Purdue RB recruit: Choosing Purdue over IU was a 'no-brainer"

I grew-up in South Florida as a huge sports fan in the 1970's, played three sports competitively -baseball, football and soccer- and was the Team Manager for two North Miami Beach Senior High School teams that won the Florida State championship.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Miami_Beach_Senior_High_School
(I wrote about 80% of the above Wiki definition.)


To see Street Scene of NMBHS: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=North+Miami+Beach+Senior+High+School&ie=UTF8&ll=25.934659,-80.174553&spn=0.008684,0.010343&t=h&z=16&layer=tc&cbll=25.929149,-80.175365&panoid=iSypIXGVnW7S2RAEg6qT5A&cbp=1,0.6870095273476409,,0,5


The first State Championship was Boys Soccer in 1975 under head coach Vic Cappillo, and then Girls Gymnastics in 1979 under Pete Saponaro, two wonderfully talented and enthusiastic men whom I admired and respected enormously.
For all those reasons, by the time I graduated from NMB in 1979, I had many talented friends around the greater Miami area who were fortunate enough to be offered -and accept- D-1 college athletic scholarships in myriad sports.


Because of those factors, more than most people, I was very familiar with the enormous football talent pool around here, and foresaw the inevitable rise of the Hurricanes, Seminole and Gators' football programs to where we became accustomed down here to the idea of the three of them being ranked in the Top Ten at the beginning and end of every college football season.
To me, it was completely predictable.

So with that in mind, while I was at IU from 1979-83, I was continually frustrated at the number of very talented kids from South Florida -and Central Florida, too- who'd wind up going to smaller schools like the Central, Western or Eastern Michigan, or the like.

Kids who'd be just the sort who'd give IU some much-needed depth so they wouldn't have the sort of second-half collapses against good teams as has long been the norm in Bloomington.
And I wasn't alone in my frustration.

Not to name drop, per se, but Jim Thomas of FT. Lauderdale the-then IU basketball team was a good friend of mine at the time, despite Jim's living over at Teter Quad while I was at Briscoe Quad., near the IU Fieldhouse and Assembly Hall.
(Jim and I were friends despite his single-handily knocking off my school, North Miami Beach, in the state playoffs, at his school's gym, the one year we were arguably THE best team in the state of Florida and favored to win the state championship.)

As both students and sports fans who loved IU, we'd continually bemoan IU's chronic inability to get South Florida kids up to Bloomington, who, while perhaps not stars, were exactly the sorts of very solid, well-rounded kids that make the difference between a solid 7-4 or 8-3 team, and a floundering 5-6 team that raises more questions than they answer.
(Like are they really a 4-7 team that simply got lucky?)

All this frustrating talk of ours was conducted in an era when Michigan had a bona fide South Florida superstar like wideout Anthony Carter and Michigan State had RB Lorenzo White, each of whom were winning games of national importance.
I understand implicitly why someone of their unique caliber were, necessarily, out-of-reach for IU in the Lee Corso years, but must everyone down here with any talent remain un-touchable?

Having finally gotten Direct TV before last Fall, and the Big Ten Network, it's very discouraging as a Hoosier fan to see so many South Florida kids performing for not only Big Ten schools, of course, but, also seeing them play Michigan and Michigan State as the pride of Ypsilanti or Mt. Pleasant, MI, too.
Kids who could've been making a difference in Bloomington, but weren't.


Logically, why in the world should Eastern Michigan continually have better luck at recruiting kids in South and Central Florida than IU? Or Western Michigan for that matter?
And yet... http://www.miamiherald.com/620/story/561110.html

There were opportunities aplenty for IU and Coach Lynch a few months ago, when former NMB QB/DB Doug Wiggins, the Dolphins' 2006 Miami-Dade Player of the Year, was looking to transfer from the U-M. http://hurricanesports.cstv.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/wiggins_doug00.html
So, what happened with Wiggins?


From my perspective, someone who attended his first Canes game at the Orange Bowl in 1971, last year was littered with lots of broken promises and self-evident poor coaching moves, as Randy Shannon constantly showed his multiple weaknesses as a head college football coach, showing himself as a Coordinator who's now out of his depth.

Against a middling North Carolina State team at the Orange Bowl, U-M completed exactly one pass in the entire game, even putting a WR behind center three times to try to get some offensive momentum generated.
In fact, by the middle of the third quarter, if not earlier, the Wolfpack defense was actually daring the Canes to pass -and they couldn't!
So naturally, after the season, whom did Shannon fire?
Yes, that's right, the Defensive Coordinator whom he'd personally promoted from DBs coach, even though the defense has been sliding steadily for four years due to lousy LB play while Shannon was the D-Coordinator.


