The #8thStar fell in Alabama! Hoosiers’ Quest For Eight is Mission Accomplished! Hoosier goalie Luis Soffner pitches third shut-out in a row in leading Hoosiers to 1-0 win over Georgetown to earn their 8th NCAA soccer title; Jordan Hulls shows Hoosier Pride!; #Q48, #8thSTAR, @JordanHulls1

Today, when you go to the IU Athletic Dept.'s website, you're now greeted by this great photo of lots of happy Hoosiers celebrating their well-deserved NCAA title Sunday afternoon.

The way that IU was dominating Georgetown in the first-half with their sharp, up-tempo offense that saw them control the ball in front of the Hoya goal for minutes at a time, I actually thought the score could very well turn out to be something like a 4-0 rout.
But 1-0, on Nikita Kotlov’s lone goal in the 64th minute of play yesterday off a nice header by  Eriq Zavaleta, proved more than enough with Luis Soffner in goal for the Hoosiers to shut-out the Hoyas, his third shut-out in a row.

One minute-video of title game highlights at: http://www.ncaa.com/sports/soccer-men/d1

I must admit to feeling very dumbfounded at how little actual video of the game was available online yesterday, as the Indy TV stations have nothing and neither does ESPNU, despite the fact that they were the ones who televised the game.

Defense drives Indiana's title run
By Greg Ostendorf, ESPN.com
Updated: December 9, 2012, 8:05 PM ET
http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/8730456/with-stingy-defense-little-luck-indiana-won-national-title-men-soccer-college-cup

http://www.indystar.com/article/20121209/SPORTS0601/121209010/College-soccer-IU-captures-8th-national-title-1-0-win-over-Georgetown

http://btn.com/2012/12/09/track-live-indiana-plays-georgetown-for-ncaa-soccer-title/

Andrew Wittry YouTube Channel: Indiana Men's Soccer National Championship Reception Postponed. Uploaded December 9th, 2012. http://youtu.be/RpJAVPws_qE
Above, the great Chuck Crabb , IU Assistant Athletic Director, explains to some disappointed Hoosier fans Sunday night why the planned 8:30 p.m. reception for the team at Assembly Hall was postponed, owing to bad weather in Nashville, where the team stopped on their way from Birmingham back to Bloomington. 
More on Chuck at bottom.

It was great to see that Hoosier basketball star Jordan Hulls was in the stands for yesterday afternoon's game, and drove the 8 hours down to Alabama after the Hoosier basketball game Saturday night  against Central Conn. State, the school that my friends and I had never heard of, but which at Spring Break in FTL during early 1980's boasted a disproportionate amount of the most good-looking coeds.
Jordan Hulls @JordanHulls1  twitter.com/JordanHulls1


IU soccer championship gear is here: http://iuhoosiers.cbscollegestore.com/store.cfm?store_id=406 

-----
This is what I wrote about Chuck on my other blog, South Beach Hoosier, when I started it in 2007: 

The IU sports administrator most responsible for helping me make sense of all things Cream & Crimson, was IU's do-it-all, 24/7 Renaissance man, Chuck Crabb. 
With equal amounts of enthusiasm, hard work and patience, Chuck lovingly and masterfully managed IU's Student Athletic Board, an organization to which I devoted many thousands of hours to -and loved every minute.


Both the more difficult times, like trying to manage things and stay dry during downpours at IU soccer games at Bill Armstrong Stadium, and those that were more fun, like helping out with the logistics of running the lengthy IU cheerleader and pom squad tryouts, up on the HPER's beautiful second floor wooden gym, with very precise routines all set to Prince's genius music, circa 1982, which was blaring out of the speakers. 
Fun and hard work!

After all those hours and hours of watching those carefully choreographed routines to his music -routines that I can STILL see in my head- I could never hear Prince's songs again without thinking of those tryouts and smiling. 
And of all those eager but flushed and exhausted Hoosier faces, anxious to help project Hoosier Pride to Hoosier Nation.

Finally! South Beach Hoosier is Back on the Job!

It's hard to be humble when you're a Hoosier-by-choice!

Assembly Hall, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana

One of the places where, once upon a time, it really did all come together.

Sorry for the VERY LONG break from my duties here at South Beach Hoosier, as I've rather foolishly allowed myself to become too preoccupied with the internecine political fighting here in the duchy of Hallandale Beach, Florida and writing on Hallandale Beach Blog, to the neglect of my SBH responsibilities.

Trust me, nobody feels worse about the matter than I do.

Not to worry, as I have a ton of already-written material that I will be posting here over the next few days to get you al back up to speed on what's on my mind as it involves my interests, like the Indiana University Hoosiers; the myriad ups and (mostly) downs of the Dolphins and Hurricanes in this season of inconsistent coaching; the latest doings of South Florida's thoroughly under-reported public policy scene, and the neverending media keffuffle that is South Florida's current sorry state of journalism, where old-fashioned notions about thoroughness and fairness have been completely cast aside for all to see.

Another trend that you may notice is that I will no longer be holding my punches quite so much about individual South Florida and Washington media personalities that I know and have dealt with, as I have done perhaps a bit too much in the past.

That's all in the past, as in the intervening months, per the last paragraph, the gloves have most definitely come off!

No point holding my tongue when I can enlighten everyone to some egregiously bad, sloppy or incomplete reporting.

In another media matter, I will also mention and comments on some recent Hoosier additions to the South Florida news media scene.

By the way, since I last commented in this space, I've had the good fortune to run into the mother of a former IU basketball player a few times, and will hope to fill you in on what she had to share with me about her talented son.

Surprisingly, I've also discovered that a very trustworthy news source is now MUCH CLOSER to someone within the inner orbit of Hoosier athletics than I ever could've guessed.

Could it be, you know, a possible future "South Beach Hoosier World Exclusive" he said, laughing at the very idea.

Not yet, but...

-Dave at South Beach Hoosier

Happy 4th of July!

