Watch the Dome Collapse!

Watch the Metrodome collapse from heavy snow. . .

The Race For the Heisman is Over

Over. Fin. The End. "That's all Folks!"

The Race for the Heisman Trophy was decided this weekend. Denard Robinson sewed it up nice and good, and it's all over except for the faux anticipation and deciding which two players should sit next to Robinson in New York. (One assumes that 'Bama's Mark Ingram will be called back to NYC.)

One might seriously question calling the race at this point; such an argument would be legitimate. But, barring injury, it's going to be wrong.

On Saturday, Robinson led his 5-0 Wolverines on a game winning drive over 73 yards in a mere 1:08. He accounted for every one of Michigan's yards on the drive, completing his only pass for 42 yards and running for the other 31. This was on the road. Against a Big Eleven opponent.

Moreover, this wasn't his first such drive of the year. At arch rival Notre Dame earlier this season, "Shoelaces" (so-called because he doesn't tie them, even when he plays) led the Maize and Blue on a 72 yard drive, again accounting for every inch of yardage that the Wolverines needed for victory. In that game, Robinson completed 5 of 6 passes for 63 yards and scampered into the endzone with the game winning TD with 0:27 on the clock.

Two game winning TD drives. On the Road. In Five Games. Not bad. Yet, his stats are even more impressive than his clutch play.

As a runner, Robinson has been unstoppable. He leads the nation (read again if you didn't get it the first time) with 905 rushing yards and 9 Touchdowns. He already has scoring runs of 87 and 72 yards and he's averaging over 9 yards per carry.

Further, if it's possible, he's been even better as a passer than a runner. He has completed 70% of his passes for 1008 yards, 7 TDs and only 1 INT. This isn't a Gino Torretta offense either; Robinson is averaging 10.5 yards per attempt. Oh, he is also third in the country with a passer rating of 180.0.

Put together, Robinson has accounted for over 1900 yards of offense by himself. That's more than 81 TEAM'S in D-1A (67%).

Of course, there is still 1/2 a season to play and as Michigan's competition gets stiffer, the numbers won't be as gaudy. But, it must be remembered that all of Robinson's competition for the sport's most prized trophy will also be playing conference foes the rest of the way. Moreover, nothing to this point in Robinson's game has showed signs that he will soon be slowing down.

The only sad thing is that Robinson's numbers could be even better. After all, his stats were only so-so (by his standards) against Bowling Green. He was 4/4 for 60 yards passing, and had 5 carries for 129 yards and 2 Touchdowns. In the games FIRST NINE MINUTES. Then he got hurt and had to leave the game. He was on pace to gain 1260 yards by himself. And I don't doubt he could've almost gotten there, considering Michigan totaled about 300 yards in his absence.

Feel free to doubt my conclusion now. But when he strikes "the pose" in New York City this December, don't say I didn't call it.

Edited to Add: Robinson is the first player in NCAA history to have two games in one season in which he passed for over 200 yards and rushed for 200 yards.

Official 2010 Football Predictions

AFC Championship: Steelers 23, Colts 21

The Steelers are coming off of a 9-7 season that was played without Troy Polamalu. This season they return without their starting QB, Big "Medium-Sized" Ben Roethlisberger, for the first handful of games. They also return Antwan Randle-El to the team after a brief stint in Washington. He will join Hines Ward and Mike Wallace to form a solid receiving corps. Rashard Mendenhall was much better than expected last year and should provide the perfect run/pass balance that Steelers fans have come to expect. On the opposite side of the ball the vaunted 3-4 will be back in full effect with pro-bowlers featured in both the 3 and the 4. With the return of Polamalu, the Steelers have essentially the exact same defense as they did in 2008, which gave them the #1 ranking. I expect the Steelers to go 1-3 before Roethlisberger returns to lead them on a 9-3 flurry to close the season and his fresh legs and rested arm drag them to Dallas.


The Colts are a machine, with Payton Manning running the show and the emergence of Pierre Garcon, I expect their offense to operate as efficiently as it did last year. On defense they should be Super Bowl-caliber again, with no major off-season departures. Only the enevitable decline of Reggie Wayne and a bit of an uncertainty in the offensive line prevents this team from returning to the Super Bowl.

NFC Championship: Falcons 28, Packers 13

This is the year that Aaron Rodgers finally puts it all together. The Packers figure to field one of the league's most explosive offenses this season, thanks to Rodgers, talented receivers and coach Mike McCarthy's ability to push the envelope, exploit matchups and usually run a step ahead of opponents. On defense I see this unit gelling together to really become a force in the NFC North. With their ability to stop the run, and teams like the Bears, Lions and Vikings entering the season with significant questions at receiver, I see the Packers defense really playing a pivotal role this year. The problem for the Pack is that their schedule isn't favorable enough for them to get home field advantage, and I don't like the prospect of them playing in Atlanta in late January.

BCS Championship: Alabama 34, Navy 7

Yes, I get that having Navy in the national championship game looks crazy. But hear me out. The Midshipmen will be favored in every game except Notre Dame. Even though Army should be much, much better, closing out with Central Michigan, Arkansas State, and Army is a fantastically favorable end to the season. If they can get past Maryland and Notre Dame ... we are looking at an undefeated Navy. Would that put them in the title game? You can be sure that John McCain and Rodger Staubach will do everything in their power to make sure that a few computers don't prevent a service academy from playing for the title. Last year there were losses to Hawaii and Temple that should’ve been layups. Two years ago there was a loss to the FCS’s Delaware, in 2004 there was a clunker against Tulane, and in 2003 it was Delaware. This year, the team is so much better that there is really no team they should lose to.

As for Alabama, the offense will be unstoppable from start to finish, Mark Ingram will rush for 1,200 yards, Trent Richardson will rush for more than 1,000 yards, Greg McElroy will become Alabama's first 3,000-yard passer, and Julio Jones will smash Alabama's single-season record for catches. I understand that the non-conference schedule includes a difficult challenge—a September 11th home date with Penn State, plus Florida and travels to Tennessee and LSU in back-to-back games. But the Crimson Tide’s did more than re-load when it pulled in a recruiting class that is one of the best in the nation, highlighted by defensive back commitments Keenan Allen and DeMarcus Milliner.

SuperBowl XLV: Falcons 14, Steelers 3

The division that Atlanta is faced with this year shouldn't be all that difficult to finish in the top half of. The Falcons went 11-5 in 2008 and while they took a step back last year, with Michael Turner injured, they still finished with a respectable 9-7 record. QB Matt Ryan should have a huge year, and with Turner back, expect to see the Falcons offense firing on all cylinders. All signs point to DE John Abraham having a huge bounce back campaign after a down season last year. Between his new offseason workouts and training regimen, he should look more like he did in 2008 than he did in 2009. That will make a monumental difference up front. Although on paper the Falcons look to have a tough early schedule, Pittsburgh will be without Big Ben, and Philly no longer has McNabb. It is after the Week 8 bye that Atlanta really needs to make its move, as three home games accompany road games against St. Louis, Carolina, Tampa Bay, and Seattle. Expect this team to ride an 8 game win streak into the playoffs and with the best record in the NFC expect them to have home field throughout.

Honorable Mention: Minnesota Vikings 8-8, Brett Favre throws 30 interceptions

Three books about education reform

This past weekend my mom sends me an e-mail with a link to this article:http://tinyurl.com/2fhbo89, and the comment, "Did you see this?"

Now, I have to start this post by saying I love my mom. I really do. She is great. But, I often worry that either a) she does not really understand what her son does; b) she has started to "lose it" as she gets on in her years; or, most likely, c) as my older brother would say, "she's just tryin' to start stuff."

The article, from the Washington Post and called "Three books about education" basically tries to paint President Obama's education reform agenda as a power-grab disguised as part of a stimulus package. This, of course, is true. Everyone knows this. I don't get why she's actin' surprised. Second, she claims that Obama's Race to the Top winners are those that are willing to adopt the most radical of reform packages. She claims that the states that won the competition are those that are willing to "privatize education, pick on the poor teachers, and tear-down the beacon of American hopes and dreams: the neighborhood school" (my translation).

Finally, she shares three books that SHE thinks we should look to when engaging in the national discussion on education reform.

I laughed. Then I cried a little bit. Then I sent my mom the following e-mail:

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

From: Daniel

Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 2010 7:33 PM

To: karen.smith@

Subject: RE: A washingtonpost.com article from: karen.smith@

Hi Mom!

