The Appropriately Named Charlie Strong

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The Sporting News has an excellent story on Charlie Strong’s struggle to rise to the top of college football’s coaching ranks and his determination to succeed at UT.

A boy who grew to become a young man, who walked on to play football at tiny Central Arkansas, who wanted to be a college professor but decided to give coaching football a shot. A young man who grew to become an elite assistant coach, who was passed over and over and over for head coaching jobs because those same decades of institutional racism that confidently strolled down the streets of Batesville years earlier were engrained in the hearts and minds of university academia, too.

A coach who nearly gave up on his dream of becoming a head coach, only to get a chance at Louisville and win big, and the next thing you know, he’s standing in the posh office that overlooks the gigantic stadium at the University of Texas — smack in the middle of the best damn job in all of college football.

“I went down in the stadium and walked across the field and looked around and thought, wow, this is it,” Strong said. “I said to myself, you cannot fail, buddy. Too many people are counting on you.”

Red has a reason to root for his Texas Longhorns again.  The burnt orange tie is a nice touch.

Texas A&M Galveston Professor Flunks Entire Class – Then Quits Class

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Professor Irwin Horwitz of Texas A&M Galveston flunked his entire management class and quit the class.  Horwitz sent an email to the students informing them of their fate.

“I am frankly and completely disgusted. You all lack the honor and maturity to live up to the standards that Texas A&M holds, and the competence and/or desire to do the quality work necessary to pass the course just on a grade level, I will no longer be teaching the course, and all are being awarded a failing grade. . . .  None of you, in my opinion, given the behavior in this class, deserve to pass, or graduate to become an Aggie, as you do not in any way embody the honor that the university holds graduates should have within their personal character,” 

Horwitz related numerous incidents rampant cheating, rudeness and outright disrespect from the class members.  According to Horwitz:

“Since teaching this course, I have caught and seen cheating, been told to ‘chill out,’ ‘get out of my space,’ ‘go back and teach,’ called a ‘fucking moron’ to my face, [witnessed] one student cheat by signing in for another, one student not showing up but claiming they did, listened to many hurtful and untrue rumors about myself and others, been caught between fights between students,”

A&M, for its part, has apparently rescinded the mass failure and the department head will teach the remainder of the semester.  A&M also claims it will investigate Horwitz’s allegations about the behavior of the students.

Today in Texas History – April 28

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From the Annals of Gunboat Diplomacy –  In 1965, Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson  ordered an invasion of the Dominican Republic.  LBJ sent approximately 22,000 troops in a purported effort to prevent a “communist dictatorship.” Johnson’s action resulted in massive protests in Latin America and further criticism of LBJ as a war monger in the United States.

The events leading up to the U.S. incursion began with the assassination of long-time strong man Rafael Trujillo.  Trujillo was a brutal dictator but  that mattered little because of his strong anticommunist stance.  The U.S. supported him despite horrific human rights abuses.  After his death, a reformist government led by Pres. Juan Bosch won elections in 1962.  He was quickly deposed in 1963 by the corrupt and venal Dominican military. This set off a struggle for power pitting various military and political factions against each other.  Ultimately forces supporting Bosch began attacks against the military dictatorship.  LBJ and others, in the full throes of cold-war thinking, feared another Cuba in the Caribbean and decided to invade.  They were quickly able to end the fighting and install a right-wing civilian puppet for the military.

LBJ’s stated rationale for the action (the fear of the a new communist dictatorship) was never solidly proven. He provided American reporters with lists of suspected communists; but even a quick review of the list revealed almost no real communists at work. Some of the people were deceased and many others were clearly not communists – but were merely persons legitimately opposed to the right-wing dictatorship favored by the U.S.

Photo from www.loeildelaphotographie.com

The National Teacher of the Year is From Amarillo

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Shanna Peeples was named National Teacher of the Year by the Council of State School Officials.     Peeples is the first teacher from Texas to win the award since 1957.  myhighplains.com reports that Peeples is more than deserving of the award.

Peeples teaches at Palo Duro High School in Amarillo, Texas, where she spends half of her day as a high school English teacher and the other half mentoring, coaching and challenging her colleagues to grow in the teaching profession.

At Palo Duro High School, her students come from many different backgrounds. Amarillo is one of several cities in the United States that helps refugees find new paths in life and gain access to critical resources. As a result, Peeples works with many students who speak English as a second language or recently entered the United States from another country.

“My students, survivors of deep and debilitating trauma, have shaped the kind of teacher I am,” she says. “They have taught me to never make a promise I can’t keep because so many already have learned to see the world through suspicious eyes. To be the best teacher to them, I have to remember this and honor their background. I remember so I can gain their trust because I want them to read and write their way out of where they are,” said Peeples.

As the 2015 National Teacher of the Year, Shanna is shaping the conversation in this country about working with students in poverty, and those who have already faced extreme challenges in their young lives. Through a variety of teaching methods, Peeples reaches her students and helps them achieve their full potential far beyond her classroom walls.