American flag in front of Hallandale Beach Water Tower on S. Surf Road,
Hallandale Beach, FL; Overcast at 5:15 p.m.
July 3, 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier
http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM2EKR

Jessica Simpson, GQ, July 2005

http://men.style.com/gq/features/landing?id=content_2525

Cover photo by Peggy Sirota, smile by Jessica!

Additional photos at: http://www.mtv.com/photos/?fid=1505186&pid=1756289

------------------

USA Today

Simpson enlists in the pinup wall of fame
By César G. Soriano, June 30, 2005

http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2005-06-30-jessica-simpson_x.htm?POE=LIFISVA

South Florida transit issues and govt. agencies relative usefulness

It's been mentioned more than a few times to South Beach Hoosier by recipients of his emails, that he ought to strongly consider using parts of those past emails as building blocks to buttress certain public policy points he's tried to make in the past on the blog.

Up 'till now, I've largely resisted the urge, but today, I thought this one might actually be of enough interest to you all to make posting it worthwhile, so that you might learn what I've learned about some Florida government agencies that are part of the planning process governing transit, but which rather than taking a pro-active approach and being an example of good management -aren't.
It's an excerpt of an email to Gabriel Lopez-Bernal over at Transit Miami, one of the most influential blogs in South Florida for a reason, even if I don't necessarily share their political viewpoint on an everyday basis. But even when I disagree with what they say, there's usually something to be learned.
__________________________________________________
Dear Gabriel:

Started this email last weekend but decided to wait 'till after Memorial Day to send it along.
Earlier this week, I watched the WGN-TV noon newscast and saw their up-close camera shots of the CTA derailment the same day it happened, and also saw how damn impressive the neighborhood Chicago Fire/EMT response was -one minute.

People living in the immediate neighborhood said that in riding the El the day before the accident, the track seemed "loose" in the same exact spot as where the derailment took place. Can't vouch for whether that's a fact or someone saying something provocative to get attention.
(Temps were in the mid-50's, so unlikely a joint/heat expansion problem.)

The top CTA administrators are really angry because this is the third one since April 21st, and it occurred while the CTA is waiting to hear how much money the state legislature in Springfield is going to give the CTA.

Dave
_______________________________________________
Saturday May 30th, 2008

Dear Gabriel:

From my perspective, long story short of this latest Minneapolis Star-Tribune account of policy and process under a legal microscope after a disaster: there but for the grace of God goes the Sunshine State.

I strongly suggest you run a link to this story at your Transit Miami blog so that folks around the state, with an interest in transit and public policy, might be able to read this for themselves and imagine how this'd be handled here.

Frankly, though I've written about transit issues, esp. as they apply to Broward County and the SFECC, as well as the Broward County Charter Review Comm., it just seems a much more natural fit for your blog than mine at South Beach Hoosier or Hallandale Beach Blog.

The insightful Star-Tribune reader comment below about the DFL-friendly law firm being brought in by the MN state legislature to try to undermine NTSB results, sounds 100% plausible to some savvy, politically-connected Dem friends of mine up there, who are rarely wrong about this sort of thing. (As opposed to their sports analysis and predictions!)

Maybe it's just me, playing the role of cynic, but I can totally picture both Dan Gelber and Steve Geller trying pull something like that off here, too, perhaps with Ron L. Book involved for good measure, too.
You know him, he likes to be a 'party' to everything important -sometimes against even himself.
Just something to think about.

(Also, in case you've forgotten, the Republican Nat'l. Convention will be at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul the first week of September, exactly one week after the DNC is held in Denver.
Do per the article below, expect a spate of stories on the 35 W bridge come August, right after the Olympics in Beijing.)

As I mentioned to you recently when you gave me a call, in the near future, I'm planning on querying the FDOT Secretary, Stephanie Kopelousos, and find out whether or not she's EVER planning on being somewhere in South Florida where citizens, esp. those with an interest in transit, like you and me, can actually ask her some non-softball questions, rather than the sort of convivial industry forums, govt. official-only chat fests or ASCE events that her agency seems to prefer.

For instance, take a look at what I found when I checked the archives of the Gold Coast Chapter of the Institute of Transportation Engineers at http://www.itegoldcoast.org/events.html

Curious what you'd find when you go to the link at the bottom, titled, The State of Transportation in Broward County? I was.
(The URL is http://www.itegoldcoast.org/PDF/ASCE-FES.pdf in case the link below is dead when you go to it.)

Answer: An invitation to their New Year's Eve Italian Dinner Party!
On January 12th.

To her credit, in a new and very fair-minded Florida Trend profile of her by Cynthia Barnett, Kopelousos claims that she's anxious to change the way things are done at FDOT, and bring them firmly into the 21st century.

(But the article also points out her weaknesses, the most obvious being her non-engineering background, which, apparently, has always been a predicate for the top FDOT job.)

Those positive qualities notwithstanding, where's the proof that this is resulting in any tangible positive changes for South Florida? http://floridatrend.com/article.asp?aID=49017

While I appreciate that more than most state agencies, FDOT is, necessarily, decentralized, in my opinion, despite her short tenure and clear aptitude for hard work and long hours, given the sheer amount of hard work that's required down here, I think she's got a lot to answer for. Not least of all, being practically M.I.A. for South Floridians like you and me -and the folks who read our blog posts, here and around the state.

So where's the interaction with taxpayers who aren't engineers and public officials?

(As it happens, I think I actually ran into Kopelousos a few times while I was up in Washington and she was working for the late Rep. Tillie Fowler, whom I always found to be a real straight shooter, just like Rep. Charles Bennett had been earlier for the Jacksonville area when I moved to DC. http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/cebennett.htm )

The other day, largely as a result of the foolish actions in Miami regarding the Miami River, and the common sense of the Charles Lewis commentary, If the Miami River is really dead, why do the bridges go up? http://www.miamitodaynews.com/news/080522/story-viewpoint.shtml

After reading that, I decided it was about time I made plans to attend the next meeting of the South Florida Regional Planning Council. http://www.sfrpc.com/

Well, turns out that it's Monday at their Hollywood HQ.
So naturally I was curious if they'd put up an agenda for Monday on their website, since the meeting was Monday, the next day they were open.
Maybe get familiar with any staff reports in pdf., so I can better follow the proceedings while I'm there.

