Ramble On ... New NCAA Proposal...

The Washington Post printed this story on Wednesday and called attention to a new NCAA rules proposal being introduced by the ACC and its coaches. It calls for a tighter window for college basketball players to declare for early entry to the annual NBA Draft.

Seems like it works for everyone and would begin with the 2010 season. I believe the NBA's special committee can provide good, solid advice on the player and his draft status as opposed to the 'poker-game' played by various player agents, and team execs following the individual workouts.

NCAA May Shorten Window for NBA Draft

By Eric Prisbell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 14, 2009; E03

It has become college basketball's rite of spring: After the Final Four, the best non-seniors declare for the NBA draft, then spend the next two months mulling whether to return to school. In the meantime, their coaches wait to find out whether they'll need to scramble to find replacements late in the recruiting season.

That familiar scenario could change as soon as 2010. The NCAA Division I Legislative Council is scheduled to vote this week on an ACC proposal to sharply reduce the time underclassmen have to decide whether to remain in the draft. The issue promises to be one of the highlights of the NCAA convention, which is taking place this week at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Prince George's County.

Underclassmen currently have until late April to enter their names in the draft, and until mid-June to pull out and retain their collegiate eligibility so long as they have not signed with an agent. The ACC's proposal would give players about a 10-day window after the Final Four in April to make a final decision on the draft.

"If you give somebody forever to make a decision, they are going to take forever," North Carolina Coach Roy Williams said. "It leaves your program in limbo. It leaves your current players in limbo."

Many coaches believe the two months of uncertainty in the spring detracts from the development of the players still in the program and creates an atmosphere of confusion because of the possible turnover on rosters.

"For a two-month period, guys who may not be in your program become your priority," Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski said. "And the guys who are still in the program don't get any attention."

Under the current deadline, coaches sometimes don't know what kind of team they have for the following season until mid-June, after the signing period has ended and when there are few replacement players available. Florida State Coach Leonard Hamilton said during ACC media day in October that "too many kids are putting their names into the draft and taking their names out. Their names shouldn't be in there in the first place. You have so many kids making poor decisions, it is obvious some of these kids are getting poor advice."

Some players, such as Maryland's Greivis Vasquez, believe 10 days would be too short a time to make such a significant decision. They feel it would be more difficult to get good advice on their future, and that they would not be able to base their decisions on feedback from workouts with NBA teams, which typically begin in May for underclassmen.

Maryland Coach Gary Williams, however, feels 10 days is enough time for players to accurately assess their draft status. He said the mid-June final deadline is at times irrelevant because a player who trains throughout the spring may be "too far gone" academically to return to school even if he does not hire an agent.

If approved by the Legislative Council, the Division I Board of Directors would consider the proposal Saturday. The legislation will not affect the 2009 NBA draft, but it could have a significant effect on the college basketball landscape in the coming years.

"I think it adds some semblance of order in recruiting," Krzyzewski said. "It is too much time. Either a kid is with you, or he is on to other things."

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Where Have All the E-mails Gone?

Check this out?

In an emergency court order, Judge Henry Kennedy of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia directed the Executive Office of the President to search staff workstations and personal storage table files, and to preserve any e-mails
from the period in question.

The court order also directed the office's employees to surrender
any media devices in their possession, such as CDs, DVDs, memory sticks, or external hard drives, that may contain e-mails from that period, so they can be searched.
The emergency court order came at the behest of the National Security Archive, a George Washington University research institute that filed a lawsuit in September 2007 to compel the White House to retrieve and preserve its e-mails. A similar suit filed by the nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington was consolidated with the Archive's suit.

On Thursday, the Washington Post reported:

A Justice Department lawyer told a federal judge yesterday that the Bush administration will meet its legal requirement to transfer e-mails to the National Archives after spending more than $10 million to locate 14 million e-mails reported missing four years ago from White House computer files.

Civil division trial lawyer Helen H. Hong made the disclosure at a court hearing provoked by a 2007 lawsuit filed by outside groups to ensure that politically significant records created by the White House are not destroyed or removed before President Bush leaves office at noon on Tuesday. She said the department plans to argue in a court filing this week that the administration's successful recent search renders the lawsuit moot.

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MLB Salary Cap?

AP ran this story on Thursday:

Some baseball owners say it may be time to reconsider a salary cap after the New York Yankees spent nearly a half-billion dollars on free agents during a recession that may cause some teams to retrench.

"I would ask, if it's such a bad idea, what sport doesn't have a salary cap other than us?" Milwaukee Brewers owner Mark Attanasio said Wednesday.
A salary cap isn't on the agenda of the major league owners meetings this week. But it could become an issue when the present collective bargaining agreement expires after the 2011 season -- especially if the economy worsens.

The NBA instituted its Salary Cap in 1983. MLB is now seriously addressing it in 2009? Hmm?

***

One of the basic goals of PR is to be ubiquitous in placement of your client and your client's spokespeople and overall message. Whether it be on radio, TV, on-line or in the papers, the wider the line cast, the better chance of attracting some attention and promoting the client.

Here's a nice example in Friday's Boston Globe promoting the home opener of the beloved Boston Blazers indoor lacrosse team:

iPod shuffle

What pops up when you put someone's music on random
By June Wulff, Globe Staff | January 16, 2009

Tom Ryan, head coach and general manager of the Boston Blazers. The professional indoor lacrosse team plays its home opener tomorrow against the New York Titans at TD Banknorth Garden.

The 38-year-old Harvard Square resident is busy preparing plays - and a playlist - for tomorrow's game. "Music makes everything better," Ryan says. And at lacrosse games, music is played throughout the game - "even though some people think it's cheesy," he says. The home team chooses the soundtrack, so he's working on a list (with input from the players) of "uptempo and aggressive songs" to motivate the players, especially after goals and fights. Likely artists include Rage Against the Machine, AC/DC, and Guns N' Roses. As for Ryan's personal playlist, the National Lacrosse League veteran likes jam bands and songs that evoke emotion. Here's what came up on his four-gigabyte nano:

1. "Terrapin Station," Grateful Dead

2. "Sand," Trey Anastasio

3. "Cheap Novelty Hats," Particle

4. "Ahead By a Century," Tragically Hip

5. "Love Rollercoaster," Red Hot Chili Peppers

6. "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy," Maceo Parker

7. "Down South in New Orleans," The Band

8. "Good Times Roll," The Cars

9. "I Can't Quit You Baby," Led Zeppelin

10. "Shake Your Body (Down To The Ground)," Michael Jackson

Total songs: 505

Glad we missed: "Last Dance" by Donna Summer. "I put it on as a good closer for benefit concerts I host twice a year with two high school friends from Canton, N.Y."

Good lacrosse song: "Ocean Size" by Jane's Addiction

***

As a follow-up to earlier posts on the NHL winter classic, I clipped this item from the Ft Worth Star Telegram (I am not sure if it was shared with the Dallas Morning News) which lists potential sites for the future and pros and cons. Read on:

2010 NHL Winter Classic coveted by several prime venues

By TRACEY MYERS
Call the Winter Classic the NHL’s version of the Super Bowl. It’s a ratings winner, everyone wants to be there and a whole lot of places want to host it in the near future.
It’s a beautiful thing, really, and cities are lining up to be part of the next Winter Classic, or be part of one somewhere down the road. The choices? Oh, there are some great ones. So which are the best options? Let’s take a look at the plusses and minuses of each locale:

The new Yankee Stadium

Yes: A sparkling new building looking to pick up on the history left at the old Yankee Stadium. What a better way to break it in than with a winter game?

No: OK, New York gets enough love from the league. New York gets enough love from every league. Buffalo and Pittsburgh played in the state on Jan. 1, 2008, so let someone else have a chance.

Beaver Stadium, Penn State University

Yes: Picture it, a grand college stadium with 107,000-plus capacity hosting the Classic. The student sections alone make this fantastic. Personal bias vote: I grew up about 90 minutes away, and it’d be a great chance to go home and see this with the family.