Thanks for sending this along. I hadn't seen it, but given it's union/higher ed slant I'm not surprised that it hasn't made its way around the Teach For America network. :)

I think Ravitch makes some decent points, but they are supported by such strong union buffs that it's hard for me to give it much credence. Linda Darling-Hammond, of course, is one of the single biggest adversaries of Teach For America and has been for a long time. I don't give her much credence. Here are the two things I know about LDH:

1. About 10 years ago she released a crack-pot study done on Teach For America that used sample sizes as small as 2 or 3 corps members, was never peer-reviewed before being published, and conflated the difference between teacher certification and teacher experience. The Education Journal Education Next did a survey of the studies about TFA. In terms of quality LDH's study received a "C": http://www.teachforamerica.org/about/research.htm#card

2. LDH and her crony friends at Stanford's School of Education believed that they could "do it better" than KIPP and Teach For America, so they started their own charter school. Like Ravitch says in her article, they did not track student achievement (as supposedly Finland does not) and didn't really hold very high expectations for their students. I'm guessing she used some of these "flat-world education strategies" written about in her book. Last year, that school was placed on the state's list of "persistently lowest-achieving schools" and was denied a 5-year extension of its charters because upon review, no one could tell that any real learning had gone on there. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/16/education/16sfcharter.html

I don't know much about Veltri, but the title of her book is both incendiary and silly. While our teachers certainly DO learn on the job, its clear that students learn from our teachers. Any good study done on TFA shows that.

In fact, The University of North Carolina recently completed a study of pathways into teaching in North Carolina. The objective was to better understand the effects on student achievement of graduates of the UNC teacher-preparation system—which is the leading provider of teachers in the state—compared with teachers from other pathways, including Teach For America. At every grade level and subject studied, Teach For America corps members did as well as or better than the traditionally prepared UNC graduates. Teach For America corps members had a greater impact on student achievement than traditionally prepared UNC graduates in middle school math and in high school math, science, and English. http://publicpolicy.unc.edu/?q=CIPP/Publications

The best argument seems to be that of Rothstein, because it's tough to argue that we don't want all of our kids getting a well-rounded education. At the same time, what good is it that our kids can sing, paint, draw, etc. if they can't decode words or do simple arithmetic? I think ALL of our kids should be exposed to a broad curriculum. Still, I want them to be able to read and write first.

I guess the most concerning thing about his book is that if you look at who writes the positive editorial reviews on the book, they're done by the former president of the country's largest teacher's union, the head of an organization that's set up to run colleges and universities of education in New England, a professor at the University of Michigan's School of Education (Susan B. Neuman), and Bella Rosenberg, a former secretary of Education but now serves as special advisor to Randi Weingarten who is the current president of the AFT. http://tinyurl.com/25jq4dh

Which, brings me back to my point that the article sounds like the typical propaganda spewed by the union and schools of education who, of course, are lovers of the status-quo (and think that the way things are are pretty good). http://tinyurl.com/qu6l9s

Diane Ravitch, of course, is a professor at a school of education. She has her own website and her curriculum vitae can be found here: www.dianeravitch.com/vita.html

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

About 30 seconds later I sent her this e-mail:

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

From: Daniel
Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 2010 7:34 PM
To: karen.smith@
Subject: RE: A washingtonpost.com article from: karen.smith@

Ps.

We should get together for dinner soon!

:)

Daniel

LeBron's Choice

Within the past few years, some of this country’s most popular athletes have been hit with allegations of dog-fighting, sexual impropriety, sordid affairs, and at least two instances of inappropriate behavior with handguns. It isn’t hard to sympathize with those who feel like the off-the-court world of professional sports makes being a fan nearly impossible.

So it should have come to as a pleasant surprise to even casual sports fans to learn that a superstar player decided to take less money and sacrifice individual glory in an attempt to win a championship, and that in announcing his decision to pursue this goal he created a special TV program that wound up generating millions of dollars he donated to the Boys & Girls Club.

