Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Hannibal]

If you want more big out-of-conference games, you could get a huge boost by letting teams pocket their TV revenue share of these games. I know that this would never happen, because 100% equal revenue sharing is considered sacred outside of Austin, Texas. But it's a big source of inefficiency.

This is one of many situations where "it's all about the money" is a true statement, but it doesn't have to be a bad thing.

[hack]

Makes sense on paper. Presumably, if Michigan decided to split a home-home with Texas, they would make lots more money that way.

How is it shared now? 100% among FBS?

Potential consequence would be a contraction in the amount of teams that can truly compete, presumably? Which, if we're moving to an era of 3 or 4 superconferences, might be more tolerable.

[Hannibal]

How is it shared now? 100% among FBS?

100% within most conferences, I think.

The Big 12 is an exception, I think. Or at least they were a few years ago. I don't know if they still are. (This is one reason why a lot of people resent Tejas.)

[hack]

Gotcha. I wonder what the answer is if you put that to Michigan season-ticket holders: would they, en masse, care to see the conference weakened significantly, and therefore sit through more boring blowouts a year, in exchange for one or two more serious non-con games and perhaps one or two less home games on the schedule?

Do I have the implications right?

[Hannibal]

I don't know. I'm talking about only non-conference revenue, so the Purdues and Northwesterns would still get their CCG and regular season revenue sharing. I'm OK with equal sharing appying to 3/4 of the pot. The bottom feeders need a chance.

Do you need to also share OOC revenue to keep those teams competitive? It's possible that it's a breakeven concept for those teams if they replace one Indiana State or a Maine with a watchable ooponent. The big winners are teams like Michigan and OSU, the fans of those teams, and the fans of college football as a whole. The big losers are probably the lesser teams that get paychecks for playing Big Ten teams, and would no longer be able to do so.

[entropy]

http://reason.com/blog/2013/09/23/students-suspended-for-playing-with-pell

[hack]

I don't know. I'm talking about only non-conference revenue, so the Purdues and Northwesterns would still get their CCG and regular season revenue sharing. I'm OK with equal sharing appying to 3/4 of the pot. The bottom feeders need a chance.

Do you need to also share OOC revenue to keep those teams competitive? It's possible that it's a breakeven concept for those teams if they replace one Indiana State or a Maine with a watchable ooponent. The big winners are teams like Michigan and OSU, the fans of those teams, and the fans of college football as a whole. The big losers are probably the lesser teams that get paychecks for playing Big Ten teams, and would no longer be able to do so.

If non-con revenue is not shared, then presumably Texas and Michigan are already incentivized to play home-and-home every year. So to speak. What am I missing?

[WM Wolverine]

Non conference gate revenues are NOT shared...

Incentive for $ is to play all home games and pay MAC teams to play you, you're better off financially (if you sell 100k tickets even to MAC teams) and you're better off with the nearly guarantee win...

If you aren't playing a MAC opponent, you should schedule a peer (M's peers are different than Indiana's) for a home-and-home...

Worst thing you can do is schedule a neutral site team that is oodles better than you like say Alabama. Supposedly the 'pay' for that game was more than half of a home date.

[Hannibal]

Hack -- unless my understanding of the situation is grossly incorrect, the Big Ten shares all TV revenue equally, both conference and non-conference. As WMWolverine mentiones, since the gate revenues aren't shared, programs will schedule OOC paties because it's better to pocket all of the gate money from one-offs at home.

Some of these would always exist under any scenario, but I think that on average schedules would get better.

[entropy]

A high school football coach in Roosevelt City, Utah, suspended the entire football team because of their “lack of character.” After being told by the school’s guidance counselor that some players were bullying a student on Ask.Fm, head coach Matt Labrum was “moved to action.” Since the website allows users to ask questions anonymously, the coach had no way of knowing which player was responsible and chose to address the entire team about not only the bullying but a general lack of respect displayed by the team off-the-field.

“It had gotten to a new level,” Labrum told the Deseret News, saying that the coaches had been hearing about players skipping classes and talking back to teachers. “We felt like [they] weren’t respecting the teachers, what they were trying to do inside the school, other people’s time. Overall, our program wasn’t going where we wanted it to go. We weren’t reaching the young men like we wanted to reach them.”

So, Lebrum and his fellow coaches gathered the players in the locker room after Friday’s game and told them to turn in their jerseys and equipment. “We said, ‘We’ve got to make a change,’” the coach explained. “We were pretty open with (the players) about what we’d heard. We don’t want that represented in our program. … Whoever it is (doing the bullying), we want to help get them back on the right path.” The coaches told the team that they would not be allowed to play football again until they had earned the privilege, and outlined a plan through which they could do so.
During the meeting on Friday night, the coaches presented the 80 young men with a letter entitled “Union Football Character”:

Gentlemen, we are not pleased with how our football brothers are representing our family, school, community, alumni, family and yourselves. It is a privilege to play this wonderful game! We must earn the opportunity, to have the honor to put on our high schools jersey each Thursday and Friday night! The lack of character we are showing off the field is outshining what we are achieving on the field. We want student-athletes that are humble to learn and grow through adversity and success on and off the field. We want a team that others want to associate themselves with and support; winning isn’t the most important criteria for that to happen.