Hmmm...
http://ncaabbs.com/archive/index.php/thread-273456.html
Miami Herald quote:
" U-M's Randy Shannon has a good relationship with most local coaches, but North Miami Beach's Jeff Bertani said, "It would be difficult for me to send a kid to UM now. The trust is broken.''Bertani said former NMB standout Doug Wiggins -- who transferred to Western Michigan -- ''was told he had a torn hamstring, which he did not have, because they needed a reason to redshirt him after he played [the first two games].'' Shannon's response? "I don't know anything about that.''

Honestly, a school in IU's iffy position in the football world should've been ready to pounce on him in a second when he decided to transfer out, since he wasn't likely to play a lot at the U-M as a freshman, anyway, despite having been rated the nation's No. 4 cornerback and the No. 33 overall prospect by Rivals.com two years ago.
Instead, now Wiggins will be at Western Michigan and in two years will likely be MUCH BETTER than any defensive player IU has.

I'd be willing to bet that there are probably kids at Immokalee HS right now, up near Lake Okeechobee, that could play or start at IU, and yet based on experience, there seems very little chance that IU will even take a chance on them.
Why?


What's this great strategy at Assembly Hall to become a better and more competitive football team without getting a lot more talented players from Florida?
Sounds like the sports equivalent of Obama somehow imagining he'll win the Electoral College without the state of Florida?
Well, all empirical evidence suggests that both approaches, if continued, are destined to failure.

At a certain point, you don't have to be an IU-trained optometrist to know that something is short-sighted with their current approach, which as always, has them with few dependable playmakers.

I'd be very interested in knowing if any of you are familiar with anything that's been written within the past ten years that details how IU has continually missed the boat on Florida kids who could've added something positive to the campus and to the football program.
If so, please drop me a line with the appropriate URL, so that I'm no longer in the dark.


If not, I may just have to chronicle that sad story myself.


Just in case I didn't make my point strongly enough above, consider the following.
The second day I was ever in the state of Indiana, having flown up by myself from Miami on a late August Thursday afternoon in 1979, days before moving into Briscoe Quad and while checked into the Holiday Inn on S.R 37, I spent most of that afternoon watching the IU football team practice from up in the stands at Memorial Stadium, surrounded by a handful of devoted and curious Hoosier fans, male and female, in various shades of Cream and Crimson.
Yep, that's me.


Sadly, the Miami Herald article below speaks for itself, and is more of the same ol' bad news for Hoosier fans.
______________________________________________
http://www.miamiherald.com/sports/story/596825.html
Columbus wideout Bush commits to Purdue
Posted on Mon, Jul. 07, 2008
BY DAVID QUINONES



LARRY BLUSTEIN'S COMMENTS
Gary Bush, Columbus
Known for his tremendous speed, here is a player who certainly came into his own over the past year. While his quickness and ability to break receptions for long scores has been a lure for colleges, his knowledge of the game is also something that has played in his recruitment as well.



In this Hoosier-state recruiting battle, score one for the Boilermakers.


Columbus' Gary Bush, a 6-1, 180-pound wide receiver, orally committed to attend Purdue University on Sunday night. His decision came after campus visits to Indiana and Purdue two weeks ago.


For Bush, West Lafayette was the clear winner between the two.


''It was really a no-brainer,'' Bush said. "Me and the coach [Joe Tiller] just bonded. It felt like the right place for me to be. Indiana was nice, it was a lot like Purdue, but in the end I chose Purdue.''



He added that he and his parents talked about the long-distance move, but that he has family in nearby Indianapolis and that his folks "supported my decision.''


The explosive Explorer also received attention from Ole Miss, Boston College, Alabama-Birmingham, Troy State and Vanderbilt before ending his recruitment experience early.



The rising senior is a three sport-star who transferred to Columbus from Southridge after his sophomore year. In the 2007-2008 season, Bush was among the Explorers' leaders in receptions -- usually of the breakaway-variety -- while also earning a Miami Herald All-Dade honorable mention for basketball and a second-team slot on the All-Dade Track and Field team.


In a midseason game against Miami Beach, Bush put the game out of reach with a 38-yard touchdown catch against the smaller Hi-Tides secondary. He recorded a 33-yard TD a month later against South Miami. Columbus' deep-threat paced the team with 21.3-yards per catch on the season.



Bush runs a 4.5-40 yard dash and his leaping ability (23-10 long-jump) at 6-1 makes for a huge downfield target. His second place long-jump finish helped Columbus secure the District 15-4A championships in April.


Strength might be an issue, as Columbus coach Chris Merritt says ''there is no offseason'' for the multi-sport Bush to devote lots of time to the weight room.