Yet in doing so, LeBron James’s approval rating may have sunk 61%. Sadly, its quite clear that James was doomed all along. If he stayed with the Cavaliers, he would have been criticized for not singing sooner, for putting such a strain on the city and giving himself a built-in excuse for never winning a ring. (Also, since everyone says this was the wrong way to leave, will someone please explain to me the right way to leave your hometown team as a superstar athlete?) If he went to New York or New Jersey, it meant he cared more about money than winning. And as we’ve seen, joining Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami means James is somehow taking the easy way out.

As my college track teammate used to say, "don't hate the player, hate the game." And when the game is free agency, how can we hate LeBron?

On October 7, 1969, the Cardinals traded Flood, catcher Tim McCarver, outfielder Byron Browne, and left-handed pitcher Joe Hoerner to the Philadelphia Phillies for first baseman Dick Allen, second baseman Cookie Rojas, and right-handed pitcher Jerry Johnson. However, Flood refused to report to the moribund Phillies, citing the team's poor record and the fact that they played in dilapidated Connie Mack Stadium before belligerent – and, Flood believed, racist – fans. Flood, who began his career making only $17,000 was worth over $100,000 in the open market. That fall he wrote to the commissioner and the courts saying,

"I do not feel I am a piece of property to be bought and sold irrespective of my wishes. I believe that any system which produces that result violates my basic rights as a citizen and is inconsistent with the laws of the United States and of the several States."

Commissioner Bowie Kuhn denied his request, citing the propriety of the reserve clause and its inclusion in Flood's 1969 contract. In response, Flood filed a $1 million lawsuit (which would be automatically tripled under the Sherman Act) against Kuhn and Major League Baseball on January 16, 1970, alleging that Major League Baseball had violated federal antitrust laws.

On June 19, 1972, the United States Supreme Court in Flood v. Kuhn, 407 U.S. 258, (1972) ruled that the longstanding exemption of professional baseball from the antitrust laws, Federal Baseball Club v. National League, 259 U.S. 200, (1922); Toolson v. New York Yankees, Inc., 346 U.S. 356, (1953), was an established aberration, and in light of the Court's holding that other interstate professional sports are not similarly exempt, but one in which Congress has acquiesced, and that is entitled to the benefit of stare decisis. Removal of the resultant inconsistency at this late date is a matter for legislative, not judicial, resolution.

While Curt Flood fought hard to win his free agency, it wasn't until the first day of the 105th Congress in 1997 that Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-Michigan) introduced Baseball Fans and Communities Protection Act of 1997;numbered HR 21 (Flood's Cardinals uniform number) which removed baseball's controversial antitrust exemption with regards to labor. [Technically baseball got free agency in 1976, although the players were still suffering under the anti-trust exception for two more decades.]

Each of the major sports in the United States, have had various levels of free agency were introduced throughout their existence. In the National Football League (NFL) in 1992, in the National Hockey League (NHL) in 1995, and the National Basketball Association (NBA) in 1996. Although players can shop their services to all teams, free agents do not necessarily take the highest salary bid; compensating differentials, such as being close to home or having a chance to win a championship, might induce a player to accept a less than maximum bid for their services.

Ask the average fan, especially today, and he or she will likely cite reasons why free-agency is a bad thing for sports. While often the fan will point to a certain player leaving their favorite club, they may also point to the fact that certain work-stoppages such as the 1994 MLB player’s strike, the lockout of the NBA players in 1998, and the lockout in the NHL after the 2004 season, all had free agency as a primary point of contention.

While these concerns are often expressed in the general media and are often arguments for artificially limiting player movement in professional labor markets, sports economists have generally found that while salaries do increase after free agency is introduced, competitive balance tends to be unaffected, and no team in U.S. professional sports has ever been bankrupted by free agency. Further, while free agency does increase the incentive for good players to leave better teams for worse teams and for players to move from small cities to large cities, it does not seem that free agency has substantially increased the movement of players across time. Finally, concerns over fan apathy are not supported in the aggregate: free agency does not reduce attendance or television viewership. The empirical evidence suggests that fears that free agency will increase player mobility, skew competitive balance, and reduce the attractiveness of the sport, relative to no-free agency, seem to be misplaced. (see Cymrot, D. J. (1983) “Migration Trends and Earnings of Free Agents in Major League Baseball, 1976-1979,” Economic Inquiry, 21(4), pp. 545-556.)