No: Part of State College’s charm is it’s off the beaten path. It’s not a metropolitan area, and travel in and out of the smaller airport could be difficult. It won’t disrupt those team charters, but does that pose a problem for fans?

Minneapolis

Yes: It’s Minnesota, people, former home of the North Stars, home of the Wild, the state where outdoor rinks are loaded with kids during the winter. Why wouldn’t you put a Winter Classic there?

No: Actually, it’s not a good selection for next New Year’s Day. The Minnesota Twins will open their new outdoor stadium, Target Field, in 2010. After that, Minneapolis should be seriously considered.

Las Vegas

Yes: The city that epitomizes glitz and entertainment would certainly know how to put on a Classic show. They might even turn the showgirls into ice girls.

No: The NHL works hard to keep the ice in good shape in the northern U.S. cities. How are you going to manage it in Vegas, where winter temperatures average in the mid-50s? And don’t even think about putting this game indoors.

Montreal

Yes: The league and NBC have focused on U.S. cities and U.S. teams. That’s fine, but there is far too much hockey history in Montreal to be ignored. Get up there.

No: Montreal has gotten plenty of attention for the Canadiens’ 100th anniversary this season. Give it a few years.

Fenway Park, Boston

Yes: The Red Sox’s ballpark is fabulous and the Bruins are again finding great success in the NHL. Jump on all of that while you can.

No: The baseball venue works just fine, as we saw at Wrigley Field. But if you’re looking to jam a whole lot of people in there, go to a bigger place.

-30-

Lax is the word ...

From today's Boston Globe:

Increasingly, a numbers game
Packed with action, lacrosse Final Four draws a crowd
By Kevin Paul Dupont, Globe Staff | May 24, 2008

Lacrosse fans, perhaps 50,000 or more, are expected to make their way to Gillette Stadium in Foxborough this weekend to watch the NCAA Division 1 men's Final Four. One of the fastest-growing sports in the country the past decade, especially in the youth ranks, lacrosse is hotter than a blistering shot from the slot.

"It's a game that gets in a kid's blood," said longtime Georgetown coach Dave Urick, whose Hoyas, though not in the tournament, are a perennial contender. "And you don't have to be the Incredible Hulk to play it."

Once a cult sport within the NCAA, played predominantly in upstate New York and mid-Atlantic colleges, college lacrosse moved its championship weekend off downsized college venues and into larger NFL stadiums at the start of this decade. According to those closely associated with the sport, the huge uptick in youth participation, as well as collegiate audiences that grew in lockstep with the youth craze, forced the shift to the bigger, glitzier stage.

In the last four years, for example, the Final Four was played in NFL arenas in Baltimore and Philadelphia, and the average attendance was slightly less than 47,000. Last year's attendance at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore was a record 52,004.

All of it a far cry from the day more than 35 years ago when Urick, now 59, drove to Boston from his home in western New York to see the sport's annual North-South college game. In those days, the North-South duel, essentially an all-star matchup, stood as the NCAA's premier lacrosse event.

"The game was at Tufts, and I'll bet the crowd was around 5,000 . . . which wasn't too bad," recalled Urick, reached earlier this week at his campus office in Washington. "Most of all, I remember getting lost in Boston traffic, pulling over, and when I asked for directions, a woman asked me, 'Are you familiar with the rotary concept?' The rotary concept? Hey, I just wanted to get to a lacrosse game."

This weekend, beginning with today's semifinals that will pit Virginia against Syracuse (noon) and Duke against Johns Hopkins (2:30 p.m.), should bring cars streaming down Route 1 to Gillette Stadium, where, in stark contrast to Patriots games, parking will be free. Across from the stadium, in a car dealership's parking lot, a number of interactive lacrosse exhibits will be on display. The Cannons and Blazers, Boston's professional lacrosse franchises, will be among the vendors in the area, attempting to cultivate new fans and customers.