''For a guy like him, it's more about just maintaining. It's hard with his schedule,'' said Merritt, who describes Bush as an "all-around Division I athlete.''


But Bush says he has a plan for that dilemma.



''We don't start camp for a little while, so right now I'm just in the weight room, doing the work,'' he said.


Bush insisted the answer is not to give up on his other athletic pursuits. He is quick to note that while he and the staff at Purdue talked about the possibility of playing hoops, "Track is a definite. I'll definitely be jumping.''

Reader comments are at:
http://pod01.prospero.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?msg=49813&nav=messages&webtag=kr-miamitm

SBH Time Machine: CriticalMiami's great photo of Sahara Hotel in NMB

Woke up early this morning intent on making up for a lot of the time I've wasted over the past few months awaiting my new-and-improved computer, to post some things that have heretofore gone un-commented upon the past few weeks.
Notable among these were some particularly bad examples of journalism in both the Miami Herald and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, more of the usual suspect: what's written in the paper not being nearly as important as what's left out. And I'll do that.

But right now, before too much of the Hurricanes at Boston College game gets away from me, I wanted to bring to your attention an interesting photo that caused me to laugh when I first saw it on CriticalMiami.com recently.
(I told my nephew Mario before he left to go to the U-M finale at the Orange Bowl, that my intuition was VERY BAD about the 'Canes, and that they were likely looking at three weeks of being pummeled to increase UVA, VA Tech. and Boston College's bowl prospects.)

It's a reminder of the history and everyday life that's disappearing in North Dade, and North Miami Beach and Sunny Isles in particular, from the era when I was growing-up in NMB.
The South Florida that was, as always, equal parts kitsch, apathy and opportunity.
Back when real estate speculation was just a hobby or simple addiction, and NOT something that people bragged about, like they had suddenly become Columbus, and were the first person to ever realize that a nice place near the beach was a good idea.

CriticalMiami, http://criticalmiami.com/ posted a photo of the Sahara Hotel, at 183rd Street and Collins Avenue, in what is now the town of Sunny Isles, but which previously had been a part of NMB proper, prior to its formal incorporation a few years ago.

Somewhere, I think I might still have my cache of 1970's and early '80's hotel brochures and post cards which I gathered one day while home from IU on Christmas break.
I was at Haulover Beach, the beach I knew like the back of my hand, more intent on channeling some memories with some friends over drinks than actually getting into the water, but in those pre-cell phone days, when they didn't show, I got bored of waiting, and rather than leave, decided to walk my way north up the strip and gather whatever examples of kitschy hotel stuff I could get my hands on.
(Sadly, this was already after The Castaway's Wreck Bar, with their Tahitian motif had long since gone by the wayside, before my friends and I from North Miami Beach High School http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Miami_Beach_High_School could ever take full advantage of its favorable location, after watching the TV ads for years as we grew-up.
For photos of The Castaways as well as more of The Sahara Hotel, and several other local landmarks and curios, see Tiki Kiliki's flickr site, http://www.flickr.com/photos/tiki_kiliki/.
Which reminds me, one of these days, I need to do a photo search for the old Playboy Club near 79th Street, which always caught and held my attention whenever my family was heading downtown.)

My plan was to take this all back with me to Bloomington, and show my friends up there a snapshot of what life down here was REALLY like, such as it was, mixed-in with some particularly good photos I'd taken of some very cute female friends I'd run into at the beach days earlier.
Fortuitously, one of them had a 35mm camera with her, saving me from having to use one of those awful Kodak 110 cameras I was then using, back before one-time use cameras liberated everyone to always be camera-ready.
I intended the photos to serve as a sort of a morale-booster for us during Bloomington's cold and snowy winter, to get everyone in the mood for spring break a couple of months later.

I guess I hardly need to mention here that saying the words "North Miami Beach" to Midwestern kids in those pre-Miami Vice days, created fantastic ideas in their heads that bore little to no resemblance to the reality of life down here.
For instance, they had no idea what a "condo commander" was.

Much as you'd expect, my Hoosier pals from New York were all-too hip to the hum-drum reality of life down here, from their myriad trips down here over the years visiting family over holidays.
They'd turn to me and pepper me with:
1. "When is THAT bridge over the Intercoastal near Turnberry going up?" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_State_Road_856
2. "There's nowhere to shop."
3. "How can you stand it?"
4. "It takes forever to get anywhere, and there's nothing to do."
Right, as opposed to now.

CriticalMiami's flickr site is at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alesh/2045269189/

1:35 p.m.
I got too distracted by the U-M game and the VA Tech at UVA game, and now the 'Canes are trailing 14-0 at halftime. Same ol', same ol': Kyle Wright is All Wrong and "The human fumble machine". I wonder what that is in Latin?

Note to self: Old idea for new SouthBeachHoosier post needs to be finished- Is Randy Shannon the Black Dave Wannstedt?
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=Wannstedt&m=text
The football coordinator who knows his one area very well, but when given the opportunity to rise, then suffers "the slings and arrows" and reality of The Peter Principle? http://www.amazon.com/Peter-Principle-Laurence-J/dp/0848821564/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1195929852&sr=8-2

I first read the book at JFK Junior High in 1974 at the suggestion of one of my favorite teachers ever, Lloyd Siegendorf, a smart and savvy FSU grad, and the man who let our social studies class watch the Watergate hearings live on TV, interspersed with lots of Q&A and clever banter. (He's the brother of the former Dade circuit court judge, Arden Siegendorf, http://www.acctm.org/asiegendorf/ )

As I recall it, Mr. Siegendorf was talking to us about important books, and how they can help shape our worldview for the better if we read them correctly, but mentioned that ideas NOT rooted in reality and common sense were just good intentions. Or something like that.
(I've tried to keep that in mind over the years, as well as here on the blog.)
Then he mentioned The Peter Principle, which I'd read about in magazines.
He stated that given my particular interests in politics and history, it was something that would come in very handy in the future. Naturally, he was right!
Every 13-year old ought to read it, in order to better prepare themself for life after school.

As this article in the Salt Lake Tribune makes clear, thirty-plus year later, Mr. Siegendorf STILL knows how to fire up kids:http://blogs.sltrib.com/prepsports/2007/10/girls-soccer-my-postseason-thoughts.htm

By the way, Flickr.com says:
"We couldn't find any photos tagged with "Randy Shannon". We give up!"

Why am I not surprised?
Millions of photos of everything under the sun on that site, but while there are hundreds of photos of U-M players, fans and ballgames, photos of him coaching are nowhere to be found on Flickr. Hmmm...
Sort of like how Shannon's coaching is invisible, as the team has regressed in EVERY phase of the game this season, and continues to be unable to make proper halftime adjustments.
Bad and boring never sells in South Florida.
Ever.
Especially when you've become conditioned to exciting excellence.

South Florida's epidemic apathy shows itself once again

I was pleased to see last weekend that some recent comments I shared with an influential media person, and bcc'd to Gabriel Lopez-Bernal, one of the enthusiastic brains behind one of the best-produced and informative blogs around, Transit Miami, www.transitmiami.com, happened to dovetail with some earlier comments of Gabriel's, which addresses an aspect of life in South Florida that's SO very confounding to those of us who want this area to be so much better than the present reality: rampant apathy.

Gabriel's very insightful posting of May 23rd What's in a Name? A whole lot more than you'd think... is well worth reading! Do yourself a favor and read it!

Below the Chicago Tribune story about the fight that Marshall Fields' loyalists have been putting up, I've also entered an excerpted copy of an email I wrote to a local print reporter last year about the second SFECC meeting I was attending, having previously gone to one in Hollywood. (See www.sfeccstudy.com so you can be up to speed on the debate.)

The second SFECC meeting, last October in Aventura, was in an area whose destination mall, The Aventura Mall, boasted both a Burdine's and a Macy's for most of its history.

(I worked at the Burdine's at the 163rd Street Shopping Center when I was attending North Miami Beach Senior High in the late '70's, back when it was one of the most popular and successful locations in the chain, and a popular hangout for NMB students on weekends, before or after attending a movie at the nearby Wometco theatres.
My friend, Lisa Cove, a fellow NMB Charger and perpetual well-dressed fashion plate, always seemed to work the same days that I did!)

That the entire area there, including the nearby Highland Oaks and northern Sunny Isles area would be greatly improved by a rapid transit train option nearby, goes without saying.

The people involved with the whole SFECC effort have largely manage to do a good job, based upon my attendance at two meetings.

I must admit, though, that I was greatly disappointed that prior to the meeting I attended in Aventura, they had no informational signs along one of the highest visibility places in all of South Florida to publicize their event to their target audience:
northern Biscayne Boulevard from 213th Street down to the North Miami Beach border, and near West Dixie Highway at all of the railroad crossings.
_______________________________________________________
Subject: My email re Marshall Fields loyalists fighting name change, vs. SoFla.'s typical apathy re Burdine's
Saturday May 26th, 2007

Dear X:

Per my email to you of the 19th, I later sent a copy to Transit Miami, which as I stated then, remains one of the best blogs around in the South Florida community.

Even more aware than even the South Florida East Coast Corridor Transit Analysis hearing folks, http://www.sfeccstudy.com/

I was originally going to send you just the link, but decided to copy the entire page as best I could below so you could have it and not have to bother.

Obviously, it looks different on the actual webpage, because Gabriel does a GREAT job of integrating editorial with illustrations.

I wish this sort of thing existed when I was growing up down here, much less when I'd come home from IU during the summer, and wanted to be able to get around sensibly and quickly, and not forever be in traffic jams on S. Dixie Highway, when I was living down near The Falls.

You know, to get into Coral Gables and see a foreign film and have some dinner with NMB friends the going to the U-M, dressed in my Hoosier attire?

Or be able to ride a transit system with a Metrorail that actually (and originally) connected MIA to the downtown area and the business/legal districts, as is common sense in most other communities, but NOT the natural order of things down here.

Now that you live down here, I'm guessing you really have a better sense of the inherent backwardness of this area than you ever did than while you were living on The Left Coast.

If you don't think the idea of using HOV lanes on 1-95 as pay lanes will be a debacle, with none of the supervision you'd get in Northern Virginia, where many of my friends in McLean and Fairfax County used them to get into DC, you aren't paying attention.

Anywhere else, this would be an idea I'd support, but here, well, a disaster in the making.
_______________________________
http://www.transitmiami.com/2007/05/whats-in-name-whole-lot-more-than-youd.html

Subject: ChiTrib: Macy's State Street flagship store 'doing badly'
Saturday May 19th, 2007
10:15 p.m.

Dear X:

Noticed that you hadn't yet run this interesting story, which I think is worthy of mention, since it touches on one of your favorite subjects: the rapid changes in American culture as a result of technology and consumerism.

The State Street Marshall Field's was one of my favorite places in all of Chicago when I lived in Evanston from 1985-87, and still recall when I got some crazy deals on Alexander Julian dress shirts back when they were becoming incredibly popular.

What I wouldn't do to have digital photos of that whole retail experience from that era, especially around Christmas holidays!

It was magical, all the more so because I knew that even as I froze, I'd soon be coming back to Miami for a few weeks!
http://stevenswain.blogspot.com/2006/08/shoppers-tend-to-drop-off-as-names.html

The State Street store is also where I first met the late R.W. "Johnny" Apple in 1986 on his book tour, when he'd just written the first edition of Apple's America: The Discriminating Traveler's Guide to 40 Great Cities in the United States and Canada.

His comments were really insightful back in the day, the sort of thing that I personally loved because he wrote from both his heart & his brain, which help explains why I got there very early, and planted myself near his chair for the whole book-signing/chatathon, ears wide-open, ready to hear some wisdom. Very Simon Schama-like.

But with the advent of the Internet and the way that popular city's CVBs
-http://www.gmcvb.com/trade/samples.asp for example- have really amazing info & links on their own home pages to help travelers assimilate on vacations or trips, they now make Mr. Apple's book appear a bit of a, well, dinosaur. (Like travel agents.)

Who would you be more willing to believe, Apple's interesting but dated restaurant observations in his book, or the much more recent restaurant reviews in that particular city's City Paper or New Times -or those paper's websites?

Exactly. That very same technology makes this sort of grassroots effort possible:
http://fieldsfanschicago.org/blog/index.html

As for Mr. Apple's comments on Chicago and Marshall Field's in the most recent paperback version, see
http://www.amazon.com/gp/sitbv3/reader/102-7794081-5294513?asin=0865476853&pageID=S075&checkSum=xrU4n5ebSyooqwPmQ/GeNZg8WcGP2tqgoo7ZQv9yNzU=
It's ironic, given how excited I was about meeting Mr. Apple the first time, that years later, once I moved to Washington, I'd sometimes see him in person quite a few times in one week when he was at the Times' DC bureau.

Though I never it took it for granted, it's funny how used to things I could become.

I could cross the street from the Times to get a Coke and hot dog from a favorite vendor late in the afternoon, and not even think it was odd that while I was standing there waiting for my order, I'd run into the late Jack Valenti on his way over to the nearby 17th St and Eye CVS, and see him dash across the street with a smile and make a beeline for 1627 when he saw Mr. Apple coming down the front steps, getting ready to jump into his Town Car.
Now those guys could tell real stories!

Per even more bade retail news in Chicago, When it rains, it pours: Virgin store to close
"Chicago Virgin Megastore, which opened less than a decade ago at one of the highest-profile intersections on Michigan Avenue, is closing."

