, free speech, contracts, taxes, crowds, opera, charity, and jurisdictional competition, etc. In short, it's about nothing I know anything about. So I hope you'll see fit to set me straight. Let me know via email if you'd like to read an early version please. I've pasted our working abstract below.
In most major professional sports, the desires of fans are of secondary significance. We think this could be different, and we offer two variations on a theme in which fans can be more influential stakeholders, particularly with respect to player trades or retention deals. We propose the development of Fan Action Committees (FACs).
Whether through enriching players directly, or through contributions to a player’s foundation or favorite charitable cause (our preferred approach), we examine the uneasy case for FACs. After anticipating objections and obstacles under current rules to their development, we offer some reflections about how the FAC model can transform, well, just about all other realms of human endeavor where third parties are benefited or harmed by agreements between two other parties.I can confirm Dan's description of the first draft as short, though in the edited words of former Vice President John Nance Garner, I'd like to think it's at least as good as a warm bucket of spit.
Highlight Videos
Something I highly recommend doing is creating a highlight video for your position group. These clips are from the 2007 season when I coached WRs for a team that did not throw the ball that much, but we took a lot of pride in our blocking (most of our passing highlights weren't even from our WRs, they were from our TE). It takes a bit of work to create a highlight video for your position but the task is made easier with programs like Hudl. You tag the plays you want and then you can add some music if you like. It helps to reinforce the effort and performance we are looking for and it gives younger players entering into your football program something to reference and strive for.
Here is a WR coach with a whole lot of Big Plays in this great video. Thanks to Dub Maddox for allowing me to share:
(Vann) Island Thoughts
Back from Logan. That was fun. Not.
•
In today's Dartmouth, Corey Vann (Island) has a nice piece about his football career that reminds us you don't have to be All-Ivy to appreciate the opportunity to wear the uniform. Among other things he writes:
Football is a team sport, and the things that I will cherish the most are the moments with my teammates, where all of our hearts beat as
•
In today's Dartmouth, Corey Vann (Island) has a nice piece about his football career that reminds us you don't have to be All-Ivy to appreciate the opportunity to wear the uniform. Among other things he writes:
Football is a team sport, and the things that I will cherish the most are the moments with my teammates, where all of our hearts beat as
Employee Discipline: Evidence from Basketball Referees
Given confidentiality issues and the proprietary nature of the underlying data, outsiders rarely have the opportunity to test the impetus, impact, and efficacy of employee discipline in the workplace. However, the transparency of NBA basketball officiating allows for such an inquiry, as long-time referee Joey Crawford was involved in a much-publicized 2007 on-court incident with Tim Duncan of the San Antonio Spurs that resulted in a lengthy suspension. Shortly after the suspension, Duncan spoke of Crawford’s “personal vendetta” against him and expressed hope that he and his team would “get a fair shake” and avoid any “backlash” from other referees. This paper analyzes the interaction between Crawford (and other referees) and the Spurs team and reveals that Duncan’s concerns were illusory in 2007 and remain spurious (pun intended) today. In the course of analyzing every Spurs game (N = 1038) over the course of eleven seasons, neither Crawford nor any of his fellow referees exhibited any systematic bias against Duncan or his team.
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