Sneak Peek of the BenzDome

Took a break from grad school to go to the Tulane/Memphis game. It was Tulane's homecoming game. It was an interesting game to watch, but unfortunately Tulane lost. Oh well. It's not like it isn't the first time I've seen Tulane football lose.

There were 25,000+ people in attendance, but, because it's the Dome, it still looked empty. A bright spot: got an early preview of tomorrow's Premiere of the new "Mercedes-Benz Superdome":

Tulane plowing millions into football?

Cowen Pledges Greater Football Funding - The Hullabaloo. Excellent Article.

This is a curious little announcement. I've asked around and what the administration is thinking is they've done research. Their surveys indicate that there's a strong correlation between football programs and alumni donations. Good foobtall programs have a high rate of alumni donorship, while bad football programs generally correlate with poor alumni donorship. That's what I've heard from a couple of different sources on the administration's thinking. The overall plan is to pump up the football program (which loses a couple million dollars a year) so that it at least stands on its own feet and the halo effect of a better football team would pump up alumni donations. At least, that's the plan.

I'll add a few bits of history. Tulane was a founding member of the SEC. They left because "the board thought they could make more money as an independent, like Notre Dame."

Tulane also had Sugar Bowl Stadium (seating 80,000+), which they tore down and shifted over to the Superdome. That one is actually fairly understandable at the time. They didn't have the money to do the extensive renovations the stadium needed and there was this big, shiny new stadium downtown. Unfortunately, the Superdome is the absolute worst venue possible for a small football program. 20,000 fans (a good Tulane attendance figure) are lost in the cavernous, freezing cold stadium. Note that Cowen mentions a fund-raising drive of $60 million to build an Uptown stadium. From what I'm told, it would be ~30,000 seats and be situated one of three locations: wedged into the practice field area (behind Riley Center; tight, but possible), Audubon Park, or Uptown Square, which Tulane acquired about 6 or 7 years ago. We'll see how the neighbors react if they get the money lined up and want to start construction.

I know that Cowen isn't exactly on my Christmas card list, but take a look at the track record. When Cowen arrived at campus we had a Bowden-led football team with offensive genius of Rich Rodriguez calling a potent offense, the oldest degree granting college for women (Newcomb), engineering programs so old, they dated to founding of ABET (in addition to other, smaller academic programs eliminated in the Renewal Plan), and the Princeton Review ranked Tulane #31 overall. Now, we're ranked #51 (Tulane has griped and moaned about using Katrina-tainted data for dropping it out of the top 50 {well, what about the other 19 spots...}) and we're the only top 50 {51} school without an ABET-accredited program in Computer Science (go ahead and look it up for yourself). Even LSU has (finally) gotten their CS program accredited!

I really want Tulane to do well, but we'll have to see where things are headed. I just can't help wondering if this is really the best way to spend this money.

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Here's Cowen's email:

Good Morning:

It has been about six years since Katrina almost destroyed New Orleans and Tulane University. Since that time, Tulane has not only survived but has reimagined itself and become stronger academically and financially. This recovery has not been easy, but the Tulane community was determined to move forward. We have made substantial progress in achieving our academic and financial goals, which have been the primary focus of our efforts since August 29, 2005.

We are now in the stage of our renewal where we can and should continue to focus on the development and success of Tulane Athletics. Next year we will once again field 16 sports teams, fulfilling the NCAA's requirement for competing at the highest level of collegiate athletics.

We have made major commitments to our baseball, basketball and volleyball programs, with a new practice and training facility currently under construction for the latter programs and beautiful Greer Field at Turchin Stadium for our baseball team. These improvements were consistent with the university's recovering finances after Katrina and were made with our academic priorities always in mind. We are proud of what has been accomplished in athletics given all the unprecedented challenges we faced. But the task is not yet complete. Our next goal, which will be the most difficult one to accomplish, is to build a consistently successful football program.

Our vision for football is a program that opens every campaign with the talent and resources to win our division and conference and participate in post-season games - as opposed to one that has periodic winning seasons, which has been the experience at Tulane for the last five or six decades. We will not achieve this overnight, but we must begin the journey for success right now with clear and unambiguous progress made every year, starting with this coming season.

An overview of the evolving plan to accomplish this goal is outlined in The Playbook. In the months ahead we will refine our plans as we marshal the resources necessary to achieve our goals. We will build a successful football program while adhering to Tulane's philosophy of enrolling student-athletes who desire a first-rate education. Our student-athletes are committing their collegiate careers to achieve at high levels, on and off the field, and our coaches will dedicate every bit of their talent and experience to help them in their quest.

For us to be successful, it will require a true team effort -- an effort comparable to what we did after Katrina when many naysayers around the country counted us out. The journey now begins; we hope you will join us.

Have a great weekend,
Scott

UPDATE- Changed capacity figure for Sugar Bowl Stadium.

Saints, Race, and Moon

One of the hardest things to do when going through history is coming up with a complete, accurate portrayal of relatively recent history. History that's too old to easily get newspaper articles, TV reports, and your own memory, but not old enough for good history books to be published. James Lowen referred to this as the "disappearance of the recent past."

