The number one single today in 1959:
The number one British single today in 1967:
Today in 1971, selections from the Beatles’ White Album were played in the courtroom at the Sharon Tate murder trial to answer the question of whether any songs could have inspired Charles Manson and his “family” to commit murder.
Manson was sentenced to death, but his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment when the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty.
The stock market had a rough week last week.
But I confidently predict the market will not lose anything today. That’s because the market is closed for Martin Luther King Day.
However, says Michael Pento:
The S&P 500 has begun 2016 with its worst performance ever. This has prompted Wall Street apologists to come out in full force and try to explain why the chaos in global currencies and equities will not be a repeat of 2008. Nor do they want investors to believe this environment is commensurate with the dot-com bubble bursting. They claim the current turmoil in China is not even comparable to the 1997 Asian debt crisis.
Indeed, the unscrupulous individuals that dominate financial institutions and governments seldom predict a down-tick on Wall Street, so don’t expect them to warn of the impending global recession and market mayhem.
But a recession has occurred in the U.S. about every five years, on average, since the end of WWII; and it has been seven years since the last one — we are overdue.
Most importantly, the average market drop during the peak to trough of the last 6 recessions has been 37 percent. That would take the S&P 500 down to 1,300; if this next recession were to be just of the average variety.
But this one will be worse.
A major contributor for this imminent recession is the fallout from a faltering Chinese economy. The megalomaniac communist government has increased debt 28 times since the year 2000. Taking that total north of 300 percent of GDP in a very short period of time for the primary purpose of building a massive unproductive fixed asset bubble that adds little to GDP.
Now that this debt bubble is unwinding, growth in China is going offline. The renminbi’s falling value, cascading Shanghai equity prices (down 40 percent since June 2014) and plummeting rail freight volumes (down 10.5 percent year over year), all clearly illustrate that China is not growing at the promulgated 7 percent, but rather isn’t growing at all. The problem is that China accounted for 34 percent of global growth, and the nation’s multiplier effect on emerging markets takes that number to over 50 percent.
Therefore, expect more stress on multinational corporate earnings as global growth continues to slow. But the debt debacle in China is not the primary catalyst for the next recession in the United States. It is the fact that equity prices and real estate values can no longer be supported by incomes and GDP. And now that the Federal Reserve‘s quantitative easing and zero interest-rate policy have ended, these asset prices are succumbing to the gravitational forces of deflation. The median home price to income ratio is currently 4.1; whereas the average ratio is just 2.6.
Therefore, despite record low mortgage rates, first-time homebuyers can no longer afford to make the down payment. And without first-time home buyers, existing home owners can’t move up.
Likewise, the total value of stocks has now become dangerously detached from the anemic state of the underlying economy. The long-term average of the market cap-to-GDP ratio is around 75, but it is currently 110. The rebound in GDP coming out of the Great Recession was artificially engendered by the Fed’s wealth effect. Now, the re-engineered bubble in stocks and real estate is reversing and should cause a severe contraction in consumer spending.
Nevertheless, the solace offered by Wall Street is that another 2008-style deflation and depression is impossible because banks are now better capitalized. However, banks may find they are less capitalized than regulators now believe because much of their assets are in Treasury debt and consumer loans that should be significantly underwater after the next recession brings unprecedented fiscal strain to both the public and private sectors.
But most importantly, even if one were to concede financial institutions are less leveraged; the startling truth is that businesses, the federal government and the Federal Reserve have taken on a humongous amount of additional debt since 2007. Even household debt has increased back to its 2007 record of $14.1 trillion. Specifically, business debt during that time frame has grown from $10.1 trillion, to $12.6 trillion; the total national debt boomed from $9.2 trillion, to $18.9 trillion; and the Fed’s balance sheet has exploded from $880 billion to $4.5 trillion.
Banks may be better off today than they were leading up to the Great Recession but the government and Fed’s balance sheets have become insolvent in the wake of their inane effort to borrow and print the economy back to health. As a result, the federal government’s debt has now soared to nearly 600 percent of total revenue. And the Fed has spent the last eight years leveraging up its balance sheet 77-to-1 in its goal to peg short-term interest rates at zero percent.
Therefore, this inevitable, and by all accounts brutal upcoming recession, will coincide with two unprecedented and extremely dangerous conditions that should make the next downturn worse than 2008.
First, the Fed will not be able to lower interest rates and provide any debt-service relief for the economy. In the wake of the Great Recession, former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke took the overnight interbank lending rate down to zero percent from 5.25 percent and printed $3.7 trillion. The Fed bought longer-term debt in order to push mortgages and nearly every other form of debt to record lows.