Do I really even have to tell you that when I pulled up the web page that was supposed to have agendas, it was largely blank. (At least as seen on my computer.)
Or that their website itself seems like it was put together by not-too-bright ninth-graders?

Call me old-fashioned, Gabriel, but that's really NOT my idea of proper planning.
It's also NOT my idea of wisely spending taxpayer dollars, either.

Trust me, I'll make a point of mentioning all these things at the meeting.
___________________________________________
http://www.startribune.com/politics/state/19133569.html

Minneapolis Star-Tribune
MnDOT missed opportunities to note bridge flaws, study finds
By Mike Kaszuba, Star Tribune
May 21, 2008

Reader comments are at:
http://ww2.startribune.com/user_comments/comments.php?d=asset_comments&asset_id=19133569&section=/politics/state

Sydney Pollack's Hoosier Roots

Sydney Pollack went to South Bend's Central High School, the real-life "big" school opponent that Gene Hackman's "Hickory" team had to play at the climactic end of Hoosiers, based on Milan High's famous David-over-Goliath upset of them in 1954.


As I note near the top of South Beach Hoosier, since the day I started it:
"And David put his hand in the bag and took out a stone and slung it. And it struck the Philistine on the head and he fell to the ground. Amen."
-Preacher Purl encouraging the Hickory basketball team before the title game against South Bend Central in Hoosiers, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091217/


Late tonight, at 3 a.m., TCM is airing one of my favorite films of his,1975's Three Days of the Condor http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title.jsp?stid=4274

"A CIA researcher uncovers top secret information and finds himself marked for death," with Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway and Cliff Robertson.


Please also see John Young's remembrance of Pollack at Variety:
Sydney Pollack dies at 73, Multihyphenate won Oscar for 'Out of Africa'
http://www.variety.com/VR1117986467.html and Variety's video retrospective at:
http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=videoBC&bcpid=713438541&bclid=713073358&bctid=1576205579

excerpt from South Bend Star-Tribune http://www.southbendtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080526/Ent/16035212/1038/Ent

Renowned director Pollack dies at 73, Hollywood icon grew up in South Bend, graduated from Central High School.

"...Pollack graduated from South Bend Central High School, where he developed a love of drama. Throughout his long career, he credited his director at Central High, the late James Lewis Casaday, for making an artistic life beyond his blue-collar town seem possible.

Instead of going to college, Pollack moved to New York and enrolled at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theater. He studied there for two years under Sanford Meisner, who was in charge of its acting department, and remained for five more as Meisner’s assistant. He also served 21 months in the U.S. Army.

After appearing in a handful of Broadway productions in the 1950s, Pollack turned his eye to directing. Before settling into the film industry, Pollack directed television series, including “Ben Casey” and “The Fugitive.”

Although Pollack has no relatives still living in South Bend, he occasionally visited the area.

“I didn’t dislike South Bend,” Pollack said in a 2002 Tribune interview. “I understand that it’s gotten much more culturally oriented. At the time I was there, there was really nothing outside of what Mr. Casaday did. “I want people to see things the way I did when I was a kid growing up watching movies,” Pollack said just prior to a 1977 trip to South Bend. Pollack was the guest of honor at the Indiana premier of his film “Bobby Deerfield” as part of the 1977 grand opening festivities for Century Center..."

If BCS football format is bad, Women's NCAA Softball tourney is worse; NCAA LAX

Since everything on network TV Friday night was repeats, and I couldn't get excited about the Giants at Marlins game featuring 0-8 starter Barry Zito, I spent most of the evening watching the Penn-Duke Women's NCAA Lacrosse Semifinal game up in Towson, MD at Johnny Unitas Stadium on CBS College Sports, Channel 610.


It was the second D-1 Semifinal game of the night, following Northwestern's impressive 16-8 win over Syracuse earlier in the evening, which I caught the tail end of. Northwestern clearly deserves to be ranked number one in the country based on the three Wildcat games on TV I've seen so far this year on ESPNU.

Plus it clearly helps recruiting a bit when you win the NCAAs three years in a row and are marching towards your fourth!

I really wish NU's beautiful and cozy lacrosse stadium in Evanston, near the northern part of campus, right off Lake Michigan had been there when I was living there.

Though I could be wrong, I think it's actually located right where I used to sit at a picnic table writing colorful and impassioned letters to my friends around the country in those pre-email days of the mid-'80's, right when Kellogg (KGSM) was named by the Wall Street Journal as the #1 Business School in the country.

Those were heady days in Evanston, what with Kellogg's new found notoriety, plus the town of Evanston having recently consented to a McDonald's within township limits, but with strict provisos included, like bistro tables each with a small flower arrangement instead of the regular McDonald's tables, and NO take-out allowed.

The off-duty Chicago cops they had work there were guys with muscles on top of muscles = no funny business.

It was great to be able to go there late on a Friday night/Saturday morning with friends and not worry about somebody coming into the place and causing a scene.

During the timeouts/halftime and commercial breaks of the Penn-Duke match, I went down a number on my remote control to ESPNU and caught bits and pieces of the California-Florida NCAA Super-regional Softball tourney being hosted in Gainesville.


Having so recently heard and read so much nonsense in the area when the BCS schools met at the Westin Diplomat three weeks ago to discuss, among other things, a BCS football playoff taking too much out of the kids and them missing too much school, I heard the ESPNU commentators say that because the Cal Golden Bears don't really have a home field, per se -which is weird to contemplate- they played something like 53 of their 68 season games on the road, though obviously, most of those were games in Cali or the Left Coast.
But still...


To demonstrate that the Bears weren't afraid of playing the top-seeded Gators in Gainesville, someone even dropped a knowledge nugget that Cal's been on the road for the past four weeks. Four weeks!
Isn't someone afraid of how much the travel will take out of them and how much classroom instruction they'll miss? Guess not.

And yet those lil' factoids weren't the ones that really left me slack-jawed Friday night, something South Beach Hoosier rarely if ever is, absent the sight of one of his longtime favorites, like, well, you know who I mean.
Because of the rain situation in the Gainesville area, one of the commentators said that it was important that they get that game -Game #1 of the tourney- played and out of the way, otherwise, should all the games be washed out, Florida advances based on being the highest seed.

That being the case, in retrospect, I guess it was a good thing that the Ga. Tech basketball arena was available during the SEC basketball tourney when the tornado hit downtown Atlanta a few weeks back and caused damage to the arena where the SEC tourney was being held, so Dennis Felton's Georgia Bulldogs could show such great heart and spirit in playing and beating Arkansas, lest Arkansas have advanced due to their being the higher ranked.

For highlights of the two Semifinals, see http://www.cstv.com/sports/w-lacros/cs-w-lacros-body.html and http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/more/05/23/womens.lacrosse.ap/

Reminder:
Saturday the 24th at Noon on CSTV is encore telecast of Women's Semifinal game #1, Syracuse-Northwestern.
Following that game at 2 p.m. is the repeat of Women's Semifinal game #2, Penn-Duke

The way the Quakers kept their cool and came from behind to win in the second overtime on Rachel Manson's goal to beat a very talented -more talented?- Duke team was pretty damn impressive.
It was certainly not something we've seen the likes of in South Florida for quite some time, given the general ineptness of the Dolphins, Hurricanes and Heat the past two years, with few gut-check wins against very good teams to their credit.

http://www.pennathletics.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=8964&SPID=554&DB_OEM_ID=1700&ATCLID=1474196

http://laxmagazine.cstv.com/sports/w-lacros/recaps/052408aac.html

That said, it's hard to see how Northwestern's larger and faster team won't be at quite an advantage when they play for the title on Sunday night at Stade Johnny U.
But I'll be watching anyway, hoping for a close game thru three-quarters of the match.
At that point, it's all about sheer talent and physicality.

Sunday May 25th on CSTV from 7-9 p.m. is the Women's championship game between #1 Northwestern and Penn.

The Quakers beat the Wildcats earlier this season to give them their only loss and also stop their thirty-SOMETHING match winning streak.
And didn't Michael Steadman meet Hope at Penn?
________________________________
Chicago Tribune
Familiar path Northwestern lacrosse
Bowen's 6 goals put NU back in title match
By Philip Hersh, Tribune reporter
May 24, 2008
http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/college/cs-24-northwestern-lacrossemay24,1,2050462.story
__________________________
Saturday at Noon down the dial at Channel 209, ESPN2, the Men's Semifinals from Gillette Stadium in Foxborough begin. http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/espnu/index

ESPN's excellent lacrosse analyst Quint Kessenich, the former Johns Hopkins goalkeeper, comments on the NCAA tourney so far:
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/columns/story?columnist=kessenich_quint&id=3405646

Lacrosse Magazine's analysis and predictions: http://laxmagazine.cstv.com/sports/m-lacros/uslx-m-lacros-body.html and http://laxmagazine.cstv.com/sports/m-lacros/spec-rel/052308aaf.html

Game # 1, from Noon-2 p.m. is #3 Syracuse vs. #2 Virginia, featuring two Orange-crazy teams.
ESPN's Meredith Galante's analysis of the rematch of the Konica Minolta Faceoff Classic game up at Ravens Stadium, where 11 weeks ago, I watched on ESPN as UVA prevailed 14-13, is here: http://blogs.insidelacrosse.com/2008/05/23/ncaa-semifinals-preview-syracuse-vs-virginia/

Game #2 at 2:30 p.m. is the big one, #1 Duke against defending NCAA champ and #5 seed
Johns Hopkins. I've seen the Blue Jays play about as often as I've seen the Northwestern Women's team, on ESPN, ESPNU as well as on MASN, the Mid Atlantic Sports network.
MASN, i.e. the Orioles and the Washington Nationals Channel created for the financial benefit of Orioles owner Peter Angelos, is where I watch Tom Davis and Phil Wood every Saturday morning give me the lowdown on what's what baseball-wise in the Baltimore-DC area.

See analysis of Blue Devil-Blue Jay game by John Driscoll at
http://blogs.insidelacrosse.com/2008/05/22/ncaa-semifinals-preview-hopkins-vs-duke/

In case you didn't notice it above, both Duke and Syracuse had the unique distinction of having both their Mens and Women's team make the NCAA Lacrosse Semifinals.
That's damn impressive and something that I wish that IU or the U-M could do that in a sport I cared about, instead of, in the U-M's case, having a Women's athletic program that's light years behind Duke, North Carolina, Maryland and Wake Forest just in the ACC.

More often than not, those four schools annually compete for a national title in either basketball, field hockey, soccer or lacrosse.

A future post here will examine why that's so, and even worse, if possible, why print and TV sports reporters/columnists in South Florida never mention the feebleness of the U-M
Women's teams.

Sorry, individual titles in tennis, while nice, in Audra Cohen's case, don't compensate for being sorry and mediocre in so many team sports, especially when good men's teams had to go buh-bye to make way for Title IX.

Is it too much to hope that they'd be more than mediocre?
Maybe even be entertaining?

Not that it'll affect my rooting interests, but one of my friends back in DC played on the Duke lacrosse team in the early 1980's.
Still, nobody from IU can ever root for Duke.
It's just not done.


My oldest niece's high school in Maryland, Glenelg, just won the Maryland state lacrosse title in both Boys and Girls this past week for their division.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/20/AR2008052002117.html
For Glenelg, Perfect EndingsBoys Finish Unbeaten; Girls Are Champs, Too
By Jeff Nelson
Special to The Washington Post
May 21, 2008


Since she'll be going to college this fall back in the state I used to live in, Virginia, I'm going to predict a UVA-Johns Hopkins Mens final on Monday afternoon.

That'll be on ESPN from 1-3:30 p.m.
_______________________________________
http://www.miamiherald.com/919/story/536308.html


Miami Herald
FSU president: College football playoff inevitable
Posted on Fri, May. 16, 2008
By JAIME ARON
AP Sports Writer


GRAPEVINE, Texas -- Here's a ray of hope for college football fans bummed by the recent rejection of the plus-one model to determine a national champion.


The president of Florida State not only believes a playoff is coming, he thinks it'll start with four teams, then grow to eight and eventually 16.


"The bottom line is the money, unfortunately, is going to drive the train," FSU's T.K. Wetherell said. "The 12th game, right now, is solving the problem. The reason there is a 12th game in football is the money. People may not want to admit that, but that's the facts of the matter."
Wetherell's comments came Friday at the National Football Forum, during a panel discussion of the future of college football. He spoke after the playoff concept was pretty much rejected by Ohio State coach Jim Tressel, Washington coach Ty Willingham, Kansas coach Mark Mangino, TCU coach Gary Patterson, Notre Dame athletic director Kevin White and Army athletic director Kevin Anderson.


"Who is it for?" Willingham asked.


Tressel emphasized scheduling problems that would be taxing for players physically and for their studies. Mangino talked about changes spoiling the fun of bowls.


"If you go to a championship, there's first and second and that's it," Anderson said, a theme Patterson touched on, too, by noting the current system produced 32 bowl winners.


"We have a tournament - it starts the first week in September," White said.


Grant Teaff, executive director of the American Football Coaches Association, spoke up, too, crediting the BCS for record levels of attendance and television ratings.


Getting his say at the very end, Wetherell turned the discussion upside down.

"In my judgment, if you take every argument that's been made today and apply it to any other sport on a college campus, then you'd have to cancel the (College) World Series, the Final Four, the soccer tournament," he said. "If you want to do it, it can be done. ...

"Everybody's going to be sitting here - I don't know, probably not in my lifetime at Florida State - saying, 'You know, we really could move this back. And, by the way, we do play 63 baseball games and we play baseball through two final-exam periods, not one. Somehow, they all seem to graduate and do pretty good. Oh, those basketball players, we have a real problems with academics in basketball, but we seem to play right on through the tournament.'"

Once the problems are solved and the "ungodly amount of money that it will produce" starts rolling in, Wetherell expects everyone decide it's a good thing and want more of it.
"It'll start off with plus-one, then it'll go to four or eight or 16 at some point in time - just like the NCAA (basketball) tournament," he said.


Commissioners from the Bowl Championship Series leagues, plus White, met in Florida two weeks ago and opted to keep their national champion format the same at least until the 2014 season. In doing so, they rejected the plus-one model, which essentially is a four-team playoff. The No. 1 team would face No. 4 and Nos. 2 and 3 would meet, then both winners would square off in a championship game.


Only the Southeastern Conference - whose commissioner, Mike Slive, presented the plus-one plan - and the Atlantic Coast Conference, which includes Florida State, even wanted to keep talking about the new format.


According to Wetherell, schools are happy to stick with the status quo because budgets are padded with money from the 12th game, which was added for the 2006 season.
"We'll spend all that money. We're not going to bank it," Wetherell said. "Then the question will be, 'Where do I get me more money?'"

A playoff will be the logical alternative, Wetherell said.

"And the fight won't be over whether we do it or not anymore," he said during a break following the session. "The fight's going to be on the split. It's going to be a totally different discussion."

Wetherell, who played receiver at Florida State in the 1960s with Bobby Bowden as his position coach, closed his remarks with this prediction: "Now, I don't think it's going to happen this year or next year or whenever. But it is going to happen. No doubt about it."
_______________________________________
http://www.cstv.com/sports/m-footbl/stories/043008aam.html#
Let's Talk This Over
Open discussions needed on plus-one model and potential playoff
April 30, 2008
By Trev Alberts
Special to CSTV.com

Aaron Deslatte adroitly zeroes in on CSX and trial lawyers

There's not much that I can add to this excellent Central Florida Political Pulse blog post and Orlando Sentinel post mortem from Aaron Deslatte on the political aftermath of the Central Florida commuter rail imbroglio, other than that based on what I've read in the Orlando and Tampa Bay newspapers and blogs, there were a lot of supporters of the Central FL commuter train who wondered why there was, apparently, so little discussion among Florida Democratic legislators of pursuing the Amtrak angle months ago.
You know, a credible Plan B?
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http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/

Central Florida Political Pulse
Trial lawyers and the CSX saga revisited
posted by Aaron Deslatte on May 20, 2008

When Sen. Paula Dockery needed friends to help derail Central Florida's commuter-rail deal, she did something once unthinkable for a Republican legislator: She appealed to the state's trial lawyers.

Dockery was up against a political dream team. Central Florida supporters of commuter rail and Jacksonville-based CSX Corp. had public-relations firms in Tallahassee, Orlando and Tampa. The city of Orlando employed uber-lobbyists Southern Strategy Group.
And two powerful legislators -- Senate Majority Leader Daniel Webster of Winter Garden and Rep. Dean Cannon of Winter Park, in line to be speaker in 2010 -- were leading the charge.

"I couldn't fight them all off. They were attacking from every single angle," said Dockery, who opposed the deal because it meant more freight trains running through her home city of Lakeland.

So Dockery seized on a little-noticed element of the $650 million deal...

For the rest of this story go to:
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/2008/05/trial-lawyers-a.html
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More from Deslatte on the above story along with some great graphics -and reporting of the sort that you never saw on this issue on local South Florida TV:


SPECIAL REPORT
Cash & Threats: How trial lawyers wielded new power to help block commuter rail at http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/state/orl-csx2008may20,0,1130274.story


Prior Orlando Sentinel stories on the Central Florida commuter rail plan are at: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/state/orl-commuterrail-sg,0,3785419.storygallery
and well worth checking out if you're at all interested in mass transit in Florida. _______________________________________
Also see this story on the SFECC:
http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2008/apr/19/30gttreasure-coast-planners-hoping-to-draw-rail/?feedback=1#comments
Treasure Coast planners all aboard plan to draw passenger train service
By Derek Simmonsen
April 19, 2008

Good news re signature petitions, Florida Hometown Democracy

Just received some good news this morning from the Central Florida Political Pulse blog of the Orlando Sentinel about a subject I wrote about a while back: petition gathering and the effort by some in Tallahassee to make that even harder.

I later found similar stories in the Herald and Sun-Sentinel, but as usual, Aaron Deslatte had more context.

In the next few days, I'll be posting some thoughts and observations on that Broward County Charter Review Commission meeting I attended two weeks ago, especially on the MTA proposal, which I spoke in favor of, recounting some anecdotes about Broward transportation
you really need to know about.

I'll also connect-the-dots on the City of Hallandale Beach's effort to prevent the proposal's adoption by the 19-member panel.

Trust me, it's more of the same classic "Only in Hallandale Beach" moments you've come to expect from the crowd at 400 S. Federal Highway, Hallandale Beach 33009.
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http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/2008/04/hometown-democr.html

Hometown Democracy wins a court victory
posted by Aaron Deslatte on Apr 23, 2008 10:56:29 AM

In the lingering legal fight between Hometown Democracy and the business lobby, the anti-sprawl Hometown crew finally notched a win Wednesday when the 1st District Court of Appeal ruled that a signature-petition revocation law the Legislature passed last year was unconstitutional.

After the law passed, Associated Industries of Florida formed a group called Save Our Constitution that targeted thousands of voters who signed Hometown's slow-growth amendment with mailers, asking them to revoke their support with claims that it would destroy the state's "scenic beauty."...

Go to the URL above to see the entire story and the court ruling in a pdf. format.

Reader comments are at:
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/2008/04/hometown-democr.html#comments
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http://www.miamiherald.com/775/story/506679.html
Miami Herald
State appeals court rules in favor of citizens group
April 23, 2008

An appeals court says it is unconstitutional to revoke signatures on petitions to get citizen initiatives on the ballot. The 1st District Court of Appeal decision Wednesday in Tallahassee reversed a lower court ruling. The higher court supported so-called Hometown Democracy proponents.
They seek voter approval for changes to plans laying out where new roads, homes, businesses and other development can be built. The decision rejects efforts by the Legislature and the Florida Chamber of Commerce, who have backed several new laws in recent years making it more difficult to pass initiatives. They contend such moves could limit growth and the state's economy.
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A week earlier, the Sun-Sentinel was reporting:

www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/florida/sfl-flfxgr0416sbapr16,0,6475734.story
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Legislation limiting citizen initiatives advances in House
The Associated Press
April 16, 2008

TALLAHASSEE
A bill that could make it harder for citizens to change the Florida Constitution using petitions has won approval from a House panel.

The bill does that in part by reducing the time signatures are valid for — two years instead of four. Also, cards with the signatures would have to be turned in within 60 days after they are signed. Right now, there is no time limit.

Gov. Charlie Crist last year vetoed a bill that would have required signatures to be turned in 30 days.

Another provision would require criminal background checks for people who get paid to collect signatures.

The bill's opponents, including Common Cause, labor unions and the League of Women Voters, argue that background checks, which can cost up to $85, and other provisions are designed to prevent average citizens from having a voice in government.

Only the wealthy and powerful would be able to afford to sponsor a petition drive, they contended.

Chamber of Commerce lobbyist Adam Babbington said background checks would enhance public safety because "this is an industry that operates in the shadows by and large."

The Chamber supports making it harder to amend the constitution.

Sen. Larcenia Bullard, D-Miami, was hoping for a rare sweet moment Tuesday in the largely bleak legislative session when she served Key lime pie at the Capitol.

"I hope it helps sweeten up the bitter session," said Bullard, who tasted one of the scores of pies available.

"Let people feel good about something."

Across Capitol meeting rooms, firefighters, corrections officers and social workers were tracking down lawmakers in efforts to save jobs and health care for thousands of children.

Lawmakers are poring over budgets passed by the House and Senate and trying to come to agreements over cuts.

"We see all these people leave here feeling so out of sorts, hopeless, like nothing's going to happen," Bullard said.

"The Key lime, I thought, would be perfect to take their minds away from that for the moment."

Reader comments are at:
http://www.topix.net/forum/source/south-florida-sun-sentinel/TL9MA357DKHND42EC
__________________________________________________________________ Below are some excerpts from some older germane links about this subject.

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/2008/04/senate-election.html

Senate elections panel tries to undo petition-gathering ruling
posted by Aaron Deslatte on Apr 1, 2008 2:02:54 PM

A Florida Senate panel advanced a package of election-law changes Tuesday that critics said was an attempt to undermine a recent court ruling against the state regarding the way signature-petitions are gathered.

An administrative law judge in late February ruled the state Division of Elections had overstepped its authority when it tried to ban signature groups from "bundling" multiple signature-petitions together when they're presented to voters to sign.

A group called FairDistrictsFlorida.org, which is trying to make it harder for Florida lawmakers to gerrymander their legislative districts, had been circulating several petitions related to its drive to place the re-districting issue on the 2010 ballot...
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http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/2008/04/booker-and-dorw.html

Bucher and Dorworth get a timeout
posted by Aaron Deslatte on Apr 1, 2008 4:46:36 PM

In the middle of a hearing over his bill restricting the rights of felons to work as paid signature-gatherers, freshman Rep. Chris Dorworth, R-Lake Mary, was getting a grilling by veteran Democratic Rep. Susan Bucher.

The bill, a priority for business groups this year, would also require paid signature-gathers be Florida residents and cleared a Senate panel earlier in the day. But Bucher, D-West Palm Beach, wanted to know how the Department of State was supposed to police thousands of signature-gatherers across the state, who would be required to register with the state under the bill.

