| Tuesday, October 15, 2013 |
| Tagert updates Rotarians on three MDOT projects | |
 | North Mississippi Transportation Commissioner Mike Tagert updated the Starkville Rotary Club on three significant transportation projects in Oktibbeha County at the club's Monday meeting at the Starkville Country Club. The three projects were the repaving of Highway 182, the new Starkville-MSU Area Rapid Transit (SMART) shuttle system, and a new entrance road to MSU from the south. This south entrance, he said, was reaching the final stages of design, and it would allow traffic to flow from the Mississippi Horse Park to Blackjack Road, relieving some traffic from Montgomery Street to MSU. (Subscriber-only content.) |
| 'This Old House' Gets Mississippi State University Help | |
 | Biloxi homeowner Jesse Aguilar got a little help installing a high tunnel in his backyard from two Mississippi State University horticulture scientists and the traveling home improvement show "Ask This Old House." Aguilar asked the Boston-based television show how to lengthen the growing season of his home garden. When traveling outside the Northeast, the show's crew depends on local experts for advice specific to the region. They turned to Mississippi State University for help and found Gary Bachman and Christine Coker, both associate Extension and research professors of horticulture with MSU's Extension Service and Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station. |
| Achievements: Beaty awarded College of Agriculture and Life sciences scholarships | |
 | Emily Beaty, a junior at Mississippi State University is the recipient of two scholarships awarded by the College of Agriculture and Life Science: the Ag 100 Endowed Scholarship and the Quentin and Maud Striner Endowed Scholarship. Beaty, an animal and dairy science major, is the daughter of Gary and Jana Beaty of Memphis. |
| As Starkville sidewalk report looms, SIM promoting quality of life issue | |
 | Starkville in Motion President Ron Cossman says his group will spend the coming weeks educating the community, including new aldermen, about the socio-economic impact sidewalks provide the city. In their Oct. 2 meeting, Starkville aldermen instructed Community Developer William Snowden to review the city's sidewalk and landscaping ordinances after Ward 2 Alderman Lisa Wynn and Ward 3 Alderman David Little said the rules place unfair, economic development-prohibitive burdens on developers. Snowden's report is due before the board in December. Until then, Cossman said his organization will take a proactive approach to telling the success story surrounding the Starkville's increased sidewalk construction over the past few administrations. |
| City asked to rezone data center property in Cochran Research Park | |
 | Starkville city leaders are being asked to rezone a section of the Thad Cochran Research Park to allow for the construction of a C Spire Data Center. City leaders will look at a request Tuesday night to rezone the property from single-family residential to a buffer district. The Oktibbeha County Economic Development Authority will hand over the 5.77 acre tract to C Spire for the project once the zoning change is approved. |
| State pre-K grant program kicks off | |
 | The process of local communities applying for grants to participate in a state-sponsored pre-kindergarten program begins this week. The collaborative groups wanting to participate in the program must notify the state Department of Education of their intent by Wednesday. The state Board of Education is scheduled to announce the groups awarded grants on Dec. 19. The Mississippi Legislature created the pre-kindergarten pilot program during the 2013 session and appropriated $3 million for the effort. Before the 2013 legislation, Mississippi was the only Southeastern state and one of only a handful in the nation not expending any state funds on early childhood education. |
| Teacher group seeks raise for all; Bryant opposes | |
 | The Mississippi Association of Educators is pushing for a blanket pay raise for the state's public school teachers, but Gov. Phil Bryant is holding firm in his opposition, saying that he only wants to give pay raises based on merit. Bryant reiterated his preference for raises based on test scores and teacher evaluations Monday, talking with reporters outside the Southern States Energy Board in Biloxi. On Friday, Joyce Helmick, president of the Mississippi Association of Educators, said that she believes lawmakers have enough money in 2014 to fully fund Mississippi's K-12 education budget and give teachers a raise if they choose. Mississippi teachers made the second-lowest average salary in the nation in 2011-2012. |
| Mississippi insurer offers to reinstate four hospitals | |