The best the Fed can do now is to take away its 0.25 percent rate hike made in December.
Second, the federal government increased the amount of publicly-traded debt by $8.5 trillion (an increase of 170 percent), and ran $1.5 trillion deficits to try to boost consumption through transfer payments. Another such ramp up in deficits and debt, which are a normal function of recessions after revenue collapses, would cause an interest-rate spike that would turn this next recession into a devastating depression.
It is my belief that, in order to avoid the surging cost of debt-service payments on both the public and private-sector level, the Fed will feel compelled to launch a massive and unlimited round of bond purchases. However, not only are interest rates already at historic lows, but faith in the ability of central banks to provide sustainable GDP growth will have already been destroyed, given their failed eight-year experiment in QE.
Therefore, the ability of government to save the markets and the economy this time around will be extremely difficult, if not impossible. Look for chaos in currency, bond and equity markets on an international scale throughout 2016. Indeed, it already has begun.
This does not mean stockholders (that is, half of American households) should run out and sell their stocks for something they think is safer. Every financial planner who knows what he or she is doing preaches that it’s time in the market, not timing the market, that builds wealth. The only real reason for the non-rich to be investors is for long-term wealth-building.
I have maintained here that the stock market has been inflated anyway because some people are in the market because there isn’t any other good place for their money, given low interest rates and fundamental weakness of the economy. When you have unsustainably low labor participation rates, your economy isn’t really very sustainable.
This should expose, but probably won’t, the fundamentally bad economic policy of the Obama administration. Increasing taxes by 14 percent since 2013 is guaranteed to make a weak economy weaker. ObamaCare is a proven job-killer. So is the upward-spiralling level of regulation Obama has foisted on the productive class. And we’ve enjoyed, if that’s what you want to call it, both for the past seven years. The Recovery In Name Only is as illusory as the “recovery” between the beginning of the Great Depression and the end of World War II.
But don’t believe me, ask the Wall Street Journal:
The economic expansion—already the worst on record since World War II—is weaker than previously thought, according to newly revised data.
From 2012 through 2014, the economy grew at an all-too-familiar rate of 2% annually, according to three years of revised figures the Commerce Department released Thursday. That’s a 0.3 percentage point downgrade from prior estimates.
The revisions were released concurrently with the government’s first estimate of second-quarter output.
Since the recession ended in June 2009, the economy has advanced at a 2.2% annual pace through the end of last year. That’s more than a half-percentage point worse than the next-weakest expansion of the past 70 years, the one from 2001 through 2007. While there have been highs and lows in individual quarters, overall the economy has failed to break out of its roughly 2% pattern for six years.
Grove City College Prof. Tracy Miller explains:
Economic growth is usually faster than normal following a recession as entrepreneurs find more productive ways to employ the resources that were idle during the recession. How rapidly the economy grows and recovers depends partly on whether market forces are allowed to allocate resources, including labor, to their most productive uses. Unfortunately, the Obama administration has pursued several policies that make it harder for market forces to work. These include: bailouts, expansion of entitlement programs, regulation of the economy, tax increases, and huge government deficits.
Bailouts have resulted in capital being stuck in businesses that are either inefficiently run or have failed to produce goods and services that consumers’ value highly. In the absence of bailouts, some firms would have gone bankrupt and the capital reallocated to successful firms that are producing what consumers demand in a cost-effective way.
Expansion of government entitlement programs, such as food stamps and unemployment compensation, has reduced the incentive to be employed. The average benefit per recipient of food stamps jumped by approximately 25 percent between 2007 and 2010 due to rule changes. It also became easier to qualify for food stamps. As Richard Vedder points out in a Wall Street Journaleditorial, the number of food stamp recipients rose by over 7 million between 2010 and 2012, a period of falling unemployment.
A number of changes associated with the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (the economic stimulus package passed after Obama was elected) resulted in greater after-tax benefits to being unemployed. These include exempting part of unemployment insurance benefits from federal income taxes and subsidizing health insurance costs for laid off workers. Unemployment benefits also were extended for up to 99 weeks. In addition, the federal government developed mortgage modification formulas for banks to use, which resulted in a bigger reduction in interest payments for those with lower incomes.
The combined effect of a more generous food stamp program, more generous benefits for unemployed workers and mortgage modification formulas is to offset a considerable percentage of the reduction in income from being unemployed. This results in less incentive to work. If fewer people work, less is produced and real GDP grows more slowly.
And from that impotent recovery, we’re headed toward recession. Swell.
My favorite Martin Luther King quotes:
A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.
A man who won’t die for something is not fit to live.
A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.
All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.
Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.
Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable … Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.
Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. … I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.
If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values — that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control.
Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.
Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control.
The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character — that is the goal of true education.
The quality, not the longevity, of one’s life is what is important.
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
Whatever your life’s work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.
The number one single today in 1960 was written by a one-hit wonder and sung by a different one-hit wonder:
The number 45 45 today in 1964 was this group’s first, but not last:
Today in 1974, members of Free, Mott the Hoople and King Crimson formed Bad Company:
The number one album today in 1976 was Earth Wind & Fire’s “Gratitude” …
The number one British album today in 1999 was Fatboy Slim’s “You’ve Come a Long Way Baby,” and if you like it you have to praise it like you shoo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oould:
The Wall Street Journal writes about something Packer fans have known for years, and not always approved of:
The Packers have exactly two players drafted by other teams on their 53-man roster. No other team is so overwhelmingly composed of homegrown players—the Seattle Seahawks and San Francisco 49ers are the closest, with all but six of their final 53-man rosters this year.
How the Packers have reached the playoffs for seven straight seasons while largely ignoring free agency owes much to the expert drafting of Green Bay general manager Ted Thompson. But it also speaks to the team’s distinctive approach to coaching up young players, the unusual practice habits of its star quarterback and a fanatical devotion to promoting from within that runs throughout the organization.
As they prepare to face the Arizona Cardinals in a divisional-round playoff game Saturday, the Packers’ approach has become the envy of the league.
The key to Green Bay’s system is the belief that if you bring in players as early as possible, they won’t have “ready-made habits that you get from a guy from another team, the way you did it with his old team,” said defensive line coach Mike Trgovac. “I don’t even know if you would call them bad habits, they are just different from what we would teach.”
Take the case of rookie cornerback Quinten Rollins, who was selected in the second round of the draft last May to fill in for Tramon Williams and Davon House, who had departed in free agency.
There are plenty of things that Rollins needed to learn to succeed at the NFL level, but the Packers had zeroed in on the one skill that he needed to improve, an attribute that is so seemingly innocuous that other teams may not even have noticed: eye control.
Rollins had a habit of peeking into the backfield to get a read on what the quarterback was doing. In college football, cornerbacks coach Joe Whitt Jr. said, players can get away with that. College quarterbacks can usually only throw effectively to one side of the field, the closest side to them, meaning defensive backs can sit back and wait for a quarterback to try to force it to the side they shouldn’t and—voila—snag an interception. Something Rollins did seven times in one season of college football.
“[But] if you use that technique here, you are going to get the ball completed on you,” Whitt said. “Your eye control is very, very important here. Once [the quarterback] gets in your blind spot, you have to change your vision and get it back to your receiver.”
This is the sort of detailed orientation that the Packers put all their new employees through. In fact, Rollins joined a secondary made up of a number of players who didn’t play defensive back very much in college. Demetri Goodson, just like Rollins himself, spent most of his college time playing basketball. Sam Shields played wide receiver. This is no accident.
“I don’t have to un-coach them,” Whitt Jr. said. “I know if they do mess up, it’s something that I taught them.”
The Packers have been remarkably consistent in their internal promotions. They have brought in players from other teams only on rare occasions in recent years—on the current roster, pass rusher Julius Peppers is the most famous example. The team also snagged star cornerback Charles Woodson in 2006.
But under Thompson and coach Mike McCarthy, they’ve mostly stuck to their plan, keeping talented draft picks—like quarterback Aaron Rodgers and linebacker Clay Matthews Jr.—and replacing the less talented draftees with newer, cheaper picks. Rodgers, a first-round pick in 2005, famously replaced the legendary Brett Favre as starter in 2008 after three years being groomed in the Packers system.
To ensure they have a constant supply of in-house candidates, the Packers also use the practice squad differently than most teams—specifically, they have rejected the widespread strategy of signing guys primarily to mimic that week’s opponent. Instead, the Packers practice squad is populated with players they expect one day to suit up for the team. With that in mind, assistant coaches say they coach the practice squad guys as often and as hard as top draft picks, a rarity in the NFL.
Having graduated through the system, Rodgers has even developed practice habits that work to reinforce the team’s developmental strategy.
Rodgers, a two-time NFL most valuable player, is perhaps the most feared quarterback in football these days. But in practice, he can often look downright human. That’s intentional.
For the Packers quarterback, practice isn’t “about getting his feet right or his decisions clean,” McCarthy said. “It’s really about establishing good, full-speed reps” for those around him. Inevitably, that means Rodgers tosses some interceptions in practice.