Dorworth said he didn't know, then told the panel he was sick, had been curled up in a ball just before the House Economic Development and Infrastructure Council meeting had started, and had been heavily medicated. "Forgive me if I pass out," he said...

This is the one from one of my other daily must-read's, the St. Petersburg Times' political blog, The Buzz. Go to the URL to see the reader comments, as they're 100% spot-on!

http://blogs.tampabay.com/buzz/2008/04/targeting-paid.html
April 01, 2008
Targeting paid petition-gatherers

Mindful of Florida Hometown Democracy's near-miss in its slow-growth ballot initiative, business groups and their legislative allies have a new idea.

They want to require all paid initiative petition signature gatherers to pay a fee, register with the state and be assigned a registration number to appear on petition forms (volunteers would not be affected)....

Der Spiegel's weird take on PA's blue-collar voters and their attitudes

I greatly enjoy reading Der Spiegel, http://www.spiegel.de/international/ but I wanted to point out two odd things I noticed about this particular column, which I received today.

While the latter part of this sounds a lot like one of those problem columns for Stephen Glass at The New Republic, especially the description of the language used by the country club set, the crazy part is the description of a resident who filled the reporter's head and notebook with adjectives and anecdotes:
An aging provincial Lothario, wearing sweatpants, a T-shirt and a baseball cap over his unkempt hair, he isn't exactly thrilled about the selection.

I don't even think the New York Times begins descriptions of people as "aging Lotharios," much less, as an "aging provincial Lothario," unless they're old film actors.
And in The Times Magazine, not the paper.
Well, so far, anyway.

Perhaps I'm wrong here, but from a distance, it reads like the reporter latched onto an obliging PA voter thru which she could write a column full of the very sort of condescending stereotypes that Barack Obama has been found guilty of uttering.

Not surrogates.

Almost as if she felt it was her duty to say, people of San Francisco, I've found one of those people Obama was talking about.

Judge for yourself below.

German language version of Der Spiegel is at: http://www.spiegel.de/
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http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,547227,00.html
SPIEGEL ONLINE
04/14/2008 01:24 PM
RACE IN THE RACE
Blue-Collar Distrust of Obama in the Rust Belt
By Cordula Meyer in Reading, Pennsylvania

Google's attempt at April Fools Day joke -sending email back in time

Noticed this item at the top of my Gmail header this morning, New! Gmail Custom Time, and clicked, leading me here: http://mail.google.com/mail/help/customtime/index.html

Perhaps South Beach Hoosier should send an email or two to himself in the past about the following:

1. $50 bet on Dolphins-49ers game in 1985 Super Bowl not so smart.
See http://www.nfl.com/superbowl/history/recap/sbxix?campaign=gsi_g

2. Need to advise longtime SBH favorite Winona to curb her klepto ways, esp, in BevHills, lest she overnight become yesterday's news.
See http://www.courttv.com/trials/ryder/

3. Put money where my mouth was in picking Marlins over Yankees in 6 games even before their NLCS victory over Cubs.
See http://www.baseball-almanac.com/ws/yr2003ws.shtml

4. Really should invest my tiny fortune in Google IPO.
See http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0405/21/ltm.01.html

5. Predict that Shakespeare in Love to beat Saving Private Ryan for Oscar's Best Picture.
See http://everythingoscarblogger.blogspot.com/2007/11/youtube-clip-of-week-shakespeare-in.html and http://www.variety.com/profiles/Film/main/30635/Shakespeare+in+Love.html?dataSet=1 and http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138097/

6. Predict that an obscure former Illinois State Senator to run even-to-slight ahead of Hillary Clinton in 2008 Dem prez nomination thru April.

7. Predict N.Y. Giants will end Pats unbeaten streak in Super Bowl.
Perfectville Population: Still 1.
See http://www.rbk.com/us/perfectville/ and http://www.patriots.com/search/index.cfm?ac=searchdetail&pid=30824&pcid=41 and http://www.babalublog.com/archives/007293.html

8. Contact FAA, warn that many passengers of Oceanic Airlines flight 815, non-stop Sydney-Los Angeles, are still alive on South Pacific island beset by strange magnetic fluctuations.
Please send help!
See http://www.oceanicflight815.com/

Janine Turner on C-SPAN 2's Book TV, Sun., Mon. & 4/6

In looking at the C-SPAN 2's Book TV email I always get at the end of the week, South Beach Hoosier was delighted to see that longtime SBH favorite, Janine Turner, was slated to appear on Book TV over the weekend speaking about her new book:
Holding Her Head High: 12 Single Mothers Who Championed Their Children and Changed History
http://www.booktv.org/program.aspx?ProgramId=9197&SectionName=&PlayMedia=No

Not that it's either here or there, but Janine was one of the original SBH favorites, too.

In fact, once I made the decision to start this blog early last year, I knew that one of the links I'd absolutely have to have here would be one to Janine's website http://janineturner.com/ , so that others could keep abreast with what was going on with her entertainment career and busy life.


For instance, her recent appointment by President Bush to the President's Council on Service and Civic Participation, which I think speaks greatly to her desire to share her time and energy -and to get others to do the same!

The Council is a great initiative out of of the USA Freedom Corps, which SBH and some of his Washington friends heard quite a lot about in its infancy, due to the hard work and diligence of some other friends who were active with the Corps. http://www.usafreedomcorps.gov/

As to the appearance on Book TV, Janine's interview segment is approx. 40 minutes long, though in the official C-SPAN schedule, it reads as an hour, so be prepared if you're taping her appearance.

The last time I saw Janine on TV was on March 2nd on FOX News Channel's Hannity's America, with Sean Hannity, whose nationally syndicated radio show I usually hear the first hour of when it's broadcast -on delay- locally on WIOD 610-AM.



(On the chance that you didn't know it, WIOD originally had their HQ in the Miami Freedom Tower on Biscayne Blvd., when that building was also the home of the much-missed defunct Miami News.)

Hannity's America, well, I've only watched that a handful of times, largely because on Sunday afternoons, I'm usually either watching sports or movies -or out of the house entirely.




Transcript from her January 18, 2007 appearance on FNC's Hannity & Colmes:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,244893,00.html

Other TV appearances: http://www.truveo.com/search.php?query=Janine+Turner&uqs=

As much as I'd like to say that my catching Janine that afternoon was planned, the truth of the matter is that is was entirely fortuitous, but happily so.

I'd just gotten back from the beach after having watched the IU-Michigan State basketball game earlier in the afternoon.

My usual Sunday afternoon beach routine -when it's not raining- consists of reading all my out-of-town Sunday newspapers over there, occasionally jotting down some thoughts or ideas in my notepad, which can, hopefully, translate into something interesting and insightful here at SBH, or over at Hallandale Beach Blog.

I also half-listen to callers to WQAM's various sports talk hosts, opining on why the Dolphins need to select player X,Y or Z in the upcoming NFL draft, exactly four weeks from now.

(Naturally, these callers are invariably wrong in almost every respect, especially the ones who drone on and on about 'trading down' without ever identifying the parameters of that deal.
The only acceptable choices from SBH's p.o.v. are Arkansas RB Darren McFadden, whom I've written about twice before in this space, or, assuming you want to pass on what could very well be, per Sports Illustrated's August 20th issue, the "next Eric Dickerson," select star UVA defensive lineman and chip-off-the superstar block, Chris Long, who has shown a consistency of work ethic and accomplishment the last few years that few of the other likely top draftees can come close to, regardless of position. These two players I can live with.)

After plopping myself on my couch, I flipped thru Direct TV's channel guide 'til I got to Channel 360, FOX News Channel.

And the rest is 'her story.'

I absolutely adore Janine Turner and only wish that more contemporary American actors were as grounded and level-headed as she was.

Someone who clearly enjoys the opportunities her talent and career afford her, but someone not content to simply go from project to project thinking that acting is the only thing she can contribute to the country and the world.

Suffice to say that for myriad reasons too numerous to enumerate here, but some of which involve her made the move to Texas, and continuing to contribute, locally and nationally, any time Janine Turner is on the big screen or the tube, I'm there!

Below, Book TV's description of her appearance.
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Janine Turner, Holding Her Head High: 12 Single Mothers Who Championed Their Children and Changed History

Actress Janine Turner talks about the contributions that single mothers have made to our society. This talk was co-hosted by the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute and the Heritage Foundation.(Sunday 11 AM and 7 PM, Monday 6:15 AM ET)

Ex-Bill & Hurricanes star Jim Kelly to consider run for Congress?

A friend in DC gave me a head's up about this and I thought I'd share it with you.

The New Republic's The Plank blog post speaks for itself, while the comments to it, to my eyes at least, read like they're largely from people who are unfamiliar with the particulars of the C.D. (congressional district), since everyone who knows anything about that area knows how much people up there revere Jim Kelly.

Athletes in other cities who've been elected to Congress -Steve Largent, Jim Ryun, et al- while popular in their own right, have nothing like the reservoir of goodwill that Kelly enjoys, witness the amazing display of support and affection for him in 2002 when he was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame.
See http://www.jimkelly.com/ , http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/features/the100?index=68
and http://www.profootballhof.com/hof/member.jsp?player_id=112

At the Arlington,VA townhouse I lived in from 1996-2003, I had a really wonderful housemate from the Buffalo area who was a devout Buffalo Bills fan, as well as a very knowledgeable source of info about pop culture and the Lively Arts, particularly ballet and classical music.

As I recall it, her bedroom had two walls that I remember in particular because of the way she showed off two of her deepest passions.

One was a veritable Buffalo Bills shrine, complete with boxes of Flutie Flakes and 1,001 other Bills-related things, from the funny to the banal, but all quite recognizable to a devout Dolphins fan like South Beach Hoosier, since I'd had or seen the same things in aqua and orange before.

(When she came by to look at the place for the first time after having seen my ad, I knew she and I would hit it off when I asked her whether everyone in Buffalo was still "Talking Proud," and she laughed.
Then I told her that the first Dolphin game I ever attended was a 45-3 win over the Bills at the Orange Bowl, which propelled the Dolphins into the playoffs for the first time in franchise history.
But then she came back at me right away with something along the lines of "been a couple of years in between Super Bowl trips, though, eh?"
The Bills playing in four Super Bowl games in a row sort of hammered that point home.
http://www.winkandthegun.com/archive/august/5.html )

Every time I saw her collection of ephemera, it made me smile and laugh, recognizing that I'd had something just like that while I was living in Blooomington and later in Evanston/Wilmette, dedicated to the Dolphins, Hurricanes and Hoosiers.

Another wall had a bookshelf full of just about every book you'd ever heard of or would expect to find in the Library of Congress on the subject of ballet, especially bios of the usual suspects, with ballet slippers, trophies and ribbons on top.

When she first moved in, one of the more regular topics we discussed was one that bridged our political differences and united our common love of the NFL was the future of Jack Kemp, the former Bills QB turned politician.

When I first moved to the D.C. area in 1988, Kemp's congressional office in the Rayburn Bldg., the largest of the House office buildings, was near many of the congressional offices that I had regular business with.

Much like Tom Ridge's congressional office in the years before he became governor of Pennsylvania, Kemp's staff was always among the friendliest and most professional of the ones I dealt with.

Lots of very grounded people who were very dedicated to their work and to their boss, unlike the absurd way congressional offices are always portrayed in films or TV as full of psychopaths and folks continually on the make.

Kemp's office, owing to his great fame and constant media attention at the time, was constantly abuzz with all sorts of activity, as people visiting Washington, constituents and non-constituents alike, just walking down the hallway, would spot his nameplate near the door, pop their head in and wander on in.
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March 24, 2008
Is Scott Norwood Not Available?
By Josh Patashnik

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2008/03/24/was-scott-norwood-not-available.aspx#comments

24.03.2008
Is Scott Norwood Not Available?