 | Blue Cross Blue Shield of Mississippi said Monday it is willing to reinstate four of 10 Health Management Associates-owned hospitals in the state into its network. The four hospitals are Woman's Hospital in Flowood, Tri-Lakes Medical Center in Batesville, Gilmore Regional Medical Center in Amory and Northwest Mississippi Regional Medical Center in Clarksdale. If HMA agrees to the proposal, the hospitals could return to the insurer's network as early as Tuesday. HMA, in an email, wondered why the insurer wasn't looking to reinstate all 10 hospitals. |
| South African union reps talk to Nissan employees | |
 | More efforts are underway to form a union at the Nissan plant in Canton. A UAW meeting was held Monday evening to share their viewpoint with Nissan workers. The president of the National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa or NUMSA led a chant urging unity. The foreign delegation of six met with Nissan workers in Canton. More than 60 workers heard from the group who traveled to America to show the auto workers that they are behind efforts to form a union. They also want to hear from Nissan workers about the working conditions. |
| Senate leaders near deal to end shutdown, raise debt limit | |
 | An emerging deal to reopen the government and raise the nation's debt ceiling until February gathered political momentum Monday evening after Senate Republicans signaled they would likely support it. Lawmakers and aides said the legislation would fund the government until Jan. 15 and extend the nation's borrowing authority until February 7 but leave ObamaCare largely untouched. It would also establish a Senate-House budget committee to craft a replacement for the automatic spending cuts known as sequestration, which would have to report its work product to Congress by Dec. 13. |
| House GOP Plans Pre-Emptive Move to Counter Senate Debt Deal | |
 | House GOP leaders outlined a new plan Tuesday morning to reopen the government and avoid a default on the debt, in an apparent attempt to prevent the Senate from jamming them with a deal they don't support. The proposed measure, outlined at a morning GOP conference meeting, builds off the Senate deal, which would fund the government until Jan. 15 and raise the debt ceiling until Feb. 7. It would not include either a delay of the individual mandate or other major attempts to dismantle or undermine the Obamacare law. But the measure would suspend the Obamacare medical device tax for two years and eliminate health care benefits for lawmakers and Cabinet officials -- but not Congressional staff. |
| Talks over shutdown and debt ceiling hold risks for tea party and its influence | |
 | The tea party's future as an influential Washington player is at stake in the showdown over the debt limit and federal budget. If Democrats and establishment Republicans seal a deal without making any major changes to the new Affordable Care Act, the battle over the debt limit and reopening the government could marginalize the tea party as a force within the government, if not the country. Polls show the tea party-driven shutdown already hurting Republican prospects. |
| Cochran prepared to get final farm bill completed | |
 | U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), ranking Republican on the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, says he is ready to engage in negotiations to finalize a new, five-year farm bill. Cochran says he welcomed a vote in the House of Representatives last Friday authorizing a conference committee with the Senate to reconcile differences in Senate- and House-passed versions of a 2013 farm bill -- legislation that sets agriculture, conservation and nutrition assistance policies for the country. The vote, 223-189, will establish a yet-to-be-named House delegation of 12 Republicans and nine Democrats. |
| Southern States Energy Board takes federal government to task over energy policies | |
 | It was apparent from the first day of the Southern States Energy Board that its members don't care much for the federal government's leadership on energy issues. "States know what's best," Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant said, setting the tone in his morning welcoming speech at the Beau Rivage in Biloxi. But, that didn't seem to apply to the Coast knowing better than Jackson about what's best. Others who followed Bryant in the morning session insisted that you could be an environmentalist and support energy production. |
| Mississippi Plant Shows the Cost of 'Clean Coal' | |
 | For decades, the federal government has touted a bright future for nonpolluting power plants fueled by coal. But in a rural corner of eastern Mississippi, the reality of so-called clean coal isn't pretty. Mississippi Power Co.'s Kemper County plant near DeKalb, meant to showcase technology for generating clean electricity from low-quality coal, ranks as one of the most-expensive U.S. fossil-fuel projects ever -- at $4.7 billion and rising. Mississippi Power's 186,000 customers, who live in one of the poorest regions of the country, are reeling at double-digit rate increases. And even Mississippi Power's parent, Atlanta-based Southern Co., has said Kemper shouldn't be used as a nationwide model. Meanwhile, the plant hasn't generated a single kilowatt for customers, and it's anyone's guess how well the complex operation will work. The company this month said it would forfeit $133 million in federal tax credits because it won't finish the project by its May deadline. |
| NSA collects millions of e-mail address books globally | |
 | The National Security Agency is harvesting hundreds of millions of contact lists from personal e-mail and instant messaging accounts around the world, many of them belonging to Americans, according to senior intelligence officials and top-secret documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The collection program, which has not been disclosed before, intercepts e-mail address books and "buddy lists" from instant messaging services as they move across global data links. Online services often transmit those contacts when a user logs on, composes a message, or synchronizes a computer or mobile device with information stored on remote servers. |
| Postgame gridlock gets Oxford, UM focus | |
| After Texas A&M beat Ole Miss with a last-second field goal, fans left the gridiron only to find themselves in gridlock. Tupeloan David Brevard visited with friends until about 12:30 a.m., when he returned to his car. "The line of traffic attempting to leave the parking lot was (still) at a standstill," he told the Daily Journal. "We arrived home in Tupelo at 2:20 a.m. due to the waiting time in the traffic." Even the shuttle system for off-campus parking proved to be a failure in some people's eyes. Heather Walters said she and her husband parked at Oxford Conference Center and waited on a return shuttle for two hours and 45 minutes after the game, only to have one driver disembark and walk away, announcing he was through for the day. "It just overloaded our infrastructure. We're a small town," said Jimmy Allgood, Oxford's emergency manager and gameday coordinator. He said other university towns warn fans to plan for a two- to four-hour exit process. |
| U. of Southern Mississippi Fighting to Keep Military Training Program | |
 | The University of Southern Mississippi's ROTC -- or Reserve Officer's Training Corps, the program that trains future Army officers -- may be forced to close by May 2015. That's according to officials at the university. The university is fighting the decision, and asking Mississippi's congressional delegation to intervene. |
| Will Mississippi Avoid the College-Debt Crash? | |
| Just before the federal government went into partial shutdown mode amid a dispute over the government's ability to borrow money, there was grim news out of Washington D.C. about another important group of borrowers: students. On Sept. 30, the U.S. Department of Education released the latest data on the three-year federal student-loan cohort default rate, which measures the percentage of borrowers who default on their federal student loans. Those numbers are on the rise, going from 13.4 percent in fiscal year 2009 to 14.7 percent in FY 2010, the report shows. Mississippi appears to be bucking some of the more negative college-loan trends, however. |
| Former Belhaven leader Cleland left lasting legacy | |
| A former president of Belhaven University and longtime Jackson educator died Sunday, leaving behind a legacy that won't soon be forgotten. Howard Cleland, 95, was a World War II veteran who returned from serving in the Navy and took a position at then-Bailey Junior High School in Jackson. Eight years later, Cleland became the first principal of the newly opened Murrah High. Under his leadership, the school was recognized for both academics and athletics on a national scale. Cleland then left to take over the lead at then-Belhaven College. He served there for 17 years, making him the third longest president of the school, said Belhaven University President Roger Parrott. |
| Pearl River Community College to honor alumnus Grant, Asbury Foundation | |
