College Basketball – Black Monday

Posted by on March 17th, 2015  •  0 Comments  • 

The postseason begins for college basketball tonite, as the 32-team field for the NIT begins play, and four teams take part in play-in games for the NCAA tournament, as we roll out March Madness..
 
Today is also the beginning of the next phase of the life of college basketball coaches, after 12-schools dumped coaches and staffs on Sunday and Monday.
 
One of the victims, University of San Diego coach Bill Grier, who won early with players left from Brad Holland’s program, and then lost and lost and lost.
 
He was cut loose with a nice payday to leave, after 6-losing seasons in a 7-year span, and a (117-144) record.  
 
It was stunning it did not work out.  A longtime assistant at Gonzaga, who had close ties to the Dan Monson-Mark Few eras, he surely had the resume to deserve this position. 
 
Somewhere on the road between Spokane and Alcala Way, something was lost.  Strong willed coach, strong recruiter, but nothing worked.  
 
USD is indeed a special place for academics, and it is a different place to recruit to, almost an Ivy League atmosphere.  Maybe that’s the problem, that USD is really out on an island by itself.  There aren’t other Harvards-Yales-Darmouths nearby.  But with so many athletes available, you would have thought Grier would have gotten a higher share of quality student-athletes to play in the JCP-Pavilion.
 
He was fiery, and early on, a turnoff to deal with.  Losing overwhelms you, and it seemed that tidal wave knocked him down.  
 
The slimeball point shaving scandal with the player he inherited, Brandon Johnson, didn’t really stain him.  He didn’t have alot of player defections either.  He just didn’t recruit many big men to compliment special players like Johnny Dee and Chris Anderson.  His big men became big stiffs, and that hurt in a better than you think West Coast Conference.
 
The Zags and BYU have brought the spotlight, and pretty good players to the league, and if you don’t have horses, you don’t have much of a chance.  And life on the WCC street corner is very different than recruiting to the Big West, where the entrance standards at Fullerton-Irvine and others are different.  USD is surely not like cross-town power San Diego State either.
 
There will be another day for Bill Grier.  He deserves it.  Maybe different standards, different access to players, maybe a basketball spotlight, not being in the shadows of the Aztecs, UCLA, and the NBA will help.
 
The names out there overwhelm you, from a young lion like Eric Mussleman, almost a Jim Harbaugh clone, to an old-dog class guy like Paul Westphal, to a PAC-10 guy like Ben Howland or Craig Robinson, this is an important hire for AD-Ky Snyder.  Double Blue basketball has to be a money maker for the Athletic program as a Division 1-school.  The next hire has to be a successful hire, though most of us though the last one would be a good one.
 
You need a special type of guy to want to come to a place like USD.  But if Gonzaga can find and keep a Mark Few, then Snyder can do the same.
 
Bill Grier, good man, just not good results, for a guy few knew, but a number of us really liked.

Aztecs go to the Dance

Posted by on March 16th, 2015  •  0 Comments  • 

It has been a good year, but a year of struggles at San Diego State at the same time.

 
Sound strange?  It should.
 
A team that is (26-8) and came within a final possession of winning the conference championship, a team that scared the daylights out of Arizona, hasn’t really improved as the season has gone on, when they have the ball in their hand..
 
They’ve always played brass knuckles defense.  Always defended.  Always rebounded.  But they sure cannot shoot.
 
In this day and age of explosive athletes, and SDSU has some, you’d think they’d have some people who could put the ball in the hole.
 
Not so, at least not right now.
 
Thank goodness for a defense that holds people to 53 points and just 37% shooting from the floor.
 
No thanks to a streak offense, that has finished the season hitting just 41% of their shots, and scuffled to average just a shade over 60-points a game. And this in a really substandard conference, at least this year, that had nothing positive from UNLV-New Mexico.
 
So it’s on to the Charlotte regional for a hard-nose bunch that cannot shoot straight.  They have to hit some 3-pointers to be in this game with St. John’s. 
 
1-thing for sure, SDSU does not get intimidated by who they play, or where they play.  The only issue, is can they play a complete game, offense and defense.  The latter yes, the former, not so often.
 
It is tough to put a rectangular ‘brick’ thru a circular hole.  That’s what Aztecs basketball has found this year.
 
We’ll see what Friday brings as the dance, the NCAA Tourney, begins,

Share the Cost

Posted by on March 13th, 2015  •  0 Comments  • 

The Stadium Task Force is ready to dive into a financing project to come up with the money for the new NFL Stadium at the Qualcomm sight for he Chargers.
 
In a wide ranging set of conversations with different people on the task force, I think I have configured out, how and where the $800M to $1.2 B is going to come from to get this shovel in the dirt at the end of 2016, with an eye towards an opening day in a new stadium in 2019.
 
Mayor Kevin Faulconer spoke to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell about the Task Force decision about the Q-sight, and the money needed.  The NFL G-Fund would loan San Diego $200M.
 
Adam Day, head of #CSAG wants the Chargers and Dean Spanos to follow thru on his their commitment to put up 200M of their own money.
 
Ron Roberts, representing the San Diego County Supervisors, has parlayed ideas of a County Loan, maybe up to $500M.
 
