Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Myrone Rolle CSPAN Top 10 ranking



FSU Schedule/SEC



: Spurrier, on the Brando show today says that USCe was offered 2016 opener vs FSU. Money was good, but no thanks!

On coverage of campus rape & on a much criticized NYT sports column





Margaret SullivanVerified account @Sulliview 45 minutes ago

Saban on giving second chances (watch at 2:20)

This doesn't even address the media witch hunt on kids who have NOT BEEN PROVEN GUILTY of anything.

The moral authority of the media is out of their minds.  Many of whom have arrest records from when they were young.  Media members like:

Mark May (3 felonies)

Brian Griese (DUI)


I remember Derrick Brooks getting caught up in the FSU Footlocker scandal.  Today he is one of the most respect NFL HOF out there.....but most of the media would of wanted him thrown out of school for eating a free salad he received from an agent (and he didn't know it was an agent).

The media isn't moral, they are greedy and these moral authority witch hunts are nothing but greed based, which in of itself is immoral.

Just think for yourself.

Saban nails it here.

Saban on giving second chances

Florida State’s unusual bond with Seminole Tribe puts mascot debate in a different light



December 29 at 8:50 PM
Given the 80-odd mostly white students, the occasional ball caps and tattoos, the Tuesday morning hush and the student quickly punching her phone for the time (10:30), this Room 208 could grace most any pretty campus. Only two things hint as to the whereabouts. The preponderance of shorts means this could be in Florida, and the professor’s subject matter means this must be Florida State.
“History of the Seminoles and Southeastern Tribes, Pre-Contact to Present” is an elective many have chosen because they’re “Seminoles” who wish to know more about real Seminoles than just the Florida State Seminoles, the football team for which they’ll root in a national semifinal against Oregon on New Year’s Day. So the details of Seminole history flow from the captivating voice of Andrew Frank, whose brain never seems to lose its place across 75 minutes.
He tells them it’s hard to look back through the past few centuries and peg when the Seminole Tribe self-identified as Seminoles, but they first centralized as a tribe in 1957. He tells how Seminole ancestors, including the tribe called Creeks, traveled by “dug-out canoe” because, “If you need to go 20 miles, better to float there than walk there.” He’s on his semester-long way toward modern day, when he again will inform students that modern-day Seminoles are adept businesspeople, and that the trappings of mascot-hood can fail miserably at accuracy.
He might even tell them, as he said in an interview, “It’s hard to imagine 4,000 people wielding real political power and economic clout, and they do so gracefully.”
The course — born in 2006, hatched right after the NCAA clamored about changing Native American mascots, conceived with input from the Seminole Tribe of Florida — doubles as epitome. It demonstrates the unusual bond between a 41,000-strong university way up in the Florida Panhandle and a 4,000-strong tribe that history shoved into the Everglades and below Lake Okeechobee and way down almost to Miami, some 400 miles from Room 208 of the HCB Classroom Building. It helps explain why, if Native American mascots keep ebbing in the United States through the 21st century, “Florida State Seminoles” could be the last one standing in the 22nd.
As a contrast to, say, Washington and the controversy over the Redskins name, any rancor with the Seminoles nickname has gone deluged in conciliation and cooperation.
“It’s an absolute reverence,” said Myron Rolle, the 28-year-old former Florida State safety and Rhodes Scholar. “It’s a reverence where the spirit, the unconquered nature of the internal values and ethos of these people, FSU tries to embody that. I love the way it’s intertwined.”
“I just feel a huge amount of honor,” said Justin Motlow, a freshman walk-on wide receiver who just became possibly the first Seminole Tribe member to play football for Florida State.
“I think it was a learning process for both parties,” Louise Gopher, an elder in the Seminole Tribe of Florida, wrote in an e-mail.
“I’m never under-enrolled,” said Frank.
A fascinating culture
At Florida State’s fall commencement on Dec. 13, the keynote speaker and honorary-doctorate recipient was Gopher, the Seminole Tribe of Florida’s first female college graduate (1970, Florida Atlantic). “I don’t think my feet have touched the ground yet on receiving an honorary degree,” she wrote in an e-mail.
As Florida State administrators altered the sports teams’ logo and fashion last spring, they consulted the tribe, and new patchwork appeared on jersey sleeves. Tribe leaders who visit Tallahassee know both the president’s yard and the stadium’s cheers.
For Florida State’s national title game against Auburn last January in Pasadena, Calif., a Seminole Tribe of Florida jet stopped in Tallahassee to collect Bobby Bowden, the retired 34-season head coach at Florida State, and Bill Durham, the Tallahassee businessman who in the mid-1970s devised, and who still oversees, the cherished mascot concept of a “Chief Osceola” riding a horse onto the field during pregames. Durham, unprompted, says this: “How would it be if somebody comes in, knocks your door down again and says, ‘You’re out of here,’ then takes your precious metals and you have to move again? Basically, that’s what the white man did. We took this land away from Native Americans. We took it. We stole it. I’ve never understood why. I still can’t understand. My heart won’t allow me to.”
Last Mother’s Day weekend, Frank joined a few Florida State officials on a flight south, where they attended a powwow and a Tribal Council meeting and brought gifts that included women’s basketball uniforms. A flute player/storyteller visits Frank’s classroom every semester for no cost other than hotel and gasoline, and he stops off to stock up on Florida State apparel. Some students from Frank’s classes have gone on to internships with the tribe.
When Rolle sought to use his football stature to start a benevolent project, he consulted then-university president T.K. Wetherell, who suggested Rolle look into the Seminole Tribe. Rolle did so. He learned of obesity, hypertension and Type 2 Diabetes in Native American children, made that his project, spent 100-plus days at the three South Florida Seminole reservations, lectured children about vegetables, became something of a local hero and served as grand marshal in a parade.
Across the Atlantic at Oxford, he wrote his Rhodes medical anthropology thesis about North America. Title: “The Native-American Body: Internal and External Controls.”
“It just fascinates me, this culture,” he said.
Eliminating stereotypes
Rolle also notes that his brother, McKinley, a Florida high school football coach, graduated from St. John’s (N.Y.), which in 1994 changed its nickname from “Redmen” to “Red Storm.” That joined the decades of nickname exodus that have included Dartmouth (“Indians” to “Big Green”), Stanford (“Indians” to “Cardinal”), Miami of Ohio (“Redskins” to “Red Hawks”), Syracuse (“Orangemen” and “Orangewomen” to “Orange”), Utah (“Redskins” to “Utes”). When the University of North Dakota played the men’s ice hockey Frozen Four last spring in Philadelphia, it brought along no nickname.
North Dakotan voters overwhelmingly nixed the name “Fighting Sioux” in 2012. A new name will appear in 2015.
The same NCAA that aimed to scrub away the stereotyping granted a waiver to Florida State in 2005. It cited unique circumstances. Those included the partnership that stretches from Tallahassee to the three reservations amid the base of the state: Hollywood, Brighton and Big Cypress. While the Seminole nickname dates back to 1947, the partnership accelerated in 1976, after Bowden arrived to coach and Durham arrived to dine one night at Bowden’s house. The football program had no real national identity. When Durham suggested forging a tradition of a student horseman depicting the revered Chief Osceola (1804-30), with a seasoned student horseman riding out to the field with war paint and a spear, and Bowden agreed, Durham consulted the Tribe straight away. He asked Howard Tommie, the former tribal chairman, who said, “I’ll have ladies here at the reservation make your first regalia for you.”
“And so he did,” Durham said, “and he sent it on a Trailways bus.”
Through time and Seminole input, the university has made tweaks including, Frank noted, the discontinuation of a Sioux headdress for the Homecoming king. “Lots of changes took place outside the public view,” Frank said. “One of the things was there was a booster club, a group on campus that used to be called ‘Scalp Hunters,’ and they were the ones at the football games who would paint your face on the way in. Now they’re ‘Spirit Hunters.’ The name was changed, became remarkably innocuous, and I know there are groups out there that don’t call themselves ‘Spirit Hunters,’ but they’re not the official group on campus anymore. And ‘Spirit Hunters,’ how hard is that?”
Wrote Gopher, “FSU in earlier times was showing the Seminoles in feathers and war bonnets, which they never wore, and with caricature faces. We were being stereotyped with what was seen on the movies and television. Now Florida State University makes sure that the Seminoles are not depicted in a disrespectful manner in any way. They check with the Tribe for accuracy of any changes they make.”
Historical oddities do linger. Stadium rituals include fans “war-chanting” and using arms for “tomahawk-chopping.” “We also understand that some of it is for show, such as the horse, Renegade, and the flaming spear, and we are okay with it,” Gopher said. Around town, Native American iconography still appears on some local businesses such as vacuum repair. A restaurant at the edge of campus goes by the name Tomahawk’s, which baffled some scholars visiting Florida State for a conference.
“We sell our MBA program with a tagline,” Frank said, referring to “War Paint for today’s business world,” the MBA Web site headline above a photo of former quarterback and MBA holder Christian Ponder with painted cheeks. “In my head, I don’t need war paint to explain why the Seminoles are good at business,” Frank said. “They run a billion-dollar industry (the Hard Rock Resort & Casino in South Florida). They are one of the most successful cattle-herding companies in the state of Florida. They run their own brand of orange juice. They have bottled water. They have agriculture. They have real estate. They have a remarkably diversified portfolio that allows them to pay their citizens monthly annuity checks. They pay out taxes rather than receive taxes from their citizens. It’s a pretty remarkable model of an efficient, well-run corporation that’s always looking at the next horizon of how to remain relevant. That’s what an MBA is supposed to do, and they do that; you don’t have to go to the 19th century to do that.”
There’s the elemental matter of the weaponry itself. “We even have spears on our buses,” Frank said. “The Seminoles never fought with spears. There were rifles. . . . But tomahawks, that’s more the invention of 19th-century romantic writers. They may have had knives, they may have had all sorts of other weapons, but tomahawks . . .”
For decades, Bowden’s Florida State brought the proper noun “Seminole” into national synonymity with victory. Said Frank, “All people have ideas about themselves, and Florida State plays into the same ideas that the tribe has, kind of their mega-history.” As James E. Billie, chairman of the Tribal Council, said to CNN last January, “Anybody coming here into Florida trying to tell us to change the name, they better go someplace else, because we’re not changing the name.”
That contrasts with the more populous Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, which in October 2013 officially resolved that it “condemns the use of all American Indian sports-team mascots in the public school system, by college and university level and by professional sports teams.” In a document signed by Leonard M. Harjo, the Principal Chief of the Nation, it stated that academic research shows that the mascots and images harm “all children” and “violate religious icons.” Seminole Tribe of Florida members tend to shrug off that as the view of a relative who visits and then takes his views back home.
“Even though we have a lengthy history of fighting the U.S. government and hiding out in the Everglades to survive, in my lifetime we have never been mistreated or experienced any prejudices from other cultures,” Gopher wrote in an e-mail. “But I know other Native tribes have experienced these difficulties, and may still be experiencing them, so I try to see it from their point of view. And that’s why they are so insulted. But on the other hand, I think to myself, We don’t go around telling them how to live their lives, so why are they concerned with our business?”
Studying Seminoles
“We are still the unconquered Seminoles,” concludes a film at the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Seminole Indian Museum at Big Cypress.
“Clearly, they were well under 500 by the end of the 1800s,” Frank said.
Just off the Tamiani Trail and up the quiet two-lane road, they’re a picture of small-town orderliness. There’s a tidy rodeo ground on the left going into the reservation with the tribal logo and “In God We Trust,” a sign noting improvements underway to the Josie Billie Highway, a Seminole Country gift shop, a preschool here, a senior center there. They have Halloween gatherings and Thanksgiving blessings. A statue in front of a gym honors Herman L. Osceola, a U.S. Marine who died in 1984 in a bad-weather helicopter crash in South Korea.
In sculpture, he carries a machine gun.
Florida State fandom doesn’t flood the town. On the outside, even on a game day, you might see only one Florida State banner upon one house all afternoon, even if one tribal leader does have an in-house mural featuring a Seminole holding a dead Gator (University of Florida mascot) and a dead Ibis (University of Miami mascot). It’s Florida, so it has its share of Gator and Hurricane backers. But it’s a Florida town as a routine subject of lecture and prompted discussion 400 miles north-northwest, near where Seminole ancestors used to hunt.
Some new students bring along misconceptions. Some think it’s all about wars and “what guy’s on a horse,” Frank said. Some think of the Tribe as traditional when by now they’re “as connected to the marketplace and as transformed a people as anyone,” Frank said.
“I like history, and it was a course about Florida, so I was excited to learn more about the history of Florida,” said Bryan Stork, a Florida State graduate in sociology and current New England Patriots starting center. “I kind of already knew about the Seminole tribe because I had read a few books that were based on true stories, but it was just neat to learn their ways and the way they think.”
Joseph Corace, a 2012 graduate from Coral Springs, Fla., who worked as an intern at the museum, said the course surprised him by widening his enthusiasm for history, which mostly had centered on the other side of the world. “You really can see how a network of people can bond together and form and get these types of ties from just being pushed around or encroached upon by war or the advancement of white settlers,” he said.
As the Tuesday morning nears its 10:45 mark, Frank shows a map — either Choctaw or Cherokee, can’t be sure — from 1721. Circles denote various tribes across the Southeast where “friends of friends of friends of friends eventually become friends of friends.” He notes that English or U.S. diplomats would grow confused about with whom to make a treaty. “It’s all fluid,” he says almost 300 years later, to the “Seminoles” studying the Seminoles.

Monday, December 29, 2014

ACC records since 2011 vs. teams with winning records

David HaleVerified account @DavidHaleESPN 2 hours ago
Not a good look for … records since 2011 vs. teams with winning records… FSU, Clemson & everyone else.              
 

Big Ten Overlord Thinks New TV Deal Could Net Each School $50 Million a Year



Big Ten Overlord Thinks New TV Deal Could Net Each School $50 Million a Year


ESPN low-balled Jim Delany during TV rights negotiations in 2009 and dared him to roll the dice. In what will forever go down as one of the bossiest lines uttered in Big Ten history, the reigning Big Ten commissioner reportedly replied, "Consider them rolled," before I assume chugging two Budweisers Stone Cold Steve Austin-style while heading for the door.
ESPN, however, would rue the day.
Delany reached out to Fox and created the groundbreaking Big Ten Network, which has the conference positioned in a foothold of strength during a tumultuous time of conference realignment. Its current deal, which expires after the 2017-2018 season, is reportedly expected to pay each member school $44.5 million in that final year.
And with another round of TV negotiations on deck here in the near future, Jim Delany reportedly thinks the price on the Big Ten brick aught to be a little higher.

With Fox and ESPN fighting tooth and nail for one of the most successful franchises in the sport, it won't surprise me when the final number eclipses $50 million per year. The Big Ten East, after all, has a bevy of Top 15 coaches in Meyer, Harbaugh, Dantonio, and Franklin.  
And while the Big Ten might not be the best football conference, it's a straight bully in negotiations; that much is known.

Map of Playoff followers











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3 FSU faculty named Fulbright Scholars, etc




3 FSU faculty named Fulbright Scholars


3 FSU faculty named Fulbright Scholars
Three FSU professors will spend the academic year conducting research abroad, thanks to grants from the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program. One of the professors — John Corrigan in religion department — has been awarded one of 40 Fulbright Distinguished Research Chairs, the most prestigious appointment in the Fulbright Scholar Program. In addition to Corrigan, two professors have been named Fulbright Scholars. They are Jonathan Adams, in communication in, and Anuj Srivastava, in the department of statistics. The accomplishments of the faculty Fulbright winners also will help FSU to meet its annual preeminence metrics established by the Legislature in 2013.


FSU No. 8 for student veterans
FSU moved up two spots to No. 8 in the latest “Best Colleges for Vets” rankings, which are published annually by Military Times magazine. Military Times surveyed hundreds of schools with a detailed questionnaire on issues crucial to student veterans. Survey responses were then compared to data from the U.S. Department of Education, including academic success measures. Military Times evaluated schools in five main categories — university culture, academic quality, student support, academic policies and financial aid — although the editors also considered other factors in developing the rankings. FSU received high marks for its veteran-centered activities, which took into account groups such as the Collegiate Veterans Association and events like FSU’s annual Student Veteran Film Festival.

Kiplinger’s gives FSU high marks for ‘best value’
FSU was named one of the best values in the nation by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, including a No. 15 ranking among large colleges on the 2015 list. The ranking cites four-year schools that combine outstanding academics with affordable cost. FSU also was ranked the No. 22 best value among public colleges for in-state students and No. 19 for out-of-state students. Kiplinger’s assesses quality according to measurable standards, including the admission rate, the percentage of students who return for their sophomore year, the student-faculty ratio and the four-year graduation rate. Cost criteria include sticker prices, financial aid and average debt at graduation. The rankings will also appear in the February 2015 issue of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, on newsstands Jan. 6, 2015.

Saturday, December 27, 2014

College Football Playoff: Conference Payouts




College Football Playoff: Conference Payouts

"UPDATE: ACC, SEC, Big XII, Sun Belt, and Big Ten distribution has been added below. Additional conference models will be added as available.
Last week, I shared the revenue distribution model for the first year of the College Football Playoff. Now that pairings have been announced, we know how it works out for each conference (and yes, the Orange Bowl pays more than the CFP due to the nature of its contract – and next year when the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowls aren’t hosting semifinals, they’ll have larger payouts, as detailed at the end).
Keep in mind that all of this money goes to the conference, not to the team playing in the game. Most conferences split it equally between all 12-14 teams with an equal share also going to the conference office (although some give a bonus to the team participating in the game).
Power Five:
ACC
$50 million base to the conference
$6 million to the conference for FSU (Rose Bowl – CFP semifinal)
$27.5 million to the conference for Georgia Tech (Orange Bowl)
Total: $83.5 million to the conference
Conference distribution model: all bowl revenue is divided equally after expense allotments for the participating teams and is included in annual distribution along with other conference revenue. The only exception is Notre Dame (as it relates to football revenue), which is handled separately under a conference agreement that has not been made public.
Big XII
$50 million base to the conference
$4 million to the conference for TCU (Peach Bowl)
$4 million to the conference for Baylor (Cotton Bowl)
Total: $58 million to the conference
Conference distribution model: Bowl revenues are divided evenly between the 10 member institutions after subsidies are provided to participating institutions.
Big Ten
$50 million base to the conference
$6 million to the conference for Ohio State (Sugar Bowl – CFP semifinal)
$4 million to the conference for Michigan State (Cotton Bowl)
Total: $60 million to the conference
Conference distribution model: all bowl revenue is distributed equally between member institutions (taking into account financial integration plans for newer members) after a pre-determined amount for travel and related expenses is provided to participating institutions.
Pac-12
$50 million base to the conference
$6 million to the conference for Oregon (Rose Bowl – CFP semifinal)
$4 million to the conference for Arizona (Fiesta Bowl)
Total: $60 million to the conference
SEC
$50 million base to the conference
$6 million to the conference for Alabama (Sugar Bowl – CFP semifinal)
$4 million to the conference for Ole Miss (Peach Bowl)
$27.5 million to the conference for Mississippi State (Orange Bowl)
Total: $87.5 million to the conference
Conference distribution model: For bowl games with receipts of $4,000,000 - $5,999,999, the participating team retains $1.475 million (Ole Miss), plus a travel allowance determined by SEC. For bowl games with receipts of $6 million or more, the participating team receives $2 million (Alabama and Mississippi State), plus a travel allowance determined by the SEC. If an SEC team makes it to the championship game, it receives another $2.1 million, plus travel allowance. The remainder of the revenue from these bowls is divided 15 ways – one share for each of the 14 SEC teams and one share for the conference office. There’s also a distribution method for bowls with lower payouts, but I’m not covering that here.
Group of Five:
American
$12 million base to the conference (1/5th of $60 million, per Group of Five formula)*
C-USA
$12 million base to the conference (1/5th of $60 million, per Group of Five formula)*
MAC
$12 million base to the conference (1/5th of $60 million, per Group of Five formula)*
Mountain West
$12 million base to the conference (1/5th of $60 million, per Group of Five formula)*
$4 million to the conference for Boise State (Fiesta Bowl)
Sun Belt
$12 million base to the conference (1/5th of $60 million, per Group of Five formula)*
Conference distribution model: equal division after travel subsidies.
* Based on reports from several sources, and also detailed in this article. The Group of Five have another $15 million to split, which sources tell me they will split according to computer rankings. The conference whose teams rank the highest in the aggregate will receive $5 million, the conference in second place $4 million, the conference in third place $3 million, the conference in fourth place $2 million and the conference in last place $1 million. It is unclear which computer rankings, or combination of computer rankings, will be used to make this determination. However, varying reports about the Group of Five formula are circulating. I’ll update this with anything new I learn.
Keep in mind that two of the contract bowls – the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl – are semifinal sites, meaning their contracts with the Big Ten/Pac-12 and SEC/Big XII, respectively, are not in play this year. In the years those games are played, each of those conferences will receive $40 million for playing in those games.
For full details on the payouts, including travel expenses and distributions to independents, and a comparison to the last year of the BCS, see this post."

Friday, December 26, 2014

Pic of the Day

With 'friends' like these, who needs enemies.  Sadly, the ACC sits idly by while their own network works to take FSU down.






















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Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Here's What the New York Times Isn't Telling You



Here's What the New York Times Isn't Telling You

I’m not going to sit here and write some column seething with venom and overt rage towards the New York Times. That looked ugly enough on their end when they did it last night.
What I will say is that name — the New York Times — used to mean something.
I spent three years covering FSU for the Miami Herald before I got to ChopChat. I was writing for them when this whole story broke– I’ve covered this since day one. I say that to establish my own credibility. I also say it because I know more about the newspaper industry than your average joe. I’m not an expert– three years on a low-priority beat (no love for FSU at the Herald) hardly qualifies me as one. But I do know some things.
Which is why it’s so sad when a once-great media outlet starts to rest on its laurels and eschews actual journalism for a more sensational approach.
There are literally hundreds of available pages of evidence from this case. There are multiple reports from multiple investigations. There have been attorney statements, rebuttals and all range of other materials to consider. The average person doesn’t have the time, nor the inclination, to rifle through it all themselves. That’s why people subscribe to newspapers– so a reporter will do it instead and inform them.
Only, nowadays, people don’t subscribe to newspapers anymore. So newspapers are forced to adopt new business models to try and survive. Many have bid farewell to traditional reporting in favor of a more modern, click-driven approach.
That’s how you get to one of the biggest papers in the country willfully omitting relevant portions of a news story to instead sell a better narrative.
Now I understand that’s a bold claim, so I’m going to provide actual evidence rather than just ask you take me at my word. I don’t have a masthead like ‘New York Times’ over my name to ensure people buy into my credibility– I’ll do this the old-fashioned way.
The First Omission
This is the call to police that was made from the accuser’s friend, Jenna Weisberg, to the FSUPD on the night of December 7, 2012. In it, Weisberg tells the dispatcher her friend’s story has been in pieces, but “she said she thinks she was hit on like the back of the head and then she ended up in somebody’s room.”