 | Pearl River Community College will honor a longtime employee and one of the college's major benefactors during Homecoming 2013 on Saturday. The Alumnus of the Year Award will be presented to Dr. John Grant of Poplarville, and the Distinguished Service Award will go to the Asbury Foundation of Hattiesburg. "John Grant has spent almost his entire lifetime associated with Pearl River Community College," PRCC President William Lewis said. Grant's 43-year career in education included 32 years at PRCC as a teacher and administrator. The son of a science teacher, Grant came to Pearl River as a 7-year-old. |
| U. of Alabama Greek community named in fraud allegations of Tuscaloosa school board race | |
 | Kelly Horwitz, the losing Tuscaloosa school board candidate who is legally contesting more than half of the votes cast in the District 4 election, filed a memorandum in Tuscaloosa's Circuit Court Monday morning, naming at least seven University of Alabama Greek houses who offered incentives to students in exchange for votes. Horwitz's lawyers are due in court Tuesday morning to discuss the bases of the challenges they've issued for 397 voters. |
| U. of Alabama Honors College hosts Town Hall Fall Series | |
 | The University of Alabama's Honors College will feature panel discussions of the news media, student debt, and the history and progress of UA and Tuscaloosa during its Town Hall 2013 Fall Series. The free series at the Ferguson Center is open to the public. The first event -- "Cronkite to Colbert: What is News to You?" -- begins at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 21. The event will feature panelists Jennifer Greer, interim dean of the College of Communication and Information Sciences, and Rick Bragg, the Cason professor of writing in the journalism department, according to a release from UA. |
| Auburn University's Miss Homecoming shares personal connection to platform of adoption advocacy | |
 | When Auburn University senior Molly Anne Dutton walked down the 50-yard line at Pat Dye Field Saturday, her adoptive mother, Peggy Dutton, walked alongside her. When her name was announced as Auburn's 2013 Miss Homecoming, both Dutton women cried together. And when university President Jay Gogue and Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley presented the university's 100th Miss Homecoming with a silver bowl, mother and daughter smiled. But it was Dutton's biological mother's decision to pursue adoption that inspired her to run on the platform of adoption advocacy. |
| Students rally around U. of South Carolina freshman paralyzed by gunshot wound | |
 | Two high school friends reunited for the weekend, with one, now a University of South Carolina freshman, showing off her new campus to her out-of-town guest. But the night ended tragically for the young women, when the freshman was struck by a random bullet while waiting for a taxi near the iconic fountain in Five Points. Martha Childress, 18, is paralyzed from the hips down, after a .40-caliber bullet lodged in her spine, said her uncle, Jim Carpenter, who is serving as the family's spokesman. She also suffered damage to her liver and a kidney, but doctors were optimistic those wounds would heal, he said. Childress had been to Five Points to give her high school friend, a Clemson student, a taste of the nightlife that USC students enjoy, Carpenter said. The two girls joined some of Childress's new college friends and had eaten at the Pita Pit on Greene Street. As far as the family knows, Childress had not been drinking, Carpenter said. Police investigators also have not found any indication that Childress was intoxicated. |
| U. of South Carolina considers asking students to avoid Five Points | |
| The University of South Carolina is weighing whether to suggest students not go to the Five Points entertainment district after a freshman was paralyzed when she was shot by stray bullet over the weekend, a top school administrator said Tuesday. USC also could issue written warnings to students about the potential risks in the popular neighborhood hangout near campus, said Dennis Pruitt, the school's vice president for student affairs. "We are very nervous about Five Points," he said. USC president Harris Pastides was talking with city officials Tuesday about how to make the area safer and how the school should react. No decisions were made early Tuesday. |
| U. of Tennessee band director put on leave, ordered to stay away from students | |
| A feud between the Pride of the Southland Band director and the University of Tennessee Athletics Department has divided the Pride, especially after the university's announcement Monday that it had placed Director of Bands Gary Sousa on "administrative leave." UT said Monday that Sousa will be on paid leave for the remainder of the fall semester, with both his band and teaching responsibilities reassigned. Don Ryder will serve as interim director for the remainder of the season. Sousa was forbidden from contacting students or other faculty members pending a "full review" of his actions, which UT officials said included "insubordination" and "misrepresentation of facts." |
