sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2011
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Welcome to Earth Day!
The first Earth Day was held on April 22, 1970. Prior to this, there was virtually no environmental movement. Factories pumped toxins into the air, recycling was almost non-existent, and gas guzzling vehicles were the norm. The seeds of the modern movement had been planted, however, with the publishing of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring in 1962. This book raised the public's awareness of pollution and its effect on health. In 1969, water pollution and chemical waste disposal came to the attention of the public, after the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland caught fire.
Democratic Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin was deeply concerned about environmental issues. After witnessing the Santa Barbara oil spill in 1969, he began planning for the first Earth Day. This was during the time of Vietnam War protests and teach-ins, and Nelson thought he could bring the problems of pollution into the public consciousness by organizing similar types of teach-ins. He hoped that by shining a spotlight on environmental issues in this way, there may be a chance of bringing them into the realm of national priorities, where they had yet to be seen. He announced Earth Day at a conference in Seattle in September of 1969.
SU News
Josh Hough, always stiff arming...
Beaver Falls running back Josh Hough commits to Syracuse (post-gazette.com; Everett)
There must just be something about the color orange that appeals to Josh Hough.
After playing in his orange and black Beaver Falls jersey for the final time this fall, Hough will trade it in for one that is orange and blue.
Hough, a running back-linebacker and one of the WPIAL’s top players in the junior class, is all about the Orange. Monday night, Hough announced that he had verbally committed to Syracuse. He had more than a dozen FBS offers, including ones from Power Five schools Pitt and Kentucky. Pitt offered last week.
Hough visited Syracuse for its junior day late in January, and announced an offer from the Orange on Feb. 1. He’s Syracuse’s third recruit for the Class of 2021.
“It felt like home and I loved the atmosphere,” Hough said.
Syracuse recruited Hough to play running back, which is a big deal considering Hough is a big one — he’s 6-feet-2, 237 pounds. He’s a productive one, too. As a junior, Hough rushed for 1,273 yards and scored 18 touchdowns. He made the most of his 135 carries, averaging 9.4 yards per tote. That ranked third in the WPIAL among players who rushed for at least 1,000 yards.
Hough was co-offensive MVP of the Class 3A Tri-County West Conference, no small feat considering the conference also includes WPIAL champion and PIAA runner-up Central Valley and perennial power Aliquippa. He was a first-team pick at both running back and linebacker.
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Axe: Fantasy matchup of Boeheim recruits and moving on from Hughes (mailbag) (PS; Axe)
Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies, but ask away you did so here is a swing at questions on Elijah Hughes, a fantasy matchup of Boeheim recruits, a delayed football season, lacrosse as a title favorite, and ... pop tarts?
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Q: What, if any impact would a delayed start of college football have on basketball and lacrosse for SU? — @JimCBW
Jim, Stewart Mandel of The Athletic recently did an interesting mock-up of what a winter/spring college football season will look like. In that scenario, he envisions a 10-game regular season stretching from January 1-March 13 with games being moved to indoor sites whenever possible. There are 28 indoor stadiums in the country that are capable of hosting indoor football, including the Carrier Dome.
Syracuse’s scheduled 2020 road football games are at Boston College, Rutgers, Western Michigan, Clemson, Wake Forest and Pitt.
Home games are Colgate, Louisville, Liberty, Georgia Tech, N.C. State and Florida State.
Using a 10-game model, SU gets rid of two games (bye Colgate and Liberty).
I wonder if some schedule flip-flopping could occur where cold weather teams like BC, Rutgers and Pitt change venues and come to the Dome with Syracuse going to Atlanta, Raleigh and Tallahassee instead of hosting the Yellow Jackets, Wolfpack and Seminoles.
As for weaving in and out of the basketball schedule, it’s manageable. Syracuse already does it with lacrosse. Both the men’s and women’s lacrosse teams were ready to take things outdoors in 2020 with the Dome under construction. They may be asked to do it again in 2021 to accommodate the football-basketball shuffle. Look for more men’s and women’s basketball double-headers as well.
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Illinois Football: Ryheem Craig keeps Illini after recent list cut (writingillini.com; Woodcock)
This is list cutting season and this past weekend proved to be good for the Illinois football team.
The Illinois coaching staff has set out to build the defensive line into one of the best units in the country. To accomplish this goal, we will need to keep bringing in talented players who can suit up early on in their career. That is what I see with Ryheem Craig.
Craig is a 6-foot-3, 212-pound weak-side defensive end from Alexander Central High School and resides in Taylorsville, North Carolina. He is rated as a three-star recruit who is the No. 1239 player in the class of 2021 and the No. 65 weak-side defensive end in the nation. He is also the No. 63 player in the state of North Carolina.
On Saturday of this past week, Craig decided to narrow his list down to 12 teams. The programs to make his top list include Western Kentucky, Boston College, Louisville, Florida Atlantic, Syracuse, Liberty, Eastern Carolina, Minnesota, Coastal Carolina, Tennessee and Illinois. This is a solid list, so the Illini will have some competition.
— Ryheem Craig (@CraigRyheem) April 18, 2020
t looks like Craig’s recruitment really blew up in the late winter of this year. That is when most of the teams came in with a scholarship offer, including Illinois who offered him a scholarship on March 21.
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Head coach with York County roots wants York County QB to play football in Connecticut (yorkdispatch.com; Heiser)
A York County guy is trying to get another York County guy to play football in Connecticut.
Central York High School sophomore Beau Pribula announced on his Twitter site on Tuesday that his latest scholarship offer has come from the University of Connecticut.
The Huskies just happen to be coached by Susquehannock High School graduate Randy Edsall.
If Edsall wants to get the Panthers quarterback to play for the Huskies, however, he'll have beat out some pretty heavy hitters from the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision level. Pribula already has Power Five offers from Penn State, Nebraska, Syracuse, Rutgers, West Virginia and Wake Forest.
UConn, meanwhile, is coming off a 2-10 season, including an 0-8 mark in the American Athletic Conference. Beginning in 2020, the Huskies will compete as an FBS independent. In his second stint as UConn's head coach, beginning in 2017, Edsall is 6-30. In his first stint at UConn, from 1999 through 2010, he had much more success, winning at least eight games in six of his last eight seasons. In 2010, UConn won a share of the Big East title and earned a Fiesta Bowl berth.
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Mel’s Sports History: Bill MacPherson (wwnytv.com; Senile Mel)
Dick MacPherson had a stellar career as head coach of the Syracuse football team from 1981 to 1990.
MacPherson vacationed a great deal in the Thousand Islands and thought he’d try his hands leading an NFL team.
Before Bill Belechick and six Super Bowl titles, the New England Patriots turned to coach Mac to try and resurrect what was a struggling franchise.
In 1992, MacPherson was a guest speaker at the Alexandria Bay Rotary Club. He was coming off his first year as head coach of a Patriots team that went 6-10, not a bad first season for a team that was 1-15 the year before.
You can watch Mel’s conversation with him in the video.
Former Syracuse softball player Alicia Hansen and her fiance, former SU football player Antwan Cordy. (Submitted photo)
How CNY softball great found career direction in a takeout food bag (PS; Kramer)
The final at-bat of the long and storied softball career of Alicia Hansen was a groundout to third that ended Syracuse University’s 4-3 loss to North Carolina State in the 2019 ACC Tournament.
A flurry of emotions briefly hit her hard, as she realized that both her team’s season, and, most likely, her competitive playing days, were over.
“I looked back and didn’t have any regrets,” said Hansen, an infielder from Liverpool. “Knowing I didn’t have another chance, I was definitely emotional. It was just the time. It comes for everyone.”
But knowing that didn’t help. A few months later, Hansen sat in the living room of her mom’s home and burst into tears.
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Louisville Plans Potential Furloughs, 15% Budget Cuts In All Sports (sportsbusinessdaily.com)
The Univ. of Louisville athletic department tomorrow will announce "potential furloughs for department employees," and AD Vince Tyra is "planning to cut 15% in all of the sports budgets to save some money," according to Gardner & Robinson of the Louisville COURIER-JOURNAL. Tyra himself is "taking a 10% reduction along with the rest of his senior staff members" and there will be 10% pay cuts "for all head coaches."
Tyra said that the Louisville football program "makes up 45% of the athletic department's budget." Football was "budgeted to bring in" more than $40M in FY '19-20. As of March 31, the budget was at $27M. The men’s basketball program is second, budgeted to bring in $24M. In a worst-case scenario, Tyra said that the athletic department could lose up to $50M if "football is not played and even more if there isn't basketball." Despite this, Tyra said that he does not see playing football games without fans as a "viable option."
He said during a virtual meeting of the UL Athletic Association BOD, “We won’t be playing games with empty stands." Gardner & Robinson note the idea of "encouraging unpaid college athletes to grab, push and tackle one another in a venue that fans are not permitted to enter due to health concerns is ethically questionable." That is "part of the reason that, in Tyra’s eyes, Louisville football will return only when fans are in seats"
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CFB Playoffs Done Right (HM; RX)
CFB Playoffs Done Right
There's a lot of discussion lately about how the Coronavirus pandemic and its related shutdown of college sports could force the football playoffs to expand sooner than originally anticipated (and let's face it - we all knew it was going to expand sooner or later). For example, Yahoo!Sports published an article explaining "Why financial fallout from coronavirus will likely lead to College Football Playoff expansion" in which the author just comes right out with it:
Perhaps the biggest irony is that the richest schools in the Big Ten and the SEC stand to lose the most if there is no 2020 football season - but their support would be critical to expanding the playoffs.
Timeline.
When could/would playoff expansion happen? The Yahoo!Sports article says "It’s difficult to find officials around the sport who see the format remaining for the final six seasons [of the original 12-year contract]". In other words, we've gone from "at least 6 more years" to "within the next 6 years".
That said, it's probably logistically impossible to change the playoffs for the 2020-21 season (if there IS a 2020-21 season!), and it would be doggone tough to get it done by 2021-22, to be honest... but 2022-23? Easy-peasy'!
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Other
Dairy farmers to give away 8,000 gallons of milk at Destiny USA to families in need (PS; Rubio-Licht)
Two tractor trailers filled with nearly 8,000 gallons of milk will pull into the Solar Street parking lot of Destiny USA Wednesday to distribute free milk to area families in need.
The drive-through distribution was organized by Dairy Farmers of America, American Dairy Association North East and Dean Foods to respond to record numbers of people filing unemployment and increasing food insecurity.
The event will run from 2 to 6 p.m. Wednesday in the East Side lot off Solar Street, while supplies last.
Similar drive-through distributions at SUNY Morrisville over the past two weeks have drawn hundreds of families. Upstate Milk Co-op handed out 400 gallons of free milk in Kirkville on Saturday.
“Knowing that millions of Americans are struggling right now to make ends meet and with food banks being a critical local resource to help feed those families, we knew that we had to figure out a solution," said Jennifer Huson of Dairy Farmers of America.
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