The reason this is a relevant detail is it provides context for the TPD’s response and contradicts the accuser’s version of events. One of the biggest — and most unchallenged — parts of this narrative is that the TPD botched the investigation. And while that’s not a point I’m going to argue, the extent to which it was botched has been exaggerated greatly.
So much so, in fact, that many around the country believe there was no rape kit, no blood work, almost no evidence taken at all. That’s glaringly false. Yes, someone at the TPD tipped off FSU administrator Monk Bonasorte and he allowed Winston and Florida State to get out in front of the allegations. But that, in itself, does not make the allegations against Winston true.
What the New York Times conveniently omits is that the TPD was responding to a report of a girl who had been hit over the head and raped by an unknown assailant. Upon arriving at the hospital — where the accuser was transported just hours after the alleged attack — the physical examination made it obvious that what had been initially reported was false. There was zero head trauma.
There was vaginal tenderness, that could be due to sexual intercourse or rape, but the other markings on her body actually tend to corroborate the accounts of Winston, Ronald Darby and Chris Casher — that all three witnessed her on her knees giving Winston oral sex — more than her own account.
“The Sexual Assault Nurse notes some redness on [redacted] knees and the top of her left foot. She also noted brown bruises on [redacted] left knee and on her right elbow.”
Jameis Winston
Redness on both knees and the top of one foot could corroborate the three players’ accounts. But the accuser claims she had her arms pinned down by a 235-pound man as she attempted to resist. Hours after the attack there was nothing to corroborate this beyond the mark seen to the right on her elbow– that bruise is listed as being brown. Bruises typically begin to brown weeks — not hours — after they occur. But even if it were fresh, that tiny brown mark on the back of the accuser’s arm is the only physical evidence that the she and her representation have ever provided to prove a 235-pound man forcibly held her down and assaulted her.
There is no follow-up exam, no photographs, nothing to corroborate the account further.
Here are the results of the physical examination in full (p. 35-39)
The Fix is In
Despite the fact that physical evidence supports Winston’s account far more than it does his accuser’s, the Times has pushed its “cover-up” narrative by undermining the investigation at all points.
In terms of timeliness, what police officers did fail to do was collect DNA from Winston for far longer than they should have. It was an egregious mistake. Again, that alone, doesn’t make Winston guilty.
It also doesn’t mean they lost anything irreplaceable.
That’s a myth that has nearly become conventional wisdom. The accuser was examined by medical professionals within hours of the incident. She met with detectives twice in the first day. They took evidence. They took samples. By 7:25 AM the morning of the 7th — just hours after receiving the call — the TPD had a rape kit, a toxicology kit and a pair of pink pants with DNA on them. And keep in mind at this point Winston’s name had not come up so there was no cover-up occurring. These aren’t tainted samples. This isn’t botched evidence. All of this was done by the TPD and the staff at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital in a timely manner and in good faith.
Then the accuser broke off contact. This isn’t opinion, it’s fact. It’s in all of the reports.
And keep in mind at this point Winston’s name had not come up so there was no cover-up occurring. These aren’t tainted samples. This isn’t botched evidence. All of this was done by the TPD and the staff at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital in a timely manner and in good faith.
Over a month later she contacts the TPD and alleges it was Jameis Winston who raped her. This is when the TPD starts to drag its feet. It’s also when the second myth begins: that’s that the TPD didn’t take her seriously.
A more reasoned interpretation would be that they were skeptical. And they had reason to be. Beyond the fact police thought they were responding to a girl who had been bludgeoned over the head, at this point police were also aware that the accuser had deleted information from her phone and social media accounts before turning them over. Then she breaks off contact for a month before coming back and accusing a high-profile football player.
Just for a second — and I know this isn’t popular right now — consider this from the vantage of the TPD. That’s going to be a high profile investigation (as it eventually was). The fact that Detective Scott Angulo told the accuser’s attorney as much — and as crass as it may have been, it was true — might not be as bad as it’s been made to sound in its retelling.
The third myth, and one of the dumbest, is that Jameis Winston was able to pre-emptively lawyer up and start getting stories straight because somebody tipped off FSU. For starters, getting an attorney is not an admission of guilt. And we’re starting to get into dangerous territory when we portray it as such.
But the idea that he beat this because he got wind of it ahead of time really only means that investigators couldn’t try to ambush him. And even if they’d gotten that chance, there’s no guarantee Winston would’ve talked. Nor was he obligated to. And as soon as he was approached, him or someone at the school would have called a lawyer so as damning as this all sounds– it’s not, really. It was an impropriety, yes. But not of the grievous magnitude it’s being made out to be.
And as for getting stories straight, the State Attorney’s Office — which also investigated this case — turned up more evidence of the accuser’s attorney coaching witnesses than Winston’s.
So yes, the TPD did botch parts of this investigation. But the way it was botched and the way it is portrayed are miles apart. And the other side is not without its own indiscretions over the past two years.
Two Legitimate Clearances
The State Attorney’s Office — run by Willie Meggs — was portrayed as just another part of the corrupt good old boys club that runs Tallahassee by the Times. One needs only look at the way Meggs attempted to prosecute former FSU DL Travis Johnson to know that’s a strange way to characterize himJohnson was charged with rape and was acquitted by an all-female jury in just 30 minutes. At the time many around the state faulted Meggs for charging him despite a lack of evidence.
Here, a decade later, we are led to believe he’s done a complete 180? And maybe he has. Or maybe the 15-page report put together by Investigator Jason Newlin — one that is hardly ever cited — convinced him that there actually just wasn’t enough evidence to support taking the accuser’s claims on their face.
