Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[JRB]

Donald Sterling just testified in open court that when he hired Elgin Baylor as Clipper GM in 1986, he had no idea that Baylor had even been a Hall-of-Fame basketball player, which makes him either an inveterate liar or so ignorant of the history of basketball that one wonders why he ever bought an NBA team. Donald Sterling has got to be the worst owner to work for in professional sports, and I'm not forgetting Daniel Snyder.

[SeanB]

Mike Brown is starting to garner some of those votes, too. That guy is just pathetic. My father-in-law is a long-suffering Bengals fan. You should hear him rant about Brown. He usually ends up settling down with 2 ibuprofens and a Manhattan.

[Mike]

Sterling sounds like a Hall of Fame asshole.

[Tony G]

If you're going HoF on batshit owners don't forget to check out the Marge Schott wing

[entropy]

ESPN.com [I am Callahan's Love Child] You Mizzou

Arkansas officials are expected to meet with Missouri coach Mike Anderson later Wednesday and, according to sources, a contract offer and Anderson's acceptance of it appear to be a formality.

Missouri athletic director Mike Alden was unavailable for comment early Wednesday but a Missouri official said there was no announcement planned from Columbia, Mo.

Earlier Wednesday, a source at Missouri said the school had expected Anderson to stay.

Anderson had wrestled with his decision the past few days, especially with the majority of the Tigers returning. Anderson had been negotiating a two-year extension that would raise his salary at Missouri to $2 million per season -- a $500,000 raise.

Anderson was Nolan Richardson's assistant and replaced him as interim coach at Arkansas to finish the 2001-02 season after Richardson was fired. Richardson filed a discrimination suit against the school in 2004 but the suit was dismissed, as was his appeal in 2006.

Richardson's fallout at Arkansas was with former athletic director Frank Broyles. New AD Jeff Long has reached out to Richardson and also honored the 1994 national title team.

Anderson played for Richardson at Tulsa and was an assistant at Arkansas when the Razorbacks won the title. Anderson and Richardson were in Tulsa Wednesday for the funeral of longtime Tulsa and Arkansas fan Jim Pharr.

"Mike told me it was 50-50 since he was still negotiating," Richardson said Wednesday morning by phone. "I'm happy for him. I support Mike and I will support him wherever he goes. He's like a son to me."

Stan Heath, who was at Kent State at the time, replaced Richardson, and then was fired before South Alabama's John Pelphrey replaced him for the 2007-08 season.

Long fired Pelphrey earlier this month despite a top-10 recruiting class.

"It's a new administration there, it's not the same people who were there when I was there or Mike," Richardson said.

Anderson has led Missouri to three NCAA appearances, including an Elite Eight berth in 2009. He also led UAB to three NCAA appearances when he was the coach there.


Senior writer Andy Katz covers men's college basketball for ESPN.com.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Anyone mention that Detroit lost a quarter of its population since the last census? That's way more than even Cleveland

[WM Wolverine]

How much of that just moved to the suburbs?

[Hannibal]

How much of that just moved to the suburbs?

Presumably, not a lot, since the state lost population as a whole.

Detroit is never coming back. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Lions move in a decade or two.

[lineygoblue]

Detroit will never have a million in population again. The auto factory jobs are gone, and there's nothing to replace them.

Also the city infrastructure would have to be completely redone in order to get the neighborhoods back in shape and make them livable. And of course, there's the crime. In too many places, its just hopelessly out of control. They'd need to bring in the National Guard to retake some neighborhoods, and I'm not kidding.

Same goes for places like Flint and Saginaw. They'll never be as they once were. The jobs are just not there to draw people back.

[entropy]

Detroit won't recover until Detroit changes the leadership they are electing.

[lineygoblue]

Detroit won't recover until Detroit changes the leadership they are electing.

Dave Bing is a good man, and I believe he's trying to do the right things.

But, there are still WAY too many "Coleman Young" mentality politicians in Detroit who are fighting him tooth and nail.

If it wasn't for Mike Ilitch and a few other influential investors, Detroit would be completely dead right now.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Michigan is the only state to have lost population. So yeah, while some are merely moving to the burbs, a lot are leaving the state entirely. Oakland and Macomb Counties saw small gains but not enough to balance out the huge population flight from Wayne County.

Cleveland is pretty bad too (lost 17%) but Detroit's is really stunning.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Some select cities in Michigan

Detroit
1970 1,514,063
1980 1,203,368
1990 1,027,974
2000 951,270
2010 713,777

Flint

1970 193,317
1980 159,611
1990 140,761
2000 124,943
2010 102,434

Lansing

1970 131,403
1980 130,414
1990 127,321
2000 119,128
2010 109,563

Grand Rapids

1970 197,649
1980 181,843
1990 189,126
2000 197,800
2010 188,040

Kalamazoo

1970 85,555
1980 79,722
1990 80,277
2000 76,145
2010 74,262

[Rob F]

Having lived in both GR and K-Zoo for lengthy amounts of time each, and seeing the above population data, I can tell you this about both cities in comparison to the other 3 towns listed---their economies are much more diversified. And, as a result, you see relatively stable population #s. While both GR and K-Zoo had auto plants for decades and lost them, they also had/have plenty of other industries that have thrived or at least survived,resulting in a relatively stable job base. Detroit, Flint (and Saginaw and even Benton Harbor), and to a lesser extent, Lansing, relied too heavily on the Auto Industry and are paying for it now.

Yes, somewhat a simplification of the problems in Michigan and especially Detroit and Flint, but also a huge part of the current equation.

One more point to make regarding the census data posted by DSL above----an awful lot of the population shift has been to suburbs of those cities listed, probably much more than simply assuming that all those people that left Detroit moved out of Michigan and the "Rust Belt" and to other healthier economies in other parts of the country. While I haven't yet seen the census data of suburban areas vs. the core cities for those cities listed above, I have seen first-hand that the suburban areas around GR and K-Zoo have not only stayed stable but grown. Not knowing the mega-suburban area surrounding Detroit nearly as well, all I know is what I read and hear---a lot of the near-Detroit suburbs have struggles, while the more affluent outer suburbs have done better. A mixed bag, at best, for suburban Detroit.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Pretty startling numbers .... but over a 40 year period, given the trends in the auto industry, they are entirely understandable.

I would bet that the demographic shifts apparent in that data are almost entirely attributable to occurrences in the automotive industry most notably the shifting of manufacturing processes out of the country that started in the mid 80s and then the loss of market share by Detroit's Big Three to Japanese, Korean and European auto makers.

Kia built a plant down here in the western part of the state that employs about 200 workers directly involved in the assembly process. The same production capacity in the 70s would have required GM to hire 10X that many employees. Assembly technology is probably the biggest factor in the differences between then and now and labor costs/the auto workers unions playing another sizable part.

I don't live in Michigan anymore but I'd say the state is in a good position to capitalize on the shift from a manufacturing to service economy. It won't take long for young people, tired of all the idiotic gray haired drivers in the sun belt to long for cool days, the change in seasons and the great recreational opportunities to lead another demographic shift from the sun belt back to states like Michigan as job opportunities increase there. Its not all bad like some would want you to believe. I can understand why DSL is in the dumps over osu's and tressel's travials. I lived that for the last 10 years with Michigan football sucking. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.