McCarthy is clear that Rodgers hates getting picked off. He’s rushed down the field to argue calls on make-believe interceptions in practice. But the Packers have come to see these practice sessions as more of a trust-building exercise than a tune-up for Rodgers. That means throwing plenty of what are referred to as 50-50 balls, where both the cornerback and receiver have a chance to haul in the pass.
“He’s trying to see the trust factor, who can come down with it?” said backup quarterback Scott Tolzien. “Who can he trust that, when he throws it up, nothing bad is going to happen? That at the very least, if they don’t catch it, they’ll knock it out of the defensive back’s hands. He’s trying to stretch boundaries and get those opportunities on tape.”
Rodgers’ distinctive approach to practice also showed up in training camp prior to the 2014 season, McCarthy said. Rodgers decided that running back Eddie Lacy needed more “checkdowns,” which are short dump-off passes to the tailback. Practicing these plays doesn’t do much for Rodgers, who could complete those passes in his sleep, but would be crucial in getting Lacy integrated into the offense. So Rodgers spent weeks peppering the running back with checkdowns.
This year in training camp, McCarthy said, Rodgers “wouldn’t pass up too many opportunities to throw to Davante Adams.” The Packers quarterback figured he had a good connection with star receiver Jordy Nelson, so he elected to work on his rapport with Adams, a second-round draft pick in 2015. When Nelson was lost with a season-ending knee injury in the preseason, the Packers simply promoted Adams into the starting lineup.
Packer fans know much of this, though probably not the interesting detail about Rodgers in practice.
The biggest upside to developing from within beyond having everyone on the same page from page 1 is that it costs less than importing free agents. It does, however, place a premium on making the right personnel decisions when no one can tell for certain how, or if (see Reynolds, Jamal), a 21-year-old college player will develop after college. It also runs the risk, as has happened repeatedly in Pittsburgh, of players you draft leaving once their contracts run out for more money elsewhere, forcing you to draft and develop their replacements.
Thompson worked for Ron Wolf, who probably is known better for his signings (Reggie White, Sean Jones, Santana Dotson, Keith Jackson, Andre Rison) and one obvious trade (one of the 1992 number one picks for 1991 second-round pick Brett Favre) than for his early draft picks. Wolf’s best picks came later in his drafts, showing the importance of scouting. Wolf’s approach was necessary because of the Packers’ lack of talent in 1991, yet workable because the NFL didn’t have a salary cap.
Fans blame Thompson not just for underperforming players (which are, after all, his responsibility), but for the Packers’ failing to sign better free agents. Woodson and Peppers worked out the best. Others have not over the years. (See Johnson, Joe.) It is the slow way to develop a team, whether there’s some talent or, particularly, when there isn’t any. (See Milwaukee Brewers, 2016-?). The slow part tends to annoy fans who realize they may well die before the team’s next championship. (Particularly Cubs fans since 1945.)
The number one single today in 1956:
The number one single in Great Britain …
… and in the U.S. today in 1964:
There were simultaneous signs of the high school sports apocalypse on opposite sides in the past week.
The Post~Crescent in Appleton reported first:
The tumultuous world of social media has hit home for Hilbert High School athlete April Gehl.
The three-sport star and one of the top scorers for the Wolves’ girls’ basketball team was informed by Hilbert athletic director Stan Diedrich on Wednesday that she would be suspended for five games during the current winter season due to a tweet that Gehl posted on Twitter early Monday morning concerning the WIAA.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Gehl said. “I was like, ‘Really? For tweeting my opinion?’ I thought it was ridiculous.”
Gehl’s tweet, which contained profanity directed toward the WIAA, was her off-the-cuff response to a WIAA email that took students to task for an increasing number of student-section chants at sporting events that mock the opposing team or school.
The email, from director of communication Todd Clark, concerns “sportsmanship” and what the WIAA feels is an increase in the “amount of chants by student sections directed at opponents and/or opponents’ supporters that are clearly intended to disrespect.”
Included in the WIAA email were examples such as “You can’t do that,” “Fundamentals,” “Air ball,” “There’s a net there,” “Sieve,” “We can’t hear you,” the “scoreboard” cheer and “season’s over” during tournament play.
That email was sent to member schools in December. It was forwarded by Hilbert school officials earlier this week to the school’s students and was also in their daily announcements on Monday, according to April Gehl.
Jill Gehl, April’s mother, said the WIAA sent Diedrich a snapshot of Gehl’s tweet with limited direction other than to “please take care of it.”
Diedrich was reached Friday morning about the suspension, but was unable to give specifics.
“I can tell you that the WIAA contacted me with information,” Diedrich said. “Once given the information, we dealt with the matter in accordance with board policy.”