Newlin covers everything, from the physical evidence to the messages on the accuser’s cell phone to the conflicting accounts of her friends. It isn’t widely reported that the accuser danced with Winston that night and gave him her number. It’s not widely reported that the text sent to the accuser by Winston was deleted before the accuser’s phone was turned over to police. Nor is it reported that she wasn’t drunk or drugged. Or that she asked a friend if she should go with Winston and then vanished when told “you can go.”
At what point does anyone just pause and ask the accuser what she thought was being implied by Winston’s invitation home? At their FSU Code of Conduct hearing the accuser said she failed to resist or voice opposition to leaving with Winston and his friends because she was just too scared. Winston’s attorney, David Cornwell, called this is the ‘seventh version’ of her story. Justice Major Harding — the second of the legitimate investigators to clear Winston — dismissed that account completely, stating there were ample opportunities to not enter the cab in the first place and that her behavior leading up to the decision gave every other indication.
Further, [accuser] did not identify any evidence that you acted in a manner that would reasonably justify her developing such beliefs. The evidence is undisputed that people were present, but [accuser] did not seek help. This lack of evidence, among other things, is relevant to the charged violations of physical violence and endangerment.
So where does that leave us?
Well, two legitimate investigators — ones who have no conflict of interest here — have essentially cleared Winston. Jason Newlin is an investigator for the State Attorneys Office– he’s not even the one making the decision to file charges. His job is simply to investigate, which he did. His findings led Meggs to not pursue the case and — on their own — cast ample doubt on the accuser’s account.
You can read the whole thing (it’s just 15 pages) right here
Justice Harding was once the chief justice of the state supreme court. His reputation is apparently upstanding enough that the president of the Florida Bar Association, Gregory Coleman, came to his defense when the accuser’s attorney, Baine Kerr, said that “the fix was in.”
“Major Harding, a former chief justice of the Florida Supreme Court who presided over the FSU code of conduct hearing, is one of the most highly respected lawyers in Florida and in the United States. To say that he is anything but thoroughly unbiased and of the highest integrity is unacceptable.”
The Times, meanwhile, refer to the former chief justice as “judge” in their most recent piece– a move that is at best a mistake and at worst a deliberate attempt to undermine his credibility.
In fact, the New York Times — nor the accuser’s team — have not provided one shred of evidence that either of these two have done anything to merit labeling them “corrupt.” There is zero evidence of impropriety on their end. But we’re supposed to just believe they’re in on this too?
Yes, according to the New York Times. Not because the evidence says so, but because it makes for a better story.
Rabble-Rousing Masquerading as News
What the New York Times released last night was not news– it was straight opinion. It was aimed at getting a visceral reaction from those who had already decided Winston was guilty. It’s scathing and is sure to drive in plenty of traffic. But Juliet Macur doesn’t make any sort of case for the accuser based on evidence. She simply refers to part of the transcript from the CoC hearing — not all of it, which would have provided a greater deal of context — and continues to take the constantly evolving account of the accuser on its face. Even despite glaring contradictions.
In two years Winston’s accuser has claimed she was hit on the head, black out drunk, drugged and then just too terrified to avoid getting in a cab with Winston and company. When that didn’t work the accuser’s attorney even accused the FDLE of testing the wrong blood.
But Macur doesn’t bother to go into any of that (and risk undermining the accuser’s credibility), she’s hung up on the fact Winston said that his accuser ‘moaned’ when asked by Harding how she showed consent. What she fails to mention is the physical evidence that goes along with that. Ignoring it certainly makes Winston’s remark sound more vulgar — vile even — but it’s only half of the story.
No, you can’t prove that the redness and swelling on the accuser’s knees and foot during her examination were indicative that she was engaged in giving Winston oral sex– as he, Casher and Darby allege. That’s not a smoking gun. But that’s still far more evidence — physical and otherwise — in favor of Winston’s account than the accuser can produce for hers.
And it is on her and her representation to prove their claim. This is still the US, it is still innocent until proven guilty. Or at least it’s supposed to be.
But the New York Times doesn’t want to spend much time discussing how the accuser and her attorneys waited for nearly two years to file a title IX complaint, then tried to fast-track the hearing. Or how they actually got to help determine who would preside over it.
No, at this point, with the implication that Justice Harding is corrupt, it’s best not to remind readers that the accuser’s team helped select Harding in the first place.
Make no mistake about it, the deck WAS stacked. But it was stacked against Winston. The accuser pressured FSU by threatening a massive lawsuit and then got to trot into a hearing with no penalty for perjury and a lower preponderance of evidence required than a criminal proceeding.
If Jameis Winston’s accuser was really raped she had ample opportunity to prove it to an unbiased third party at this most recent hearing.
She and her attorneys didn’t.
The New York Times can spin that any way they want. It was a botched investigation. It was a corrupt judge. The school steamrolled her. Winston got off because he had a great attorney.
The last one is true.
But it isn’t why Winston won. He won because the evidence — the stuff that was collected hours after the events of that night, before Winston’s name had ever come up — was stronger for him than it is for her. There’s more physical evidence, Winston’s witnesses corroborate his version while his accuser’s contradict hers and Winston’s account has never changed.
It’s all plain to see if you actually take a look at the evidence. It’s all right here. Click it. Read it. Decide for yourself.
Just don’t take the New York Times’ word for it. Because there’s a lot they aren’t telling you.
TPD Report
State Attorney’s ReportInvestigative Materials (pt. 1)
Investigative Materials (pt. 2)