Were we in a pre-free agency period, for example in the days of Oscar Robertson a player was drafted territorily and was bound a player to a single NBA team in perpetuity. LeBron would have been committed to Cleveland forever. Not such a bad thing? What would their motivation be to put good teammates on the team? Why would they build him a new stadium? Why would they promote him at all?

Nearly every employee in America is at-will to the extent that they can leave the company they work for and choose to work for another corporation. Some employees in intellectual property-specific industries are constrained by non-compete clauses, but most of us can simply decide to go work for someone else. Not LeBron James. Because of the salary-cap structure in the NBA, LeBron will get only two or three opportunities to switch companies and negotiate his worth. Of those two or three, this is the one time that his value is probably the highest. This is probably the most important decision of LeBron James’ life, and he should get the chance to make it based on whatever set of criteria he so chooses.

As much as I feel for the people of Cleveland, they don’t automatically get to be part of the choice. It came off poorly, but I agreed with James when he said he had to make the best decision for himself. Would you stay at a job you hated for years just because you felt it wasn’t right to leave your co-workers?

Yes, I realize people will feel that this was all too "scripted." But a review of the facts suggests otherwise. No one would script a situation where they leave $150 million on the table. No one would let a "camp policy" make them look like a sore loser after being dunked on (when he simply played good help-side defense). Having Jim Grey wouldn't have been my choice for host, but apparently it was the brain-child of ESPN and Jim Grey in the first place. And who would you have chosen, Craig Sagerr? Stephen A. Smith? And how would you have done this special if you were trying to ensure that the Boys and Girls Club of America would receive the most money? Would you bring sponsors in, like State Farm and Vitamin Water? Of course you would.

Sure, he should've "scripted" a better response than using the term "South Beach" and sure, he should've "scripted" a better answer than one in which he referred to himself in the third-person, but for heavens sakes, he's not Prof. James at Cleveland State he's a freaking ballplayer. I mean if you are going to nitpick about the third person (which is as much a part of the spoken word of professional athletes as his other impediment "ax" in place of "ask" is a common impediment in the African-American community). He has no college education! And guess what, he speaks better than a whole heckuva lot of University of Wisconsin graduates.

You may be mad that he didn't pick Cleveland or whatever city you were pulling for, and you certainly might be mad at him for hiring a bad PR staff (although I think its neat that his team his all of his friends from Akron), but to lose respect for him at a time when he makes one of the toughest decisions any American employee can make? That's just jealousy. That's all.

EDITED TO ADD THIS (from Simmons):

I blame the people around him. I blame the lack of a father figure in his life. I blame us for feeding his narcissism to the point that he referred to himself in the third person five times in 45 minutes. I blame local and national writers (including myself) for apparently not doing a good enough job explaining to athletes like LeBron what sports mean to us, and how it IS a marriage, for better and worse, and that we're much more attached to these players and teams than they realize. I blame David Stern for not throwing his body in front of that show. I blame everyone.

We are already fools for caring about athletes considerably more than they care about us. We know this, and we do it anyway. We just like sports. We keep watching for moments like Donovan's goal against Algeria, and we keep caring through thick and thin for moments like Roberts' Steal and Tracy Porter's interception. We put up with all the sobering stuff because that's the price you pay -- for every Gordon Hayward half-court shot, or USA-Canada gold-medal game, there are 20 Michael Vicks and Ben Roethlisbergers.

This Week's Sign of the Apocalypse?

The front page from Chciago Tribune's website, Monday morning June 28, 2010:

NCAA Gets it Right

The NCAA finally did something right.

After spending the past month making it sound like a sure thing that the Men's NCAA tournament would expand to 80 or 96 teams, the NCAA has settled on a 3-team expansion of the tournament to 68 teams.

The expansion comes as part of a new $10.8 billion broadcasting deal with CBS and Turner Broadcasting.

The second most exciting development is that--for the first time in the history of the tournament--every single game will be shown live on non-satellite television. Because the TV deal includes the Turner family, every game next March will be shown live -- on CBS, TBS, TNT or truTV.

From ESPN:

Next year, everything through the second round will be shown nationally on the four networks. CBS and Turner will split coverage of the regional semifinal games, while CBS will retain sole coverage of the regional finals, the Final Four and the championship game through 2015.

Read more at: http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=5125307