Meanwhile, closer to home for both of us, re the old Burdine's downtown:
http://www.transitmiami.com/2006/12/macys-one-day-sale-22-e-flagler-st.html

(FYI: In my opinion, TransitMiami may be THE best-produced blog in South Florida.
As someone who grew-up down here in the 70's, in North Miami Beach, I find their attention to historical detail, especially about downtown Miami -the Biscayne Blvd., Flagler St. and Brickell corridor- SO much more impressive than The Miami Herald's.

Chris Bury's excellent Nightline story last week about South Florida's tax/real estate situation, 'Inside Florida's 'Tax Revolt' http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=3177798&page=1
was everything the Daily Business Review's myriad stories on real estate almost always are, but which the Herald's hardly ever are: persuasive!

BTW, some pretty on target comments on that Bury segment are at http://blogs.tampabay.com/buzz/2007/05/rubio_deplores_.html )

Will give you a head's-up later this week when I have finished writing about those matters I broached earlier today, i.e. Donald Trump and his Trump Hollywood project.

Adios!
_____________________________________
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0705180861may19,1,3208670.story?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

Macy's: State St. store 'doing badly
'Official says greater effort needed to get traffic into flagship
By Sandra Jones Tribune staff reporter
May 19, 2007

CINCINNATI -- The parent company of Macy's acknowledged Friday that its State Street department store, flagship of the former Marshall Field's chain, is "doing badly."
Since replacing the green Field's awnings across the upper Midwest with the Macy's name and red star in September, Federated Department Stores Inc. has been on a mission to win over Chicago-area shoppers, many of whom were attached to the hometown Field's brand and unfamiliar with Macy's.
Federated executives have suggested at times that they were struggling with the transition, but the company does not break out revenue figures for individual stores or chains under its very large corporate umbrella. This week the company said it was disappointed with sales at the roughly dozen regional department store chains the company converted to Macy's eight months ago.
At a press conference after its annual meeting here Friday, Federated's chief financial officer, Karen Hoguet, said former Field's stores are performing no worse or better than the roughly 400 regional department stores Federated acquired from St. Louis-based May Department Stores Co. in 2005 and converted to Macy's.
But there is an exception: the Chicago store on State Street.

The landmark store, long a tourist destination, is "doing badly," Hoguet said, without providing specific performance data..
Macy's hasn't been doing enough to drive traffic to the store, she said, something the retailer is working to change.
This weekend Macy's is advertising 50 percent discounts on clearance merchandise at the State Street store only and total savings of 60 percent to 90 percent on thousands of spring fashions.
The promotion is part of a broader move, announced this week, to step up advertising
and sale events at former May stores to boost sales.
Chairman and Chief Executive Terry Lundgren was quick to interject that operating a Midwest flagship in Chicago remains core to Macy's strategy.
"We're very committed to that store," said Lundgren, noting that rival Carson Pirie
Scott a few blocks south closed its flagship store earlier this year. New owner Bon-Ton Stores decided the giant emporium was too costly to operate.
On Wednesday Lundgren characterized the former May stores' sales performance as "disappointing," as Federated missed its first-quarter sales target and earned less than Wall Street had expected.
Analysts estimate the sales drop at former May stores averaged 7 percent to10 percent.
Sales at all Federated stores open at least a year, a key measure of a retailer's health, rose 0.6 percent, well below the increase of 2.5 percent to 3.5 percent Federated had predicted in February for the first quarter. The former May stores account for about half of Macy's approximately 800 stores.
Lundgren explained the sales miss by saying that he threw too many changes at the former May stores too quickly, namely lots of new in-house merchandise and fewer promotions.
The arrival later this year of the Martha Stewart Collection for the home, made exclusively for Macy's, should bring more shoppers to the stores, Lundgren said.
Home goods account for about 15 percent of Federated's sales.
The business has been "challenging" lately, he said, as people delay buying new homes.
At the meeting, shareholders approved changing Federated's corporate name to Macy's Inc. effective June 1. The change is intended to boost awareness of the Macy's name. Macy's accounts for 90 percent of Federated's business. Bloomingdale's makes up the rest.
Federated's board also declared a 2 percent increase in the quarterly dividend,
to 13 cents per share.
Lundgren reiterated after the meeting that Federated is close to a decision to move Frango mint production to Chicago. Lundgren pledged to Mayor Richard Daley after Federated acquired Marshall Field's and changed its name to Macy's that he would try to return some of the famous chocolate-mint production to Chicago.

----------smjones@tribune.com
__________________________________________________________
Wednesday October 11th, 2006
1 pm

Dear X:

Hey! Thanks for the follow-up.
Glad to hear that you finally received my email about tonight's SFECC meeting at the Aventura Comm. Rec. Center on NE 188th Street.

Sorry it devolved into a bit of a South Florida baseball tangent, but since I tend to write like I talk, which is fine most of the time, but when I have a lot on my mind, and little time to send it in an email, as was the case then, my fingers can't keep up with all the thoughts in my cabeza.