Clark said in an email Friday to Post-Crescent Media that April Gehl’s tweet was brought to the attention of the WIAA. The school was then informed.
“To be clear, there was no language in our correspondence with the school that stated to ‘take care of this,’” Clark said. “That determination is for the member school to address. But these issues, like other sportsmanship issues brought to our attention, are shared with our members for their awareness.”
According to Jill Gehl, that school policy includes a section on inappropriate language, which her daughter was ultimately punished for.
If Gehl was punished for inappropriate language, the WIAA got punished for inappropriate overreaction, worldwide, also as reported by The Post~Crescent:
Attention the story has received includes:
• Daily Mail (U.K.): High school basketball player suspended over tweet
• Forbes: Wisconsin incident highlights need for adults to stop overreacting
• The Big Lead: Female HS basketball player suspended five games for tweet
• WTMJ in Milwaukee is featuring the story on the Jeff Wagner show as well as the nighttime sports show: WIAA bans chants; student-athlete tells them to ‘eat (expletive)’
How are the fans themselves reacting? The Dubuque Telegraph Herald’s Steve Ortman writes:
Student sections across the state responded on Tuesday night, as a group of students at Ashwaubenon High School attended a game dressed in black with duct tape over their mouths that read ‘WIAA.’ The student sections at the boys game between Platteville and Darlington High Schools remained silent throughout the contest.
“The intention of the message was misconstrued and morphed into something far beyond what it was and what it was intended for,” WIAA Executive Director David Anderson told The Associated Press on Wednesday. He also said he stands by the guidelines.
While I do feel the national exposure on this is blowing the matter a bit out of proportion and that the WIAA had the best of intentions, the whole idea of regulating what crowds can and can’t chant at a game is silly and simply absurd. These kids pay the money to come to the games and should be allowed to chant whatever they want (within reason, of course). And chanting such classics as “Air ball!” isn’t really hurting anyone’s feelings. In fact, after all these years, it’s to be expected at games.
The WIAA needs to ask itself what the point of coming to their games is exactly if you’re not allowed to have any fun while cheering on your friends and classmates?
The reaction included a letter from state Rep. Dale Kooyenga (R–Brookfield):
I am disappointed by the recent actions taken by the WIAA targeting decades’ old fan chants and comments. I’ve been there. I was the 6’7” awkwardly skinny high school basketball player that came off the bench for the final 20 seconds of play after my team was already down by 20 points. On more than one occasion, I would take my shot for my first points of the season (although the season was already halfway done) only to miss the rim and backboard. There it was, the humiliating “air ball” chant. Hearing that quickly makes a 6’7” teenager feel like he would rather be 3’7” and quietly find an exit but today I look back with greater clarity on those moments. …
After putting in a significant amount of work, I ended up being just good enough to play at the local community college followed by playing D3 basketball at Lakeland College in Sheboygan. I had three different head basketball coaches during my college career and the high school “air ball” chant was relatively easy to deal with compared to what my coaches yelled at me when I failed to properly box out. Several years later I joined the Army and met my first drill sergeants – all of a sudden my previous coaches and opposing fans seemed reserved in comparison.
I can continue but here is my point. Having our young people in the sporting arena makes them stronger – an arena that builds character includes jeers and cheers. High school athletes are our future leaders. There is education in learning how to deal with the opponent’s fans, embarrassment and losing.
Even Aaron Rodgers chimed in, reports ESPN:
Apparently, if Aaron Rodgers were the ringleader of the student sections of Bayport, Ashwaubenon or De Pere high schools, he’d be in for a trip to the principal’s office.
After reading about the uproar the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association created recently by reminding schools of the chants it deems derogatory toward opponents — including “air ball!” “score-board!” and “fun-da-men-tals!” — the Green Bay Packers quarterback confessed Wednesday that he’d have been in trouble had such rules been enforced back in Chico, California, at Pleasant Valley High School basketball games.
“I led the chants when I wasn’t playing, and we said a lot worse stuff than that,” Rodgers said, shaking his head. Although he played basketball throughout his childhood, Rodgers gave it up to concentrate on football later in his high school career.
“I think we’re, as a society, dying a little bit each day if we’re not only dumbing down our masses but we’re also limiting the things that we can say. ‘Air ball’ and ‘scoreboard,’ from a chant standpoint, in 2001 when I was in the stands watching my high school basketball team, that’s like the ground floor of stuff we would say.
“Think about the fans at other stadiums we play at or at Lambeau Field. I don’t think that [high school competition] warrants censorship. What are we telling our kids, that freedom of speech doesn’t exist? And any type of negative comment, you’re going to get somebody in trouble for? I just don’t agree with that.