"I went to my first lacrosse Final Four in 1988, when it was at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse," said Tom Ryan, coach of the indoor lacrosse Blazers, who will begin play at TD Banknorth Garden in January. "I was a junior in high school, and I'd played lacrosse since maybe I was 5 years old. But that Final Four changed my life, opened my eyes to a level of play and excitement that I'd never seen before."

Lacrosse lacks nothing in action, which in large part is why it is proving to be such an enticing alternative for high school athletes who traditionally have chosen between baseball and track in the spring. There is little downtime in a sport that demands constant running, and includes contact and skilled stickwork that requires keen hand-eye coordination.

"The kids like the action, and they like the gear, especially the stick and putting on the helmet and gloves," said Jack Piatelli, 45, who grew up in Brookline and became an All-American in high school (Kent) and college (Springfield). "And the action is nonstop. It's not like standing out there in center field, waiting for a ball to come to you."

Piatelli, a regional sales manager (hockey and lacrosse) for New Balance, a dozen years ago helped start a youth lacrosse league in Wrentham that had 75 players enrolled. Today, the program boasts 460.

"The last 15-20 years, the growth around the country has been incredible," said Urick, the Georgetown coach. "You're seeing it take off everywhere now . . . in Denver and Florida and California. Once it gets a toehold in an area, there is no stopping it."

Figures provided by US Lacrosse, the sport's national governing body, show nearly a 90 percent increase in participation, boys and girls combined, since 2001. As of last year, more than 480,000 athletes were playing the game at the youth, high school, and college levels. Seven years ago, that number was just under 254,000.

A significant portion of the crowd going to the games this weekend, which will include the Division 2 and 3 championship games tomorrow and the Division 1 title game Monday, will be stick-toting children, ages, say, 6-16. Just as it is proper to see a youngster bring a baseball glove to Fenway Park, young lacrosse fans like to show up ready for action. They will use the sticks to play catch in the Gillette parking lot, as well as for interactive exhibits around the arena and in the concourse. When the game is on, they're likely to be still clutching their sticks.

"You see a lot of families attending," noted John Tesoro, 46, an investment banker from Sudbury who plans to be at Gillette this weekend with his wife, Jennifer, and son Jonathan. "I'd imagine security is counting on parental supervision to keep the stick thing in check. I went to the Final Four five years ago in Baltimore, and I didn't witness any trouble at all."

Prior to 1971, the NCAA's best lacrosse team was determined via committee rather than a title game. The US Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association, said Jason Yellin, director of sports information at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, designated a "mythical champion" each year, by virtue of a coaches' poll. The practice, he said, sometimes led to co- and tri-champions.

There was far bigger interest in those days in the annual North-South game, such as the one that brought Urick decades ago to that Medford rotary. The tilt brought together the best players from around the Northeast. But finally, in '71, the NCAA introduced the more traditional playoff format to crown its champion, and Cornell that spring bested Maryland for the title. Powerhouse Johns Hopkins played in the next three finals, losing to Virginia and Maryland before capturing its first title with a win over Maryland in 1974.

"That first title game only had around 2,500 spectators," recalled Warren Kimber, who will be on the field this weekend as coordinator of officials, an NCAA post he has held for 15 years. "It was a much smaller deal then, but it has grown into this truly wonderful family event. People come in around noon, and there is all this stuff going on in the parking lots, the games are just great, and people hang around until it gets dark."

As the weekend approached, tickets remained available via Ticketmaster. Cost per package: $70 or $80, which includes tickets to all five games over three days. Single-day tickets were also available, at $35 for today and tomorrow, and $30 for Monday.

"It's really a great atmosphere," said Mark Kastrud, the Cannons' vice president and general manager, who has been to a few Final Fours. "Fans come out of the woodwork for it, connecting with old buddies, and for some, just having it at a big venue like Gillette is a draw in itself. The parking lot will have a lot of tailgating, with kids throwing the ball around, grills going . . . everything you'd see at a Patriots game, but with nicer weather."

Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at dupont@globe.com.