On a personal note, the 1957 recipient of the award was Guy Bizzell who taught Red in high school but not in the 50’s.

Conundrum of the Day – Abortion and Bowling?

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Red was running some errands on Saturday when he happened to drive by several anti-abortion protestors in front of the local bowling alley.  They were holding up the usual gruesome photos of aborted fetuses at various stages of gestation.  Red admits to being rather torn up on the abortion issue.  On a personal level, Red would never encourage any woman to have an abortion absent some extraordinary circumstances and does not think abortion should be used as birth control.  On the other hand, Red supports making abortifacients easily available.  And on his hypothetical third hand, Red doesn’t really see that criminalizing and further restricting abortion would accomplish much of anything except to allow for the wealthy to travel to countries where abortion is legal and force other women to resort to dangerous alternatives if they are desperate to get an abortion.  And Red will never understand why the anti-abortion forces are also typically against easy availability of birth control and against sex education except for the demonstrably ineffective “abstinence only” ruse.  All in all, a real conundrum.

But given all that, Red is still wondering about the connection between an anti-abortion protest and bowling.  Can anyone explain?

Today in Texas History – April 27

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From the Annals of the Baseball Legends –  In 1983, Nolan Ryan recorded strikeout number 3509 while pitching for the Houston Astros in a game against the Montreal Expos at Olympic Stadium.  Ryan, nicknamed the Ryan Express, broke Walter Johnson’s career strikeout record which had stood for 55 years since 1927.   ”I don’t get too excited about anything,” Ryan said after pitching the Astros to a 4-2 victory and striking out 5 batters. ”I was more relieved than anything else. Now I can sit back and relax and get more satisfaction out of it.” Ryan broke the record by striking out Brad Mills, a pinch-hitter, looking on a 1-2 curveball in the eighth inning.

Poor Poor Pitiful Patrick

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Texas Monthly reports that there may be trouble in Tea Party paradise.

The weekly kumbaya breakfast between the big three Texas lawmakers broke down today into a round-robin of recriminations that concluded with Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick declaring he was tired of Governor Greg Abbott and Speaker Joe Straus “picking on me.”

The blow-up, confirmed by multiple sources, represents the boiling point of long-simmering disputes. The House has been upset that Patrick declared his inauguration marked a “New Day” in Texas and that he pushed a conservative agenda quickly through the Senate with expectations that the House would just pass his legislation. But, instead, most of the Senate’s bills on tax cuts, licensed open carry of handguns and moving the Public Integrity Unit have languished in the House without even being referred to committee by Straus.

The House instead has passed its own version of the same legislation, putting the Senate in a take-it-or-leave-it position. To pass the Senate bills now, the House would have to have an entirely new debate on controversial measures it already has approved.

So the Senate, in what looked like retaliation on Tuesday, ignored a House-approved border security bill to vote on its own measure, putting the House into a take-it-or-leave-it position on border security – a measure that House Ways and Means Chair Dennis Bonnen had crafted to win support of border Democrats.

This may be Patrick’s New Day, but Straus’ Old Guard still runs the House.

Wow!  Patrick has chosen the wrong game if he thinks he doesn’t deserve getting picked on.  Patrick who made his living “picking on” anyone who didn’t agree with his reactionary right-wing views on his radio show, is mighty thin-skinned when the tables are turned.  And once again, the Tea Partisans are proving that they are incapable of running the government that they hate so much.

Minor League Baseball in Texas

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The joys of Minor League Baseball are many.  Inexpensive tickets, cheap hot dogs and all kinds of weird promotions and between inning antics. However, two of the greatest joys are knowing that you are not contributing much to the deep pockets of a franchise owner slurping at the public trough (see previous post re: Mark Cuban); and knowing that the players are not knocking down millions but are playing for the true love of the game – and the opportunity to perhaps knock down millions.  So if you don’t live in Houston or the MetroPlex, go out and support your local team.

Here are the Texas Minor League teams affiliated with Major League clubs:

Corpus Christi Hooks
El Paso Chihuahuas
Frisco RoughRiders
Midland RockHounds
Round Rock Express
San Antonio Missions

Then there are the independent Sugar Land Skeeters – whose players really are playing for love of the game.  Unfortunately, the other independent team, the Fort Worth Cats, were booted from LaGrave Field and do not appear to be playing in 2015.

You really have to admire a team that has a tiny hairless Mexican dog as its mascot – even if it is one bad ass looking tiny hairless Mexican dog.

Rockets Fans Make Fun of Cuban

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Red goes back and forth on Mark Cuban.  He admires anyone who made off with the billions from other fools while the getting was good, but also thinks that professional sports franchise owners should neither be seen nor heard.  Cuban loves the spotlight almost as much as media whore Jerry Jones. Is there something in the water in the Metroplex? And Red also thinks that anyone poking fun at these oligarchs who routinely feed at taxpayer trough deserves kudos.

The Houston Chronicle reports on the latest effort by Rockets fans to sucker punch Cuban.