“I don’t agree with any type of racist or homophobic language, any of that type of stuff from the crowd to the people on the field. But ‘scoreboard’ and ‘air ball’ and ‘fundamentals,’ which is a great chant?”
The WIAA got some support from WSAU radio’s Chris Conley …
As a practical matter, there’s very little that can be done. Should a team be penalized because their fans are taunting? Should the game be stopped or suspended? Should students be disciplined for cheers that administrators deem inappropriate? Will be we playing in front of empty bleachers? And there may be some people within the WIAA who want to go down that road. That’s overreach. Playing in front of a crowd is also part of the experience for high school athletes. And I don’t know of a good way to separate the positive experience of having athletes playing in front of a crowd and the possibility that some cheering might be negative. It is not easy to create a great game-day experience without negativity. Sports creates an emotion response in those who watch. If people didn’t care that their team wins, they wouldn’t go. There’s nothing wrong with the spontaneous cheering, or booing, that comes after a controversial call or a close play. Just like with the athletes themselves, a spontaneous show of emotion is expected. But taunting cheers are different. It’s an area where people need to do the right thing… just because. It’s probably a fool’s errand.
But picture this: His team is trailing by one point in the state finals. The senior captain takes the final shot that will lead to a championship or a defeat. It’s the moment that every athlete has dreamed about. But as he’s shooting the ball slips out of his hands. The buzzer sounds. And it’s over. All of the work and practice and self-sacrifice has ended. He feels horrible and has that empty ache in the pit of his stomach; it’s the moment of defeat. A flood of emotion comes over the young man — he’s 18 — and he begins to cry as he walks off the court for the last time.
Are you going to be the person who starts the “air – ball” chant? Are you going to yell “season over!” at him? Is his final memory of high school athletics going to be the “scoreboard!” cheer? That’s not the environment I expect high school athletes to compete in. And fans who cheer that way should reflect on what they’re doing. And I’m on the side of the WIAA — the group that says that’s not right.
… though based on past experience I think the taunting Conley suggests could happen isn’t likely, because if your team just won state, you’re focused on that and not your opponent. (Also, a chant coming from the Kohl Center or the Resch Center is harder to hear than someone 15 feet away from you in a high school gym.) In fact, the taunts that concern the WIAA, I suspect, disappear after the game, unless something that happens during the game is controversial.
You can read an excellent WIAA takedown here, and from the Wisconsin State Journal’s Art Kabelkowsky:
The WIAA has published the guidelines in some form since 1997 (last revised in 2005) and sends out reminders at the start of each athletic season. Which is to say that fans, parents and even some administrators and coaches have been pretty much ignoring them for more than a decade.
Now, thanks to an epic bungling of the optics of the Gehl situation (and, in part, to the common-sense indefensibility of the policy in the first place), the WIAA has allowed this cracked hornet’s nest to bust wide open.
And the story lives on.
WIAA executive director Dave Anderson tried to quell the maelstrom Tuesday evening, sending an email to athletic directors with a “sincere apology” for a Dec. 22 email from communications director Todd Clark that reminded schools and students of the sportsmanship guidelines. By now, though, the horse already is out of the barn.
ESPN’s Jay Bilas drew kudos for simply repeating variations of the same obvious joke a half-dozen times on Twitter, such as this proposed replacement for the “Air ball” chant: “We note your attempt did not reach the rim, but only to alert the clock operator that a reset is unnecessary.”
(Of course, that chant ignores the fact that high school basketball does not use a shot clock. As such, it violates one of the WIAA’s mandated fundamentals of sportsmanship: “Know the rules of the game.”)
In the wake of this attention, noted former Wisconsin prep athletes have tweeted their support for letting fans be fans.
Even the particularly nasty comments and actions stuck with some of these athletes — some even have photos of the signs — and they all seemed to agree that, in hindsight, the negative comments helped to spark their competitiveness, thicken their skin and even make them laugh.
And there’s the problem. Skin-thickening isn’t a goal of high school athletics, or of anything else in today’s society — in which people seem to have assumed the inalienable right to never, ever see or hear anything that might be judged to be offensive or negative in any way. …
So here’s what the WIAA should have told student sections: “Have fun. Behave. Don’t be idiots. Police each other. Don’t say or do anything you wouldn’t want to see on the TV news. Learn to be responsible for your actions.”
Instead, they’ve gone and tried to mandate rules against the very things that make being a sports fan fun. To insulate kids from something that they just plain will not be insulated from in real life. Do that and you’ll be lambasted by national media. And you’ll deserve it.