Humbleness, thankfulness, humility, respect, courage and honor are much more important than winning ballgames! We can achieve both if we start to act with others’ feelings in mind and focus on how we can make someone else’s day instead of just wrapped up in ourselves. WHEN WE ARE WORKING ON THIS AND ACHIEVING THIS WE WILL BE MOLDING OUR CHARACTER IN A POSITIVE WAY! Right now we are way off as a collective group. We want change and are going to make changes now.

As of tonight we are no longer playing football until we meet certain criteria!

TURN YOUR JERSEYS IN NOW!

Saturday: 7:00 a.m. electing captains “Attitude Reflects Leadership” — Remember the Titans.

Monday: 3:30 we will be doing a service project during practice time, come prepared to work, then we are all required to attend the Cougar Legend Banquet. Find ways to serve during this event.

Tuesday: We will be performing more service in lieu of practice.

Wednesday: Study Hall begins at 3:30 and we better have specific items to work on. We will be in there for the duration of practice. You must have enough work for 2 hours.

Criteria to EARN jersey back for Friday’s Game

1) Attend all practices that we have planned and any others that may come up.

2) Be on time and totally prepared

3) No F’s or discipline problems

4) Do an individual service project for your family, give me a typed report of it and pictures and have your parents sign it. (Due Wed. before study hall)

5) Memorize and pass this quote off to one of the coaches at some point during study hall

“Good character is more to be praised than outstanding talent. Most talents are, to some extent, a gift. Good character, by contrast is not given to us. We have to build it, piece by piece — by thought, by choice, courage, and determination.”

If you meet ALL criteria by Wednesday night, you will have earned the privilege to play in the games on Thursday and Friday. If you fail then you will miss this week’s game.

Signed,

your coaches

[lineygoblue]

Bravo coaches!

Good for them.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Wow!

[Tony G]

A little more on the story



Utah coach suspends his entire team over poor discipline, cyberbullying






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Done


Cameron Smith September 26, 2013 6:41 AM Prep Rally




Matt Labrum had seen enough.
As the head football coach at Union High in Roosevelt, Utah, Labrum had watched his players receive discipline for skipping classes at school. He'd been more troubled by others who were accused of cyberbullying fellow teens. He didn't like any of it.
So, after a loss to Judge Memorial Catholic High, Labrum told his team that as of that moment, they were no longer a team. All players — 80 in total — were required to turn in their jerseys and all equipment. No one would play football again until they "earned the privilege to play."
Incredibly, the players say they have embraced the tough love.
"We looked at it as a chance to say, 'Hey, we need to focus on some other things that are more important than winning a football game,'" Labrum told the Deseret News. "We got an emotional response from the boys. I think it really meant something to them, which was nice to see that it does mean something. There was none of them that fought us on it."
The early results, as documented in this terrific feature from the Deseret News, have been remarkable. Players showed up at school the following day — a Saturday — at 7 a.m. and were told how they could re-earn a spot on the team. Teenagers have been cleaning up area streets as part of new team-mandated community service work. They are attending character classes during hours when they previously would have been practicing.
Just as importantly, the team's natural leaders are starting to realize that they need to be more vocal and step in to help those teammates who go astray. A key part of Labrum's decision to suspend the entire team was borne of his frustration that the players who did live up to his expectations were not rising up taking control of the locker room. Now, that is changing. Only two of the team's seven original captains were re-elected during the team meeting the day after the Judge Memorial loss.
Others are reflecting on how their role as a member of the football team makes them role models in the town as a whole. Everything is changing, if slowly.


View gallery
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Union High football coach Matt Labrum speaks to his players after a community service outing — Deseret News


"I'm a pretty silent person, so I didn’t really say much," junior Jordan Gurr, one of the two captains re-elected, told the Deseret News. "We'd talk to [players who had misbehaved] after practice sometimes; we'd run. It didn't work out very well.
"[Suspending the entire team] gives me a second chance."

Senior running back Gavin Nielsen had a similar perspective:

"One of my weaknesses that I wrote down," he said, referring to an exercise the players engaged in during Monday's character class, "was that I wasn’t holding people accountable on the field and off the field. As a leader, on the field and off I have to hold people accountable."
His passion for football hasn’t diminished, but Nielsen said he does have a new perspective on what it means to wear the Union High uniform.
"I still have the love for it and everything,” he said Monday while leaning on a shovel he was using to remove weeds as part of his community service. “But it helped me realize, it’s not all about football."

Want more on the best stories in high school sports? Connect with Prep Rally on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

[entropy]

bravo!!!

[Jeff Buchanan]

Some of you may be familiar with this but, it needs to be said.

First, this coach and his assistants are a class act. If we had more people like this involved with HS in this kind of way and not just athletes, we wouldn't be turning out of our HS programs entitled punks who are going to do nothing but suck up the taxes paid by the small number of successful HS grads to merely survive. Its discouraging.

Second, just for the sake of trying to reverse this disappointing trend with our youth, we might want to think real hard about mandatory military service. Maybe two years, that's all. If its not for you you can pack up and leave. If you like it and you can't figure out what you want to do with your life yet, its a good place to be. There are probably cost issues associated with the tons of folks who would be enlisted but, hell, you want to invest government taxes in something worth while? Try the human resources of our country.

You know where I come from on this. You learn discipline the value of team work, citizenship, service, how to do more with less. Lots of good stuff and the same kind of things this HS coach is doing. Good on him. One small step ......