Yesterday, I put on my detective hat -minus the Columbo jacket- and checked out in detail the area I had mentioned in my 9/28 email about what I perceive to be THE best possible FEC train station location in Aventura/northern NMB, which would not only serve the greatest number
of frustrated people, but also have the added result of possibly leading to some smart growth in the area, instead of, well, the norm.

The area I had referenced in that email, the area of W. Dixie Hwy. as it becomes diagonal, a few blocks north of NE 183rd Street, is actually NE 193rd St., with the MIRON Building Products bldg. immediately across the street to the west at 19400 W. Dixie Hwy.

(As a kid growing-up in NMB in the '70's on NE 14th Avenue, just south of the 163rd St. Mall, I recall that funky building very well.

First, on Saturday mornings, driving past it with my Mom on our way to a big home decor place in Hollywood just off Dixie, and later, while at NMBSH, on weekends, jogging from 163rd to Greynolds Park, then Ojus and then past the MIRON bldg. on my way up to Hollywood Dog Track, before turning around.

And thinking that NEXT time, I wouldn't run as far!

That version of the MIRON building was largely jalousy windows on the Dixie Hwy. side, and I always wondered how they'd get thru a serious hurricane -embarrassing considering the kind of store it was- but knock on wood, we never got one when I lived here from '68-79, before leaving for college at Indiana.)

To me, that particular location has lots of advantages over other prospective northern NMB and Aventura locales, principally, the advantage of allowing "Kiss & Ride" drop-off points on both the Biscayne Blvd. and W. Dixie Hwy. sides, instead of just on one side, which is the norm for most K&R drop-offs in the DC Metro system, which tended to be near residential neighborhoods, or located in places where the initial land costs in the '70's were too tough a nut to crack to have much parking.

As I mentioned in my previous email, I used the Metro almost daily for 15 years, and am all too aware of both its strengths and weaknesses, but the Arlington stations, in particular, were genius in their use of land and space and a real model for how these sorts of things can and should be done.
There's no need to reinvent the wheel!

You have a commercial property, perhaps with high rise condos or apts above or adjacent to the entrances, with COOL retail on the bottom near the station entrance.
http://www.cooltownstudios.com/

This would help serve populations from an area of roughly Skylake, Ojus, Highland Oaks and Aventura, plus the Golden Beach and northern Sunny Isles folks coming over the Lehman Causeway.

Plus, if there's no Hallandale Beach station, that would be the go-to station instead of Hollywood.
You think the people in the condos in Aventura and over on the beach wouldn't love to be able to get dropped off, either thru their spouse or a bus shuttle, grab some coffee and bagels and sit awhile before grabbing a train and reading the paper into work instead of making that drive over to 1-95 to slog their way thru traffic?

Additionally, if you use the common sense the location provides, you extend the station north to 195th Street, where you build a pedestrian bridge across Biscayne Blvd. over to Aventura Mall, thereby cutting down the parking congestion insanity there, esp. around holidays, and giving the Mall entree to tens of thousands of additional customers, esp. seniors, who don't own cars, but who don't want to press their luck with the weather waiting for buses, which may or may not be on time, and probably jam-packed in any case.

I see that area of Dixie Hwy. as one that could become the kind of smart, urban -dare I say hip?- spot that Arlington had in abundance near its Metro stops, particularly near the Ballston Metro station, which was my station in northern Arlington, and whose proximity to my home made it possible for me to live in such a nice neighborhood -and walk.

See http://www.commuterpage.com/ART/villages/ballston2.htm and
http://www.commuterpage.com/ART/villages/index.htm

The station at Arlington Courthouse would also be ideal one to replicate, in that it connected upscale shopping and movie theatres and the county govt. offices, with the Fresh Foods store and an APPLE store two blocks away, plus dozens of chic bistros and live music bars of different types that drew people from ALL over the Washington area.
Nice fun places, not the South Beach over-the-top zoo scene we're all familiar with.

While playing detective yesterday I discovered that the east side of Dixie Hwy. at that location is currently an outfit that's called JR United Industries, which according to a Google search is:
19401 W Dixie Hwy, Miami, FL 33180 Phone : (305) 933-7100
Product & Services: Linens Manufacturers, Linens Wholesale,Quilts, Blankets & Bedding

According to the guy I spoke to at MIRON, it's been there for about 7 years.

It's really MUCH more run down than you'd think it'd be for a going concern, with LOTS of trash and debris along the road -shocker, there's no sidewalk- and the inside of their security fence is not much better, as the northern edge of the property had large Dumpsters that looked like Shaq had shot free throws there, i.e. more garbage around it, than probably actually in it.

