Olympic memories, college football season begins and court stays clear of James Madison team cuts - Aug 25, 2008 | 10:35:16
posted by: Howard Smith
- The Olympics are now over, and what a great two weeks it was in Beijing. Many of the pre-Olympic concerns seemed to be non-issues once the competition began, at least from our vantage point watching it on television. The lasting memories in my mind will be Michael Phelps' insane accomplishments, along with Usain Bolt's world-record performances, the men's and women's U.S. basketball teams dominating and the U.S. softball team getting upset in the gold medal game by Japan. What will you remember most from these Olympics?
- The college football season began on Saturday night when Valdosta State easily defeated fellow Georgia school Fort Valley State, 56-3. This is just the way you would expect the reigning Division II national champion to begin its title defense. The game was supposed to be nationally televised on CBS College Sports Network, but Tropical Storm Fay caused several flights into Atlanta to be canceled, thus preventing broadcast crews and production personnel from getting to the stadium.
- Recent Boston College graduate and football student-athlete Matt Ryan will be the starting quarterback in the Atlanta Falcons' opening game of the season. Ryan was taken by Atlanta with the third overall pick of this year's NFL Draft. Do you think the fact that Ryan played all four years on the collegiate level helped prepare him to take on a starting quarterback job right away in the NFL?
- In 2007, James Madison eliminated 10 of its athletics teams to address financial issues and to better comply with the proportionality prong of Title IX. In response, a group called Equity in Athletics filed a lawsuit claiming that the school was discriminating against men, since seven of the 10 teams were men's teams. However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has recently rejected the appeal. What do you think of this situation?
- In the most recent edition of Campus Connection, we talked with John Gagliardi, the St. John's (Minnesota) head football coach who is the all-time winningest coach in college football history. It was fascinating to hear Gagliardi's perspective on how college football has changed in the 60 years that he has been involved in the game. Do you think anyone will ever top Gagliardi's career wins record, which could be around 500 by the time his career is over?