Please let me begin by offering a sincere apology for any distress or dissatisfaction which may have come your way as a result of a sportsmanship email from Todd Clark dated December 22, 2015. The intentions of that email have become much scrutinized and misunderstood.
From our perspective, the email was simply a reminder in advance of the many holiday tournaments held every year across the membership. Nothing more, nothing less, than what has been shared across the membership via the Sportsmanship Manual since 2005.
To be clear, there has been no new directives, no new rules, no new mandates, no new enforcement expectations associated with the email.
We know that the challenges of keeping interscholastic athletics a fun, safe and educational experience for our athletes, students and fans are never ending. We see and respect the everyday efforts of individual members and conferences in striving to create the positive environment you are proud of — and we appreciate those efforts. Carry On! Please keep up the great work, just as you have been doing.
The Post~Crescent’s Ricardo Arguello adds:
Does it warrant a stern talking to from the Hilbert officials? Sure. Should Hilbert have requested Gehl take down the tweet and apologize? That’s seems fair.
And judging by the statewide, national and international attention, there are many folks around the world who agree.But a five-game suspension? That’s clearly going overboard, especially when other infractions such as underage drinking or fighting would possibly produce the same length of suspension. There seems to be an imbalance on transgressions. Perhaps athletic codes from high schools need to be a bit more clearly defined. Whatever the answer, five games, or 25 percent of the basketball season, is far too much.
It was the WIAA that informed Hilbert of Gehl’s tweet. That may or may not have led to the quick action by the Hilbert officials. But the WIAA sticking its nose in this kind of business is another column for another time.
At the very least, this story should trigger discussions about how adults approach discipline and how we inform student-athletes about the dangers of social media. A level-headed and honest approach is needed. Student-athletes, in my extensive experience in dealing with them the past 20 years or so, respond much better to blunt but fair handling than overbearing smothering.
In Gehl’s case, her punishment is so over the top that it borders on absurd. Believe me, her peers in the state and beyond will pick up on this perceived mishandling, and that could make the respect demanded by school officials a bit more difficult to keep intact.
Not to mention support of public schools by taxpayers. School districts don’t make much money from admission fees for games, but the WIAA does. If fans stop going to games because they don’t want to deal with the school Fun Police, particularly in this world of almost infinite entertainment options, they’re not likely to alter their work schedule to go to postseason games in far-off communities (Madison, Green Bay, etc.) either. There are people in some communities whose support for their schools, other than paying school district property taxes, extends only to high school sports. Unless some common sense prevails, watch what happens to future school district revenue-cap or building-project referenda.
Whether this is political correctness gone amuck, or an overreaction to bullying, shielding students from unkind expressions is not really education. Life is not easy, and some delicate little flowers are likely to have a rude awakening once they arrive in the real world.
The opposite side is reported by the Ripon Commonwealth Press:
At least one key member has left the Ripon High School boys’ basketball team amid concerns of “inaccurate statistics” that have been reported by the team, leading to an investigation by Ripon Area School District officials.
While the district did not identify who is alleged to have created those statistics, head coach Dean Vander Plas offered an apology at a team parents meeting Wednesday night.
While the district did not identify who is alleged to have created those statistics, head coach Dean Vander Plas offered an apology at a team parents meeting [Jan. 6].
“I can’t get into much more than that other than saying, when you are in a [coaching] position, you should be able to carry out your process so that things are done well, and when you don’t, you must acknowledge it,” Vander Plas said Friday afternoon.
What exactly has happened that led to this situation, though, remains unclear.
Though a prepared statement explained the issue came to light Dec. 31, athletic director Bill Kinziger hedged when asked to elaborate on how it became known.
“I’ve got to be careful how I say it,” he said, noting simply, “It was brought to our attention.”
He intimated that it was someone in the know about the team who brought it forward.
“It wasn’t just somebody off the street,” Kinziger said, adding, “I can’t give you the identity.”
What is known is that it involved inaccurate statistics being reported, and that the district now has reassigned the recording of statistics to its athletic department, and is disciplining at least one staff member.
This is about the chase for college athletic scholarships, which should not be the primary purpose of participation in high school athletics. This is not really about high school athletics except for what some think it should lead to, college athletics, even though the percentage of high school athletes who continue in college is very small. You’d have to ask the parents involved (some of whom are former college athletes) if they’re trying to relive their childhoods through their kids.
It takes a sports editor to point out that academic scholarships are much more readily available than athletic scholarships are.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Bob McGinn gives Packer fans guarded optimism about Saturday’s playoff game at Arizona because …
At 36 years old, this might be quarterback Carson Palmer‘s last chance to win a playoff game, let alone reach the Super Bowl.