There's a relatively new kosher bakery just north of it, which is located in an area that I think years ago was a plant nursery of some sort.

I have a vague memory of visiting down here around Christmas in the mid-90's, and going there with my step-mother there to buy some garland or holiday stuff, but I could be mistaken.

In any case, that particular area is horribly underutilized and would handsomely profit the community in lots of ways if a station that drew thousands of heretofore frustrated commuters -and made them happy on their way to work instead of harried- was located there.
It's a real no-brainer.

I'll probably be at the meeting a half-hour early, since,
a.) I've never been to the Aventura Rec Center before, and
b.) owing to the 15 years I spent in DC, I've learned to show up early for public policy meetings that are open to the general public, so I can gauge the political temperature of the room when I show up and can see who's feeling chatty and enthusiastic about the subject, and who's keeping their cards close to the vest so they can pop the collective balloon and ruin the mood at the very end.

Considering the very obvious common sense nature of the project, the one thing that surprised me at the Hollywood SFECC meeting a few weeks ago was the large number of naysayers angling for microphone time, who, for reasons that were totally inexplicable to me, seemed to think that Tri-Rail was the answer to everything.

Myself, I don't know anyone who uses TriRail for the very reason that it doesn't really go anywhere, and I suspect that will be the case for the vast majority of people at tonight's meeting as well, who, hopefully will remember to set their VCR or TiVo for Lost.

Dontrelle Willis is Sports Illustrated Environment issue coverboy

Completely by accident, South Beach Hoosier happened to discover this afternoon that the newest Sports Illustrated -just two weeks after Hollywood rewarded the film producers of Al Gore's 'so-called' documentary with a Best Documentary Oscar- decided to use Marlins pitcher Dontrelle Willis as their coverboy to illustrate their lead story on "Sports and Global Warming" by Alexander Wolff titled,simply enough, "Going, Going Green."



http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/more/03/06/eco0312/

They even make mention of H. Wayne's bubble in Davie, one of the few good things that Nick Saban ever accomplished as Dolphins head coach:
"Searing heat is turning that rite of passage of Texas high school football, the August two-a-day, into a one-at-night, while at the game's highest level the Miami Dolphins, once famous for sweating players into shape, have thrown in the soggy towel and built a climate-controlled practice bubble."
Additionally, though you wouldn't know it by looking at how truly crummy Biscayne Blvd. looks on the the way to downtown Miami, with all the Palm trees coming down,
http://www.transitmiami.com/2007/02/fdot-plan-to-pave-over-palms-is-finally.html

Wolff writes, "Scientists told the NFL that Super Bowl XLI would put one million pounds of carbon dioxide into the air -- not counting air travel to Miami -- so the league planted 3,000 trees around Florida in an attempt to pull at least that much of the greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere."
Unless I'm mistaken, those trees will take about 25-30 years to actually become a factor.

While I can appreciate the general sentiment, since it's not the sort of agitprop article I initially feared, a photographic look at the crazy, over-the-top gas guzzlers driven by pro athletes might've really hammered that same point home in a MUCH more interesting way, esp. NBA players, who necessarily require vehicles larger than normal.
Tricked-out AND GREEN? I'd actually like to see that!
To be honest, this story sort of reminds me of those quasi-environmental stories on fish and hunting that Sports Illustrated did so much of in the mid-70's, usually in July or August after doing a story on some new baseball phenom or some team that was suddenly swooning.
Issues with titles like "Dodgers in a Dogfight" with young LA Dodgers on the cover.

When I was a kid growing up in North Miami Beach in the '70's, on Friday afternoons, as I'd walk home from school (at first, Fulford Elementary and then later, JFK Jr. High) the anticipation I felt inching closer to my mailbox and that upcoming week's issue was palpable.
I still remember those covers like it was just yesterday, since they helped form many of my initial thoughts and feelings about individual athletes and personalities I'd never see in person in pre-cable, pre-Heat, pre-Marlins, pre-Panther Miami, if they weren't NFL or ABA players.
I distinctly recall that the first issue I ever received in the mail in 1971 had Scottish auto racing legend Jackie Stewart on the cover.

Frankly, SI was how I first became aware of auto racing and its myriad personalities on the track and behind the scenes, though the Herald's excellent auto racing Gary Long certainly did his part then.

If you've never heard of it, I highly recommend www.SIcovers.com which offers framed old SI covers for the bargain price of $19.95.
It's a great resource that I often used when living in Washington, when trying to think of unusual gifts or stocking stuffers for sports fan friends who were otherwise hard to shop for. Check it out and you'll see that I'm right!