| Four finalists named in U. of Georgia provost search | |
 | The University of Georgia has narrowed the search for its next senior vice president for academic affairs and provost to four candidates, according to search committee chairman William Gray Potter, university librarian and associate provost, who made the announcement on Oct. 14. The finalists are: Pamela S. Whitten, dean of the Michigan State University College of Communication Arts and Sciences; Jose Luis Bermudez, dean of the Texas A&M University College of Liberal Arts; Jeffrey Thomas "Jeff" Roberts, Frederick L. Hovde Dean of the Purdue University College of Science; and Kimberly Andrews Espy, vice president of research and innovation and dean of the University of Oregon Graduate School. |
| Vanderbilt's tech commercialization program brings in $24.5M | |
 | Vanderbilt University has more than quadrupled earnings from its technology commercialization efforts in the past three years to more than $24.5 million in the 2013 fiscal year, according to university officials. The earnings growth reflects the university's renewed focus on turning research into commercialized products. In 2011, the university rebranded its department as the Center for Technology Transfer and Commercialization and hired Alan Bentley from Cleveland Clinic Foundation to lead the center. |
| Philosopher Noam Chomsky speaking Tuesday at U. of Florida | |
 | Noam Chomsky, one of the world's most recognized political activists, linguists and philosophers, has a history with Gainesville's Civic Media Center that goes back to 1993, when he dedicated the nonprofit center's building. Tuesday, Chomsky will speak at the Phillips Center in honor of the CMC's 20th anniversary. "This is a continuation of the relationship we've had with Chomsky for 20 years," said Joe Courter, co-founder of the CMC. Chomsky was in Gainesville to give a speech at UF in 1993, the same day the CMC opened its doors. One of the most publicly recognized intellectuals in the world, Chomsky, a retired professor emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is a prominent philosopher and linguist known for his outspoken views on various causes. |
| Texas A&M's proposed Israel branch campus in early stages | |
 | Texas A&M Provost Karan Watson said there's still a lot of work to do to create a branch campus in Israel, but she hopes an expansion would bolster A&M's international standing. Watson spoke after Monday's faculty senate meeting about the proposed branch campus in Israel with The Eagle, which has exclusively reported on the news that top A&M administrators are seeking a second campus in the Middle East. The university has branch campuses in Galveston and Qatar. Watson did not elaborate on if Texas A&M was working with the Israeli government or an interest within the country, but stressed that the negotiations were in early stages. |
| U. of Missouri student's film explores testing | |
 | Media reports about education generally reflect the perspective of adults, said Ankur Singh, a sophomore at the University of Missouri. Mostly missing, he said, is the student viewpoint, and that's what he hopes to offer with his documentary "Listen." The film will have its first screening at 7:30 tonight in the Arts and Science Building on the MU campus. The idea for the film came to Singh after his own experiences in public schools. His main grievance, he said, was the emphasis schools place on testing. The frustration started mostly in high school and grew when he enrolled in a number of Advanced Placement courses. |
| U. of Iowa experience lends hope to U. of Missouri Museum of Art and Archeology | |
 | Dale Fisher of the University of Iowa Museum of Art brought a message to MU on Monday evening: "Good things can come from bad circumstances." Fisher, curator of education for the University of Iowa's museum, described the way his institution responded when a flood threatened its art collection in 2008. His lessons could be useful for the MU Museum of Art and Archaeology, which is moving from Pickard Hall to Mizzou North, about two miles from the main campus. He shared his experiences with a group of about 50 faculty members, students and Columbia residents Monday evening in Pickard Hall. |
| Traditional Education Beats Online in Key Areas, Opinion Poll Finds | |
