I've written several times about various universities suing the NCAA over its ruling that schools cannot participate in NCAA championship events/tournaments with nicknames that might be offensive to Native Americans. You know where I stand on that issue and you know that I'm rooting for the University of North Dakota to win big in the current legal tussle. Lesser publicized is a potential action that may be brought against the NCAA on anti-trust grounds by the Sons of Confederate Veterans. This organization is sort of like the mirror image of the Daughters of the American Revolution; its membership consists of male descendants of people who served in the Confederate forces in the Civil War. The background of this potential legal action is this.
In 2001, the NCAA barred any of its postseason events from being held in the state of South Carolina so long as the confederate flag - the Stars and Bars - flew over the state capital. That issue was considered within the state of South Carolina and the flag remained in the state capital's ambience. The NCAA has never been an organization that would allow the will of the people to stand in the event that the will of the people did not coincide with the worldview of the NCAA. Hence, the ban on any postseason events in the State of South Carolina…
Currently, the NCAA has a request before it to expand its ban to include sports where teams may earn the opportunity to host playoff games as may be the case in football or baseball. This request comes from the Black Coaches Association which is perfectly understandable. The reaction of the Sons of Confederate Veterans is equally understandable; in announcing the threat of their litigation, one member of this organization said, "The NCAA should stick to sports, something they should know something about, and stay out of politics in South Carolina."
On that point, I have to agree with the Sons of Confederate Veterans even though I suspect I would agree with them on few other positions they might take. The NCAA is a regulatory body involved with athletics; when challenged about its tax-exempt status, the NCAA piously pleads that it is an educational organization. When it gets involved in what flag may or may not be flown over one of the state capitals in relationship to its championship/tournament events, it is a political organization involved in the placement of economic sanctions on a region of the world where the NCAA disagrees with the recognized government of that region of the world. What other educational organization does that?
Evidently, the basis for the contemplated Federal legal action involves things such as an alleged illegal secondary boycott by the NCAA against the state of South Carolina - I'm only reporting this; I got a definition of a secondary boycott from a long-term reader of these rants who is an attorney and I still have no idea how that applies here - and/or potentially a violation of the interstate commerce clause of the US Constitution and/or a violation of the equal protection clause of the US Constitution. Stay tuned…
From previous rants, you have to have figured out that I have been a horse racing fan for more than 40 years. I have to tell you that my interest is waning. I am becoming less inclined to follow the sport on a national basis and the number of great races that demand my attention - and therefore my handicapping efforts to spend a day wagering on the races for that day - are dwindling. And the reason is money.
There are too many fat purses around the country so that trainers of really good horses can earn significant money without ever having to have several really good horses face one another in the same race. And that's what makes horse racing interesting. It used to be that trainers got their best horses in shape to beat other really good horses; now they get their horses in shape to beat the weakest fields they can find that will still offer a six figure purse. And that has gotten to the point where it is making far too much of the racing calendar uninteresting.
Another disturbing trend that relates to money is that the Breeders' Cup races have not accomplished what they were intended to accomplish. The idea was that by offering millions of dollars in purse money for various ages and genders of animals, the best horses would stay in training longer and bring more interest to racing. It's not happening; three year olds who show flashes of brilliance but not championship caliber are still retired to stud more often than they are brought back for their four-year-old racing season.
The result is fewer top quality horses with trainers looking to dodge all the other top quality horses as often as is fiscally possible. A long-term fan of racing is becoming very tired of this trend. Gary West covers racing for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram; he and Andy Beyer are my two favorite racing writers. Here is a recent article by Gary West on the subject of horses being retired too soon; it is definitely worth reading.
In case you missed it, Michelle Wie has accepted her fourth consecutive sponsor's exemption to compete in the Sony Open in mid-January. Might it be that her promotional ties to Sony for many of its products has something to do with her getting this fourth consecutive exemption? Nah, I doubt that too…
Finally, here's an observation from Scott Ostler in the San Francisco Chronicle:
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"It's easy for David Stern to say he doesn't want NBA players running around with handguns. Stern has no idea how naked you feel when you're the only unarmed guy in a strip club."
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