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Winston Ruling

This is the only article I have read on the topic with balance and reason.  Sadly, few actually believe in those principals, the lynch mob rules the day with the press.


Winston Ruling

"Jameis Winston has been cleared of violating FSU's code of conduct. Other than the inevitable civil suit and countersuit, the sexual-assault matter is now closed.

So what have we learned?

Sadly, nothing we didn't know from the start. Major B. Harding knew that, so he made the only reasonable ruling possible.

It was bound to cause a backlash because just about everybody else thinks they know the truth.

Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston was cleared of the accusations he faced at a student code of conduct hearing involving an alleged sexual assault two years ago, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

One side knows Winston is a coddled jock who committed rape and has been protected by police, FSU and scummy lawyers. The other side knows his accuser willingly had sex with the football star, and now she and her scummy lawyers are just trying to cash in.

How do they know?

It's based on utter infallibility of preconceived notions. And it turned this saga into a high-profile game of character assassination with no winners.

The accuser has been trashed as a gold-digging sleaze and faced death threats for trying to bring down Mr. Heisman. It's far easier to sympathize with her, but how do know for sure Winston isn't the victim here?

"This is the worst attack on an athlete that we have ever seen in the history of amateur sports," his attorney, David Cornwell, said Monday on NBC Sports Radio.

The 1972 Israeli Olympic team might beg to differ. But there's no doubt that Winston has never enjoyed the benefit of the doubt.

Part of that is because his own doing (see: Burger King, Publix, FSU Student Union). There's a big difference, however, between being a serial knucklehead and a rapist.

It didn't help Winston that the incident occurred as "rape culture" awareness was skyrocketing on campuses. The Washington Post recently ran a column titled, "We Should Automatically Believe Rape Victims." As FSU was struggling in a game against Boston College, a San Francisco columnist tweeted, "Beat the Rapist."

A mob mentality set in. When Treon Harris was accused of sexual assault, there were calls for Florida to immediately kick him out of school. Within 48 hours, the accusations were dropped.

It's as if nobody remembered what happened to the Duke lacrosse team. Rolling Stone editors sure didn't when they green-lighted the expose on Virginia's Phi Kappa Psi fraternity.

As with those stories, Winston fit a media narrative about privilege and victimology. Even when the stories were shot full of holes, activists defended them on grounds they exposed a larger truth.

There's that word again. In quest of their version of the truth, activists are glad to dispose of a centuries-old principle of justice - the presumption of innocence. That led to the predictable fallout to Sunday's news.

"Winston Cleared of Rape Like Every Other Sports Star," was the headline at The Daily Beast website.

If you believe the fix was in, take a deep breath and think about what that entails. Harding, a former chief justice of the Florida Supreme Court, would risk his legacy to join the conspiracy to keep Winston eligible.

The fact is that despite the stumblebum police investigation, Harding still had 1,000 pages of testimony and evidence to review. And it all came down to what everyone should have admitted from Day One.

"I do not find the credibility of one story substantially stronger than that of the other," Harding wrote in his finding to Winston. "Both have their strengths and weaknesses."

Unlike snarky media tweeters or idiots issuing death threats, Harding does not pretend to have been in the bathroom with Winston and the accuser on Dec. 7, 2012.

"You and [the accuser] are the only persons with personal knowledge as to what actually happened," he wrote to Winston.

Everybody else could just fill in the blanks to fit their agendas. And after two years, the only lesson we've learned is people prefer that to the truth."

Monday, December 22, 2014

FSU COE response




FSU, FAMU respond to engineering college study


"The State University System’s Board of Governors has pushed back the deadline to Jan. 12 for a final report from the consulting firm hired to conduct an in-depth analysis of the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering. California-based Collaborative Braintrust (CBT) had been scheduled to submit a final report by Dec. 19.
CBT’s draft report, received by BOG in mid-November, estimated it could cost as much as $1 billion to uncouple the joint college and create separate top-tier engineering programs at5 Florida State and Florida A&M.
The contentious issue, supported by FSU and opposed by FAMU, emerged in full force during this year’s legislative session. John Thrasher, then a powerful Republican senator from St. Augustine and now FSU’s president, proposed adding $3 million to the state budget for FSU to explore developing its own college of engineering.
A split would end a unique 32-year partnership created by lawmakers in 1982, but it has been deemed essential by FSU officials if their institution is to make significant strides in the national rankings and be eligible for membership in the prestigious Association of American Universities.
FAMU, the state’s only public historically black college, has said it is not prepared financially or academically to host its own college of engineering.
The Senate approved the $3 million for FSU, but the House of Representatives did not. Their compromise resulted in a $500,000 appropriation for BOG to study the joint college and provide recommendations to the Legislature. BOG is expected to consider the report's findings at its January or February meetings, and the 17-member, governor-appointed board is scheduled to make a decision by March 1. The board could decide to request additional funding from the Legislature.
FSU and FAMU have each responded to the draft report, with FSU providing considerable context to federal statutes – Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the subsequent
U.S. Supreme Court decision in United States v. Fordice – and CBT’s cost estimates.
In a letter signed by Thrasher and FSU Provost Garnett Stokes, the university reasoned that the federal laws prohibiting separate-but-equal educational opportunities do not necessarily apply to the circumstances at the joint college.
The trustees at FAMU wanted to weigh in on the draft report during their final meeting of the year earlier this month, but university President Elmira Mangum – who was forced to deal with the proposed split on April 2, her second day on the job – said that FAMU would not be making any formal responses until CBT’s final report has been submitted.
Individual faculty members at FAMU have written letters to BOG and CBT in response to the draft report. FAMU officials contend that a letter being attributed to faculty in the college’s Department of Mechanical Engineering is in fact from only FSU members in the department, and that no FAMU faculty signed the letter.
“This statement should be corrected," F”MU's letter states. FAMU also contested the data in several tables compiled by CBT, and asked that they be corrected.
Mangum has said that no matter the decision by BOG or lawmakers, she wants FAMU to be able to continue offering engineering opportunities to students at FAMU.
While the Legislature was debating in April the merits of splitting the college, FAMU administrators provided an estimate that they would need $100 million annually to operate an engineering scjpp; on the FAMU campus.
CBT’s draft report echoes an analysis by the Tallahassee Democrat that appeared in the April 22 edition of the newspaper.
The two universities have distinctly different missions. FSU, with more resources, has been more committed to building the faculty at the college; almost one-third of the college's faculty are on a separate FSU budget line and not the joint college's budget. In 2013, based on BOG data, FSU awarded 267 degrees to students in the college while only 34 FAMU students earned degrees."