 | We're years into the era of online education, and yet Americans still hold a skeptical view of online learning's quality and value to employers, according to the results of a Gallup survey released on Tuesday. In early October, Gallup asked two groups, each composed of more than 1,000 adults, whether they thought "online education is better" in a series of categories. In terms of "providing a wide range of options for curriculum" and "good value for the money," online education got slightly better scores than traditional classroom-based education. But online education scored much worse in four areas: in delivering "instruction tailored to each individual," in providing "high-quality instruction from well-qualified instructors," in offering "rigorous testing and grading that can be trusted," and -- finally, worst of all -- in dispensing "a degree that will be viewed positively by employers." |
| As colleges prepare for major software upgrades, Kuali tries to woo them from corporate vendors | |
 | Times are already tough, but colleges will likely spend billions in coming years to upgrade the administrative computer systems that make them tick. Kuali, an ambitious nonprofit created by a group of colleges nearly a decade ago, is trying to get a big piece of the action. In order for it to become a major player, Kuali's supporters must convince college officials they are wasting money when they buy software from traditional for-profit companies. The argument will be played out in coming years at colleges across the country as aging software systems wear down and institutions have to decide how they go about upgrading multimillion-dollar systems that are prone to delays counted in months and sometimes years and cost overruns counted in the millions. |
| CHARLIE MITCHELL: Push to personalize may pigeonhole the populace | |
| Longtime Mississippi journalist Charlie Mitchell writes: "Tracking. Mining. Harvesting. Drilling. If those words bring to mind Daniel Boone, coal cars wending along railroad tracks, cotton fields in October and dentists, you are over 60. If you think 'social media,' you are under 25. Today's column is about the latter -- Facebook, Twitter, Vine, Pinterest, Instagram and dozens of others -- but it applies to people of any age. The question is, 'Where is all this stuff taking us?'" |
SPORTS
| Up-tempo pace helped Mississippi State | |
| Dak Prescott followed the Mississippi State offense onto the field for his third series against Bowling Green last Saturday. Overall more than 15 minutes of game time passed since Prescott broke off a 75-yard run to put the Bulldogs up 14-3. The Falcons stopped MSU's last series with Tyler Russell at quarterback. Now 14-10, Mississippi State coach Dan Mullen threw a wrinkle into his already complicated two-quarterback offense asking Prescott to run the hurry-up offense. "That was big for us. We might do a little bit more uptempo stuff as we move forward," Mullen said. Prescott guided the Bulldogs 75 yards on 10 plays in 3 minutes, 11 seconds for their third touchdown to go up 21-10. The change in tempo caught Bowling Green off guard. |
| Bulldogs' Perkins gaining confidence after ankle injury | |
| LaDarius Perkins is back. More accurately, Perkins is healthy and ready to be a weapon for the Mississippi State football team's offense. For the first time since he suffered an ankle injury in the season opener against Oklahoma State, Perkins was a primary option Saturday for an offense that desperately needed his production in a 21-20 victory against Bowling Green. He even scored his first touchdown of the season after not reaching the end zone for 350 days. "I think it's the first time since the opening week he's been healthy," MSU coach Dan Mullen said. "He wasn't 100 percent for Troy and got hurt in that game with the same injury." |
| Baseball Bulldogs back to work | |
| Mississippi State had one of the most successful seasons in school history last spring, finishing as the national runner-up at the College World Series. Seven of those Diamond Dogs started their professional careers after the Omaha run, leaving several key roles to fill on the roster for 2014. A No. 2 nationally ranked signing class arrived on campus this fall, and coach John Cohen got his first chance to work with them as fall workouts began Friday. "The fall is important for everybody, especially the new guys getting acclimated," Cohen said. |
| Mississippi State baseball team announces schedule | |
| Mississippi State coach John Cohen announced Monday the baseball team's 56-game schedule for the 2014 season. The schedule includes 35 games at Dudy Noble Field, the best ballpark in the country, according to StadiumJourney.com. MSU will play 22 games against eight teams that participated in the 2013 NCAA tournament. "We have the best fans out there and want to reward them with the very best season-ticket package possible," said Cohen, the 2013 ABCA South Region Coach of the Year. "It is a very challenging schedule that our kids are extremely excited about." |
| Dudy Noble Field expansion at MSU discussed Monday | |
| The atmosphere surrounding Mississippi State baseball, is one of the best in the country. Dudy Noble Field at Polk-Dement Stadium was erected in 1967. In 1987, it underwent a $3.5 million renovation upping the number of seats to 6,700. On Monday, MSU athletic director Scott Stricklin met with many Bulldog baseball fans at the Seal Football Complex to get their input for new renovations. "Mississippi State deserves to have the very best facility in the country," Stricklin told the crowd. "Not kind of good, not up there with the best, but the very best. "We want creativity. We want ideas that challenge these guys to come up with something unique." (Subscriber-only content.) |
| Mississippi State women picked 11th in SEC preseason poll | |
| Vic Schaefer wasn't concerned about polls when he was hired as Mississippi State's new women's basketball coach. The longtime assistant and associate head coach at Arkansas and Texas A&M helped forge Final Four and national championship plans at both schools, so he knows what it takes to compete in the Southeastern Conference and on the national scene. That's why he wasn't surprised Monday when he saw members of the media selected MSU 11th out of 14 teams in the annual preseason poll. "It is up to us to prove them wrong," Schaefer said. |
| Former Alabama basketball player Devonta Pollard lands at East Mississippi Community College | |
| Former Alabama basketball player Devonta Pollard, who left the team during the offseason after he was arrested for his involvement in a kidnapping, has enrolled at East Mississippi Community College and plans to play basketball this season. An EMCC spokesman confirmed the details of Pollard's arrival. The Lions' athletic department posted a picture of Pollard on its official Twitter account Monday. Pollard, a prized signee in the 2012 class from Porterville, Miss., was arrested and charged in June with conspiracy to commit kidnapping. His mother, Jesse Mae Brown Pollard, pleaded not guilty to federal charges accusing her of leading a scheme to kidnap a 6-year-old girl from an east Mississippi elementary school. |
| U. of Georgia football recruiting director suspended for NCAA violations | |
| Georgia issued a five-day suspension to its director of on-campus recruiting for football after reporting NCAA violations for mailings to high school juniors. In a letter to SEC commissioner Mike Slive dated Sept. 30, athletic director Greg McGarity said Georgia discovered that non-coaching staff members mailed general correspondence at about 4:30 p.m. Aug. 30, two days before the Sept. 1 date when juniors are permitted to receive mailings, according to information obtained by the Athens Banner-Herald in an open records request. Daryl Jones, a former high school coach and athletic director, was hired to the on-campus recruiting position in May 2012. McGarity would not say if the suspension is without pay and only would say that the suspension had not been served before Saturday's game against Missouri. |
| Arkansas AD Long chosen selection committee chair | |
| Arkansas athletic director Jeff Long will be the first chairman of the College Football Playoff selection committee, and the rest of the 13-member panel that will decide which teams play for the 2014 national championship will be officially revealed Wednesday. The announcement of Long to lead the committee and act as a spokesman was made Monday. A news conference will be held Wednesday at the College Football Playoff's new offices in Irving, Texas, with Long and executive director Bill Hancock unveiling the rest of the members. The names of the other members expected to be on the committee, however, already have been reported by The Associated Press and other media outlets. |
| JON SOLOMON: 'Schooled: The Price of College Sports' is a movie worth the NCAA history lesson | Jon Solomon (Opinion) | |
| Columnist Jon Solomon writes: "The public has already seen the juiciest moments in the new documentary film Schooled: The Price of College Sports. Last month, filmmakers released clips of NFL star Arian Foster admitting he took money at Tennessee. ... Dig underneath the artificial 'pay-for-play' debate in college sports, and there are relevant questions about NCAA inequities that many fans shrug off while enjoying their games. ...Should a university even be in the business of trying to educate and field semi-professional sports teams? That's the conversation Schooled is trying to have. The movie is an adaption of 'The Cartel' by Pulitzer Prize-winning civil rights scholar Taylor Branch, and his comprehensive 2011 article in The Atlantic, 'The Shame of College Sports.'" |
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