The pressures are many as Palmer leads the second-seeded Arizona Cardinals (13-3) against the fifth-seeded Green Bay Packers (11-6) in an NFC divisional playoff game Saturday night in Glendale, Ariz.
“The pressure is only something you feel if you’re not prepared,” coach Bruce Arians said Tuesday. “I’m betting he’s going to be really prepared….I’m sure he’s going to be excited. My job is to not let him get too excited.
“He’s obviously more than just a quarterback. He’s the leader of the football team and our guys rally around him. He’s a very calming player.”
Since the Cardinals’ 38-8 romp over the Packers 2½ weeks ago, Palmer turned in a subpar performance in their 36-6 loss to the visiting Seattle Seahawks. With a win over Seattle and a loss by Carolina to Tampa Bay, Arizona would have clinched home-field advantage as the No. 1 seed.
Neither the Panthers’ big early lead nor the Cardinals’ big early deficit caused Arians to remove Palmer at halftime. He said his decision had been made six days earlier.
“I think Arizona really came out to win,” an executive in personnel for an NFL team said after studying the Seattle tape. “I wouldn’t say they were flat. They came out sharp, but Seattle imposed their will. Seattle was very much more the physical team.”
A personnel director for another team disagreed, saying, “You can disregard the Seattle game. Arizona had nothing to play for.”
Seattle had five starters on the inactive list.
Palmer completed just 12 of 25 passes for 129 yards, one interception, one touchdown and a passer rating of 60.3.
There were poor decisions, bad throws and two balls batted down at the line. He floated one interception and threw another deep ball into a three-man cluster of defenders that was even worse. The Seahawks dropped that one.
Arians blamed the receivers for dropping several passes, but it clearly wasn’t the way Palmer wanted to enter the postseason.
“What Seattle did well was eliminate the run game and force Carson to make quick decisions,” one scout said. “He kind of got out of rhythm and had an uncharacteristic day. He’s been really careful with the ball. He was trying to give guys a chance to make a play.”
Palmer didn’t practice much before the Green Bay and Seattle games because of the dislocated index finger on his right hand that he suffered following through into the hand and face mask of Eagles linebacker Connor Barwinon Dec. 20.
When Palmer continued playing, he developed a “very sore lat (muscle) from changing his motion,” according to Arians.
Last week, Arians added: “For a quarterback it’s a weird feeling, and it worried him some. But once we readjusted the tape job so that he could use his finger and come off the ball last, the soreness went away and he’s really good right now.”
Three days after the Seattle game, Palmer said the injuries no longer were an issue.
Palmer, who won the 2002 Heisman Trophy and recently was selected to his third Pro Bowl, is 0-2 as a playoff starter.
In January 2006, Palmer suffered a dislocated kneecap and other major damage on a hit by Steelers nose tackleKimo von Oelhoffen on the second play of Cincinnati’s playoff defeat.
In January 2010, Palmer played poorly (58.4 rating) as the Bengals, a 2½-point favorite, dropped a wild-card game to the Jets, 24-14. Last year, he suffered another blown knee in Game 9 and missed the Cardinals’ 27-16 wild-card loss at Carolina. …
Despite the 30-point margin, Arians indicated the Cardinals and Packers should be fairly evenly matched.
“I don’t really think we dominated them in any form or fashion other than we got a couple of good fumbles and picked them up and scored,” he said. “They’re too good, and we didn’t get their best shot because they didn’t have their best players.”
Said Palmer: “The way that game played out, we didn’t run much of what we had planned, and now things are so different this time.
“That game was not something we are hanging our hat on. The way that game turned out is not what we are expecting to happen again. We have to play our best football to beat this team, and we know that.”
Playoff games usually are not identical to regular-season meetings between the same teams, even when in the same venue. Recall that in 2009 the Packers beat Arizona toward the end of the season, then lost in the playoffs. One year later, the Packers lost at Atlanta, then dominated the Falcons in the playoffs on the way to the Super Bowl XLV win. The similarity among the three Packers–Bears meetings in the 2010 season was only that all games were close.
Interestingly, in the Super Bowl XLV season all three Packers opponents in the NFC playoffs were rematches of regular-season meetings. If the Packers win Saturday, they are guaranteed a rematch in the NFC championships, either against Seattle or at Carolina.
Today in 1967 was not a good day for fans of artistic freedom or the First Amendment, though the First Amendment applies to government against citizens and not the media against individuals.
Before their appearance on CBS-TV’s Ed Sullivan Shew, the Rolling Stones were compelled to change “Let’s Spend the Night Together …”
… to “Let’s Spend Some Time Together”:
The number one British album today in 1977 was ABBA’s “Arrival” …
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 