RE: Good article about TV ratings

[Image: nm9.4.jpg]



"I lumped the networks into the following three groups

Group 1- 5+ million/game: ABC, CBS
Group 2- 2-3 million/game: NBC, ESPN, Fox
Group 3 Less than a million/game: Everything else

Conference: Group1/Group2/Group3
ACC: 17%/38%/45%
Big 10: 35%/10%/54%
Big 12: 19%/31%/50%
PAC-12: 14%/53%/33%
SEC: 33%/36%/31%

The SEC had 69% of its rated games from Groups 1 and 2. That goes a long way as to explaining the gap between the SEC and the other conferences.

The Big 10 OTOH had the highest % from both groups 1 and group 3, and the lowest from Group 2. Most of the group 3 games were on the best of the group 3 networks, ESPN2.

PAC-12 is very group 2 heavy with games on Fox and ESPN. IT had the second highest % of games from group 1 and 2, but most of those were the less watched group 2.

Big 12 had half of its games on the less watched group 3 networks, and most of those were on the less watched FS1.

ACC had the most of anyone on ESPNU, which pushed their average down.

The SEC mix of mostly group 1 and 2 games and only 8 ESPNU games definitely pushes their average up. "


Factoid of the day




Gil Brandt @Gil_Brandt May 14
Most 1st-round picks since common draft started (1967):
 
USC 66
Miami, Ohio St. 56
Florida 43
Alabama 41
FSU 40
ND, Tenn 39
Michigan, PSU 34

More ESPN bias

This article was written two years ago by ESPN ACC writer after FSU won 12 games, an ACC title, and a BCS bowl.

Since this time, FSU has not lost a game in TWO CALENDAR YEARS....including a national title and undefeated record against ESPN's beloved SEC conference.

Yet the narrative remains......FSU is always unimpressive to ESPN.  Notice a theme?

Follow the $$$$$....ESPN wants to tarnish FSU every chance they get because they threaten the $EC.

What is really nuts is, the ACC doesn't care.  Swofford just plays the fiddle while the network he signed the ACC to life for, so his son can have a job, actively works against the ACC......and our fellow ACC schools don't give a @#$@#$.

FSU needs to be in another conference.


FSU wins in unconvincing fashion


"
  • By Heather Dinich | January 2, 2013 3:46:17 AM PST


  • MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. -- Memo to Florida State fans who want to jump in celebration of the 31-10 Discover Orange Bowl win against Northern Illinois: Don’t jump too high, you might hit your head on Florida State’s ceiling.

    Because this is it.

    This is what you get with back-to-back top-10 recruiting classes, with a roster bursting at the seams with talent, size, speed and depth, and a defense worthy of a national title. You get a flat, disjointed offensive showing against the MAC champs. You get the same inconsistent effort against a lesser opponent that became the trademark of this year's ACC champs. You get a heart attack in the third quarter when it’s 17-10 and Northern Illinois is driving with all of the momentum after a predictable onside kick.

    Before you start hurling your oranges ...

    ESPN IMG
    Chris Trotman/Getty Images
    Jimbo Fisher got Florida State its first 12-win season since 1999.
    Florida State deserves credit for winning 12 games for the first time since the program’s unbeaten 1999 season. It deserves a pat on the back for helping the ACC win its first BCS bowl game since 2009. Florida State's defense deserves a vacation, not to mention a few NFL contracts. Florida State and the ACC avoided embarrassment with the Noles' win over NIU. In the end, the conference finished with its first winning bowl record since 2005, including signature wins over USC and LSU. Florida State did what it was supposed to do, it won. But the win left doubts in the process, just as it has all season long.

    Florida State needed a touchdown in the final 40 seconds to beat the worst Virginia Tech team the program has seen in 20 years.

    Florida State was held scoreless in the second half of the ACC championship game against a 6-7 Georgia Tech team.

    Florida State lost to an NC State team that fired its coach and had five turnovers in a bowl loss to Vanderbilt.

    It doesn’t get any better than the talent that’s currently on Florida State’s roster. Florida State lost three, three, of its best players to injury, including likely first-round NFL draft picks Tank Carradine and Brandon Jenkins, and leading rusher Chris Thompson, and the Noles were still deep enough to win a BCS bowl. They shouldn’t have just won this game, though, they should have put Northern Illinois away in the first quarter.

    Instead, for 3½ quarters Tuesday night, Florida State reminded fans why this was a lose-lose situation for the Seminoles. Even the most loyal of FSU fans had to be cringing at the offense’s bumbling start. In typical FSU fashion, the Noles managed to rack up 534 yards of total offense and convert on only three of 14 third downs.

    You think Mark Stoops would be happy if his old defense held its opponent to only 100 yards but gave up 30 points?

    “We didn’t score points, but we moved the ball,” Fisher said. “We had 428 yards in less than three quarters. We just broke the school record this year for total yardage in a single season, the most yardage by an offense in Florida State history.

    “I don’t know what we were tonight, where it was, but this offense, we’ve been very proud of it,” he said. “… I think we’re right there, and I think we had to get on this platform and understand that we have to go win the championship, you have to get in a BCS bowl game and understand all the things that go with it, all the hoopla … but you’ve got to learn to handle those things to play on the big stage, and these guys did that and showed our young guys that we feel very confident about where we’re going and what we’re doing and for the future.”

    Clemson isn’t waiting. The Tigers are coming off a thrilling 25-24 win over No. 8 LSU in the Chick-fil-A Bowl. They ended the season looking like the best team the ACC will have to offer in 2013. While FSU put on a middling performance against the MAC, Clemson was arm wrestling the SEC -- and won.

    Clemson versus Florida State should again determine the ACC champ next year.

    “We’ve got a heck of a football team coming back,” Fisher said.

    He had a heck of a football team this year, too, and it gave every reason to believe that this was its ceiling. "