Last Sunday afternoon we went over to our friends' house and played a little baseball in the yard. Here are a few photos and a video. Watch the video closely for an amazing circus catch made by the pitcher and to see how Finn smacks the ball on the first swing.
- Jonathan
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Friday we went to Ford Field in downtown Detroit to watch Midland play Detroit Martin Luther King in the division 2 state finals. The news story is here.
We weren't expecting much ahead of time when we saw the size of the Crusader's team. We were pleasantly surprised when Midland took a 14-0 lead and played quite well in the first half. They eventually led 21-7 before everything fell apart. A couple interceptions returned for touchdowns and the Chemics' inability to stop the Crusaders led to a 47-21 final that conformed to our expectations much more than the first half did. The state finals is always a big deal, but this was especially so because it was the first time a team from the Detroit Public School League won the state title.
Here is some video
and some photos
- Jonathan
We had a busy day last Saturday. It started with Elliot's basketball class at 9 AM. Then we skipped Finn's basketball class to go to the Santa Parade.
We left that early, without seeing Santa, to drive to Lansing to watch Midland play in the high school football semifinals. It was a great game, probably best football game that I've ever seen in person. He are some video highlights, but they end before it really got good.
Here is a link to a story and some photos.
Midland came back from a 28-7 deficit to take a 31-28 lead with about 5 minutes left. Midland held Lowell to a 3 and out and took over on the Lowell side of the field after a short punt. They drove down to about the 10 but turned the ball over on downs with a minute and a half or two minutes left. Lowell then drove the length of the field before being stopped inside the one with no timeouts and about 20 seconds left. Instead of rushing a quarterback sneak or hand-off, Lowell's quarter back spiked the ball to stop the clock. Fortunately for Midland, he had lost track of downs. It was fourth down and the spike turned the ball over to Midland. A quarterback sneak ran off the final 6 seconds, and Midland is headed for the division 2 finals on Friday.
After the game, we drove back to Midland for a meeting at church to talk about ways that the church can better minister to its families. We finished off the evening with some pizza from Papa Johns.
- Jonathan
Last night Lisa went to a wedding shower, and us boys went to the second round playoff game between Midland and Bay City Central. We arrived just before half-time with Midland up 17-6. We left with about 5 minutes left in the game with Midland up 48-6. Turnovers and big plays.
- Jonathan
Elliot's soccer team lost today, 1-0. Elliot played goalie in the first half and pitched a shut-out (he received a bunch of help from his defense who hardly ever let the ball get close enough for Elliot to touch it).
Finn's team won 8 to 5. Finn played about half the game. All 8 of his team's goals were scored when he was in the game. All 5 the the opposing team's goals were scored when he was out of it. Get this...Finn scored seven of his team's goals and had an assist on the other. Lisa was getting embarrassed.
- Jonathan
An interesting Time mag article about two new professional football leagues that are about to launch in the US is here: link
The eight-team United Football League (UFL), brainchild of financier and former USFL minority owner Bill Hambrecht, will play games during the NFL season on Fridays, when the NFL, and most colleges, are idle. The league will have teams in large metropolitan areas that have no NFL franchises, places like Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and maybe even Mexico City or London.
The other upstart, the fledging All American Football League (AAFL), has a very different model. Funded by San Diego entrepreneur Marcus Katz, the AAFL will play in college football hotbeds on otherwise sleepy spring Saturdays, and feature alums from big-time schools like the University of Florida and University of Tennessee on its pro teams. Katz, who made his fortune in the student loan business, grew up an avid University of Georgia football fan, and he's trying to profit from the love fans have for former college players. Since there aren't enough NFL spots for all the talented University of Florida football players, the thinking goes, why not have some of them come to Gainesville, suit up in Gator blue, and play for the Florida AAFL team? They'd face off against teams from Tennessee and Alabama, just like the good old days.
- Jonathan
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The AAFL is a great Idea! Marus Katz is a genius, also these guys have to have a college degree, its going to be college atmosphere during the entire game. Live band, cheerleaders, gator country will rock next year. I will be there and I cant wait me and my friends also majority of my family as well. I support the All American Football League!
A couple weeks back the LA Times ran a story of the same title, an interesting and rare behind-the-scenes look at an NFL officiating crew as it prepared to work a game. Sports nuts should give it a read. The degree to which the officials' performance is scrutinized by the league is interesting...they're even graded on how "athletic and tidy" they look in uniform.
- Jonathan
From an article titled "The Horrors of Dogfighting" in The Week:
Michael Vick is hardly the first athlete connected to dogfighting. In fact, in the macho culture of professional sports, fighting dogs are a status symbol and dogfighting is widely considered a harmless pastime, says sports psychologist Harry Edwards. When Washington Redskins running back Clinton Portis learned that Vick faced charges for running a dogfighting operation, he said, “It’s his property. It’s his dogs. If that’s what he wants to do, do it.” In 2006, two fighting dogs owned by NFL linebacker Joey Porter escaped from his yard and mauled a neighbor’s miniature pony to death. “The dog is going to be a reflection of the owner,” Porter explained. “I don’t too much care for a passive dog.” One of former NBA player Latrell Sprewell’s four pit bulls once attacked his 4-year-old daughter, tearing off one of her ears. Sprewell resisted having the dog euthanized. “Stuff happens,” he said. That remark might seem callous, but it apparently reflects a mentality that attracts athletes to fighting dogs in the first place. “If you’re looking to project a tough image,” says Kelli Ferris, a veterinary science professor at North Carolina State, “a Pomeranian on a leash doesn’t cut it—a snarling pit bull does.”
I remember when Porter's dogs killed the pony, but I was too naive to realize that they were fighting dogs.
- Jonathan
Today in the Lipscomb alumni email I noticed a blurb about the sale of college sports enthusiast web site Rivals.com to Yahoo. Rivals.com is the work of two Lipscomb graduates that overlapped with my time as a Bison (Shannon Terry and Greg Gough). Shannon's name and face (see photo in the story on Lipscomb's web site: link). I realized why from the Lipscomb article: he was a starter on the Lipscomb basketball team.
Yahoo paid something in the neighborhood of $100 million for Rivals.com. $100 million!
I've never used Rivals.com before (I'm not enough a sports junkie to pay to read about it), but I had read about it before. Back in April, amid initial rumors of Yahoo acquiring Rivals, there was a bit of a kerfuffle between Shannon Terry and internet heavyweight Michael Arrington, who runs TechCrunch, "...weblog dedicated to obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies."
Arrington mentioned Yahoo-acquisition rumors and wondered if the deal might fall through like a couple others had due to Terry's previous involvement in securities fraud (link):
...two previous deals to acquire the company died once it was discovered that the CEO, Shannon Terry, was found to have been involved in a classic “pump and dump” scheme, and violated the anti-touting and antifraud provisions of U.S. securities laws in 1998.Shannon was a principal of SGA Goldstar Research, Inc. In 1998, he and at least two others, Sheldon Kraft and Charles Huttoe, were accused of engaging in “a massive ongoing market manipulation” around touting shares of a company called Systems of Excellence, Inc. Kraft and Huttoe were sentenced to prison terms. Shannon, who reportedly “cooperated” with authorities, got off with a $828,000 fine. For background information, see here and here [this link is broken].
In 2005, sources say, Fox killed a deal to acquire Rivals at the 11th hour after a routine background check on Terry revealed the fraud. Terry had not previously disclosed the issue to Fox. Fox went on to acquire competitor Scout Media for $60 million in September 2005.
Shortly thereafter, AOL was supposedly close to acquiring Rivals as well, for as much as $90 million. Again, Terry reportedly failed to disclose the fraud, which was discovered during the due diligence phase of the negotiations. The deal was killed.
Here is a link to a Washington Business Journal blurb about Terry: link.
Terry responded to the web post by threatening a lawsuit and Arrington posted a scan of the letter on the blog (link). The threat of the lawsuit was later dropped and a couple months later the acquisition was finalized (link).
No mention of securities fraud in the Lipscomb article.
- Jonathan