During the Rachael "Madeaux" Show, she interviewed Dr. Norman Francis.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Dr. Francis talking about the founding of the Saints, which he was a party to.

Throughout the 50's and 60's, many in the New Orleans business community desperately wanted an NFL franchise to prove that New Orleans was a big city that could rank beside Houston and Atlanta. Momentum slowly built, but there were constant threats to derail the efforts.

One of the worst incidents happened after New Orleans hosted a Pro-Bowl. There's a brief mention at the end of this Google Timeline article from the St. Petersburg Times.

"The American League would love to have New Orleans, but the city does not want A.F.L. resentment over the walkout staged by some of the league's Negro players prior to the All Star Game held here last January. Their grievances were slight, but the league moved the game to Houston, causing a furor in the rejected city.

I've never heard a really thorough explanation of what happened, but it's something along the lines of what happened when Louis Armstrong was king of Zulu. Out of town black football players, used to at least some level of equal service and integrated facilities, were horribly offended by segregated public spaces, especially the hotels and bars. If anyone knows of a good account of what happened, I'd love to read it.

Keep in mind, other cities were struggling with what to do with the "Integration Question." New Orleans was way behind the curve. Atlanta was selling itself as "The City too Busy to Hate" (aside- if you weren't so greedy, you'd love to hate? Is that it?). New Orleans businesses were being hit due to the city's "racist" reputation.

It took some locals sticking their neck out to placate the players union enough for the league to give the OK for a New Orleans franchise. For example, Moon Landrieu battled as one of the only members of the Louisiana Legislature to vote against the infamous "hate laws" of the early 60's. During the LEH lecture series, one person said that Moon, at the time, "looked into his political grave every time he voted against those measures."* He was reviled by whites at the time for being a traitor to his race. As a city councilman, he fought to remove the Confederate flag from Council Chambers (put there as a symbol against integration, not any Grandiose delusions of history). He also passed the "Public Accommodations Act" in 1965, referred to by Dr. Francis in the interview as one of the keys to bringing the franchise to the city.

Finally, New Orleans got the nod. Here's the Google Timeline article of New Orleans being awarded the franchise that would soon be known as the Saints on Halloween.

New Orleanians have every right to enjoy this game without intrusion of politics, but before the game, let's recognize the political history of franchise. Without integration and the heroes that championed it (like Moon Landrieu, but he was only one of many), there would be no New Orleans Saints. Thank God for them and thank God for our New Orleans Saints.


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* Video here. I highly recommend all of the LEH lectures. All are biased towards the mayors, but do a good job of filling in the "memory hole" of the recent past.

News and Notes - 9 Jan 2010

It's damned cold outside. The thermometer on top the local charter school is still reading in the mid-20's. Here's some reading material for you as you sit around your house clutching your hot beverage of choice trying to stay warm.

College Football Coaches Face the Summer of '69. Fantastic article going through some college football history. About how coaches lost their dictatorial power and the racial struggles at the end of the 60's.

Very long David Simon interview. Worth a read. Can't wait until Treme.

China's Energy Solution: Ignore the Cost. China plans massive buildout of alternative energy, whatever the cost. China is forcing public utilities to buy renewable power at cost + fee basis. While "communist"-sounding, might actually be quite capitalistic by breaking the biggest logjam in financing and construction of new wind, etc. projects. Alternative Energy companies have a hard time securing financing due to the massive fluctuation in energy prices. Almost all alternative energy projects (wind, solar {very useful for peak power}) are economical at least SOME of the time. The trick is when energy prices collapse, they're left trying to pay off a massive initial capital cost. Cost overruns probably won't be that bad because the energy companies still have to front the money.

What's driving up oil prices (now above $80 on all indexes {WTI, Brent, Tapis, etc.})? Well, according to this article, it's the LACK of speculators.

Aldous Huxley vs. George Orwell.

The Nightmare Life Without Fuel. Essay from 1977 by Isaac Asimov. I've been getting into a lot of classic science fiction writing recently and Asimov's stuff is really good and holds up well over time. I got more of the Foundation series for Christmas.

Drew Brees: Pro-Bowl Quarterback, New Orleans-lover, Philanthropist, and Washington Post Op-Ed writer.

And here's the best articles for last:

Village will not be moved. Isle De Jean, like many other small Cajun towns south of New Orleans, is slipping into the Gulf, but residents refuse to leave. Great read.

Recession fuels shift to public schools.

"Public schools play such an important role for our democracy as the only institution that serves all children," he says. "If you lose the people who have the power of choice because they have the resources and the information and the time to make a difference, it becomes a system that only serves people who have no other option. And that's a problem."

Profile: Hussain al-Shahristani - Times Online The most important man in the Middle East that you've never heard of. Tortured for 10 years at Abu Gharib, he's now the incorruptable man in charge of Iraq's oil. Reminds me of reading about Zaki Yamani in Saudi Arabia. Related: Oil Drum discussion of potential Iraq oil production capacity. Lots of caveats, but there's potential for a Russia-like situation to develop (poorly managed large fields turned over to IOC's with Superstraws resulting in a "new Saudi Arabia" almost overnight, thanks to lots of hard work. The photo near the end will bring a smirk to your face, too.

And ending with something fun: Looking for a way to stay warm? Try this: