Butch-slapped

From: martysworldofsports.blogspot.com


The other shoe finally dropped on UNC this week. The firing of Butch Davis on Tuesday, and the resignation of athletic director Dick Baddour on Thursday has left UNC's football program, if not the athletic department, in shambles.

I, with the rest of the rest of sports fans of America, am stunned by the timing. The bad news has seemingly been unending since last summer, starting with an investigation into NFL prospect Marvin Austin's summer vacation, and then moving onto numerous players being declared ineligible, an assistant coach with a checkered past, a running back that switches license plates to avoid parking tickets and a plagarism/honor court scandal that degrades the academic institution of the school. There was easily enough stuff going on between July '10 and December of that year for the university to fire Davis.

What does it mean that the school waited until after the ACC media days and eight days prior to fall practice? Surely the AD and president knew the timing of Davis' firing was beyond horrible. It makes me think that either there's more damaging information out there that has yet to be released, or some of the big-money boosters finally had enough.

Another thing about this situation that makes me scratch my head: the reactions of the incoming freshmen. These are recently-graduated high schoolers who committed on National Signing Day to UNC, despite the program being investigated since the beginning of these students' senior years. One father said that they trusted the coaches when they said the worst of the storm was blowing over. Wait, what? Of course they're going to tell you that! Wake up!

Going to Summer Conference

From: greensborodailyphoto.com


Every year, our state CTE office holds a summer conference, which is only one county over from me. It's convenient to get to, and I pick up lots of good information every year. Plus, I've got to present my own stuff a couple of times.

After I finished my first year of teaching, a few of my colleagues talked about skipping the conference. In fact, I think at least two of the people I worked with (since retired) didn't go for the three years we worked together.

Why?

The older teachers would tell me that the conference was good for me because there was a lot to learn. True dat. For themselves, however, they said the conference tended to repeat the same classes/sessions over and over, year to year.

If that's true, I haven't seen it in the four years I've been going. And even if that was the case, then it may be time to hop into some other sections. I've enjoyed jumping around from business to marketing to tech ed sessions--there's always some new software or technology that vendors show off; those are the most interesting sessions to me. And with the pilot courses and Revised Bloom's Taxonomy effect on classes, it tells me there's a lot of stuff to learn at summer conference, even for experienced teachers.

Moral of the story: go to your summer conference!

The 27 Club

Returning home from a night out, I caught the crawl on CNN about Amy Winehouse's death. It got me to thinking that there are different levels of surprise about a celebrity's death: Shocked!, Really?, That's Too Bad, [Person] Was Still Alive? and others.

Amy Winehouse's death falls into the category "Not Surprised." Given the video above (her last concert, in Belgrade), it was clear that whatever rehab program she was in was not working. Another sad case of a talented rocker/musician passing at the age of 27 (Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain).

Winehouse's talent and propensity to make appearances in the tabloids were well known. I've never understood the lure of illegal drubs--why not stick to alcohol? Anyway, for the pro-legalization crowd, is this what we want? People to have unfettered access to lethal drugs? Too many wasted lives already...

An End In Sight?

Got home from a swim meet to see that the NFL owners have agreed to end the lockout...although the players need to sign off on the owners' proposal in order to get back to work.

I'm glad to see the NFL get back to work. In today's economy, it's not good to a have a $9B business sitting on the sidelines, assuming the players agree to the proposal. I wonder if my students returning in August will even notice the NFL missed OTAs, rookie camps, etc. Even if they don't, it's definitely a topic that can be mined over and over again throughout the school year.

And if we can't use an NFL lockout as a current event, there's always the NBA...

Predictably Cheating

From: usoge.gov

I found this article in the Washington Post by Duke professor Dan Airely. He's a behavioral economist who wrote a fascinating book I recommend, Predictably Irrational. Today's article breaks down the consequences of paying/rewarding teachers based solely on test scores.

As always, the comments are interesting, especially the very first one (from the doctor)...

What's Next For Soccer?

Despite playing soccer during my formative years, I'm no great fan of the game. However, I will watch the World Cup if our boys (or girls) are involved.

So I caught the overtime and penalty kicks part of the Women's World Cup, where Japan defeated us after scoring an equalizer with under 10 minutes left in regulation and tying the game in the second OT. The Japanese squad went on to win in penalty kicks.

Two Thoughts
1) There are girls playing soccer all over the U.S, around 1 million participants; in Japan, only 25,000 girls play soccer. It's impressive that the Japanese national team can take a limited pool of athletes and turn them into world champs. I guess the equivalent for us would be if our curling team won the Olympic gold medal.

2) After the '99 World Cup win, there was nationwide enthusiasm about women's soccer, to the point that a women's soccer league was formed and had a national TV contract. Call it a wild hunch, but I get the feeling that this year's squad wouldn't attract the same amount of publicity/endorsements that the '99ers did. Maybe it's the Mia Hamm factor.

Big Advertising in the Big Apple

Photo by: me

My family recently returned from a trip to New York City, and the advertising, particularly around Times Square, always grabs my attention.

Why? I guess it's because so much of it is devoted to promoting TV shows and movies. At home, most billboards are advertising local stores or services. In New York, I saw a ton of ads for the last Harry Potter movie, as well as Rizzoli & Isles, Alphas, Torchwood and many more.

The only TV show I can recall seeing being advertised via billboards around here was the show Witchblade, nearly 10 years ago. Why aren't there more TV shows being advertised outside a major media market like NYC? My guess: due to TV shows living and dying on viewer eyeballs, marketers believe they can get more bang for their buck by advertising these shows in major cities, where more eyeballs will see the ads. I also have to believe that trying to catch the attention of critics (based in big cities) factors in, too. Although critical success doesn't guarantee the survival of a show--I'm sure the cast and crew of Men of a Certain Age would agree with me.

So what?

I thought we were done with all the Ohio State drama, but I had forgotten there are still punishments to mete out. One preemptive step for offending schools is to vacate wins, which Ohio State did today. The school vacated all 12 wins from their 12-1 season from 2010, including their Sugar Bowl win over Arkansas.

Thoughts
1) When did we go from forfeiting to vacating wins? Forfeiting means the other team gets the victory (which we still do at the high school level); vacating just means to give back the wins, not affecting the won-loss record of the team you cheated to beat.

2) This punishment's not enough. As mentioned before, some schools will punish themselves prior to the NCAA's ruling, in order to say that they've learned their lesson and don't need additional penalties--I suppose it's like spanking yourself. Giving back wins doesn't really mean anything. Unless Ohio State is willing to give up scholarships or handcuff its program-building in other ways, the vacating of wins is worthless.

3) If I were on the board of trustees, or a major donor to the university, I would insist that Gordon Gee, the president, has to go. This is a guy that unnecessarily provoked non-BCS schools last year, at one point joked with the media that he hoped Jim Tressel wouldn't fire him and then insisted that Tressel would pay a $250K fine. Except that today Gee announced that the school would pay the fine, as well as pay Tressel $50K+ to "retire" at the end of June. How can a man that's so clearly star-struck by the athletics at his university continue to lead it?

If You Ain't Cheatin'...

you ain't tryin', or so the old adage goes.



Big scandal this week in Atlanta, where scores of teachers and principals stand accused of changing the answers on their students' standardized test forms. Apparently, the cheating has been going on for nearly 10 years (like, when NCLB started), with groups of perpetrators staying after school or going to people's houses to change answers in masse. The outgoing superintendent claims no knowledge, even though one school had scores that jumped from a 1% pass rate to a 46% pass rate...in one year. Wouldn't someone with a basic understanding of statistics and probability question those results? I guess it's easier to stick heads in the sand.

But Wait, There's More

Atlanta is not the only area with widespread cheating problems. USA Today did a lengthy investigative piece on cheating in DC public schools, while just up the road, Baltimore has had its own cheating issues.

The difference in the two neighboring school systems is that Baltimore is investigating itself, while the DC leadership has seemed to adopt a "what, me worry?" attitude. So, what is really the moral of the story? That if the stakes are high, we should expect adults to cheat along with the kids? That the score is more important than any learning that may be going on? Oy vey!

Changing of the Guard

From: MSN.com

In more ways than one, Wimbledon has gone through a lot of changes in the last week. Two of hte most recognizable names on the women's side, Venus and Serena Williams, both lost on the same day. The lone remaining "name," Maria Sharapova, lost in the finals to Petra Kvitova (who?). On the men's side, Roger Federer lost in the quarterfinals, opening the door for Novak Djokovic to beat Rafael Nadal for the men's championship.

Not only are there new names to add to the winners' list, next year will bring a new television deal. NBC, which had televised Wimbledon for the last 43 years, lost the TV rights to ESPN. I had been used to Bud Collins and Dick Enberg making the calls for NBC; now I'll have to adjust to listening to Chris Fowler (who I love on ESPN's college football shows) calling both finals.

Lots of people seem to pine for the days of McEnroe and Borg (or Sampras and Agassi), but I think watching Federer, Nadal and Djokovic playing at the same time is something we shouldn't take for granted. On the women's side, there's not a lot of star power outside of the Williams family, and they're both approaching 30 dinged up and banged around. I would love to see some great women's players take the reins--it's there for the taking.

Animating My Class

GoAnimate4Schools.com: Intro to SEM I by Scott Armstrong

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate4Schools. It's free and fun!

I had read somewhere that teachers should make their web sites informative during the summer, instead of just having generic (or worse, old) information on their page. I took that advice and created an animation about my intro sports marketing class, breaking down for students what they should expect.

One of the nice things about GoAnimate is that it will show how many people click on the animation. I originally put it on my front page, but then moved it to that classes' page. My front page already is pretty long with an embedded video and magazine, so I thought that moving it to the specific class would make more sense.

I may make an animation for my upper level course, although those students have already had me once and already know some of the basic ground rules of my class. I'm hoping that there are enough hits on the animation to make me feel like it was worthwhile, but at least I can show my administration that I'm trying alternate ways to reach students...right?

Lockout II

Under the lockout, teams can't display players images on their websites
From: nba.com

With Thursday's passing without a deal, the NBA is now officially locked out. For the first time in memory, two professional sports leagues (the NBA and NFL) are locked out at the same time The NFL had a two month head start on their lockout, and there is talk that their lockout will end soon.

The NBA, on the other hand, has lots of problems. While the NFL is America's most popular sport, and rakes in the money, the NBA has a broken financial model to fix. Something isn't right when two of the top five paid players in the NBA are Michael Redd and Rashard Lewis. Nearly 20 teams are losing money, reportedly.

The association had a good thing in the last month: growing ratings for the Finals, and high ratings for the draft, even though there wasn't a crop of brand-name rookies. It would be a shame to lose all that momentum with another labor stoppage. The NFL can take the hit and keep on ticking. The NBA? Different story...