The San Diego River District, which operates under state funding, has begun the process to seek money for a River-Walk project adjacent to the Q-sight, that becomes part of that development.  They have the rights to 52-miles of that river, but a park, and additional parking also, could mean a contribution to the Stadium account.
 
Creating a 1500-room hotel is part of the plan, that would generate tax revenue.
 
Creating office buildings, restaurants, and additional shopping malls then creates tax revenue for the prospective pool of money they need.
 
Building an 8-story parking garage that could be used by SDSU students, fans, and commuters is part of the blueprint.
 
A new stadium with new concessions could lead to an investment from that business entity to be added into the pot.
 
An investment from San Diego State towards dorm or academic buildings adjacent to the trolley sight, that connects to campus, becomes another revenue stream.
 
When you start to list ideas that could create these revenue streams, you can understand why there was optimism from the Task Force at the Thursday press gathering outside the stadium of legendary sports-writer Jack Murphy, who helped lead the drive for the construction of the original stadium.
 
There are plenty of smart people with global business backgrounds in this group.  They have till mid-May to create a blueprint for financing this project.
 
And while Chargers officials were in Carson as part of the opening day drive  to gather signatures for a ballot vote to fast forward that project, it seemed like a typical slap in the face from the NFL team towards this city.  Another day where a story broke in Chargerville about efforts to help build a stadium, while the owners representative was off  somewhere else doing something at an alternate sight.
 
The people who want to keep the team in San Diego were at work, hoping to guarantee the franchise has a proposal that wins for them, but more importantly for the city.  The owner of the team seems to be sending a different message to his community, and that’s a shame.
 
But to quote Yogi Berra, it’s not over till it’s over, and the Task Force is not throwing the towel in on the financing game, despite Mark Fabiani’s continued attempts to throw cold water over everything being done in Dean Spanos’ adopted home town.. 

Stadium Deal – The Tough Decision

Posted by on March 12th, 2015  •  0 Comments  • 

The easy part is done, now the toughest part is about to begin.
 
The Mayor’s Stadium Task Force, after 4-weeks of evaluation, review of blueprints, looking at grand designs, and talking to real estate developers, says a new NFL Stadium will be built on the Qualcomm sight in Mission Valley.
 
That despite toxic oil plumes beneath the surface, and flood plain problems in all the lower portions of the massive Mission Valley parking lot.
 
But this makes sense, if you can build a stadium that is part of a bigger development, that might include shopping centers, office buildings, and more condos.  It all has to be combined into one package, with a tiny bow on top, because all of that creates the tax fund revenue you need to pay for it all.
 
Yes this decision takes us back to what could have been done, and was proposed in the early 2000s, the same idea, to develop all that city owned land into something special.  However there is one big difference.  
 
The Spanos family killed the idea because they demanded they be given the 166-acres of pricey land at the Q-sight to develop themselves.  They would have taken the financial risk, but gotten the enormous financial benefits from all that construction, plus the profits from the Stadium.  The city said no then.
 
Now the real work begins.  How do you finance it all?.  The City and the County need to brainstorm how much can be built, how much tax revenue can be triggered, and whether San Diego needs more shopping centers, condos, or office buildings, in a city already booming with vacancy availabilities.
 
We are not talking now about just an $800M stadium for the NFL team, the college team, and our two signature bowl games.  We are talking about a possible $1.6B deal because this is so much more than just replacing the old San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.
 
The Spanos family can be of great service in the think tank process, by hand delivering their, and the NFLs, financial commitment to the Stadium project.  A nice round contribution of $400M from them combined, an investment for the profits they will gain, would start this off on the right foot.
 
It won’t be easy.  There won’t be any hotel tax to use, for that seems earmarked for strictly downtown, and maybe the Convention Center.  I would hope in the last four weeks, a segment of that task force has been in contact with other NFL cities to learn how they got done what they got done. 
 
And while the Chargers kept saying downtown was their logical choice, it just appears there were too many obstacles.  The MTS land had to be cleared and cleaned up. The Port District Commission had to have a say in location.  The Convention Center issue is still yet to be resolved.  And the Hotel Tax was not going to be available for the complex Stadium project.
 
The NFL team wanted a recommendation, and wanted it quick.  No ‘half baked deals’ they said.  It took the Task Force just 4-weeks to determine this was the best sight possible, so there should be no complaints from the Spanos-Fabiani corner.  They got that recommendation early.  Now in the next nine weeks, the Task Force needs to create a financing business model that helps everyone.
 
I cannot buy our community would accept PSLs, for the fans already feel ripped off by ticket prices, parking prices, food prices once you turn off Friars Road. You cannot tax the fans more than they are paying.
 
But if other cities have creatively financed deals, then maybe San Diego can fight a right formula, taking something that the 49ers, Steelers, Vikings have done in their communities.
 
I would have thought the Gaslamp idea would have been a slam dunk, but the hurdles seem insurmountable considering the time frame that exists. 
 
It’s been easy to take shots at the horror-show leadership of past Mayors in San Diego.  The Chargers find that a very convenient way to scald the community.  But the reality is, they wanted lots of free land initially; then we had 9/11; then we had the Wall Street scandal and job layoffs that crippled America.  No one, even with good leadership, was going to get things done with all that for the last group of years.
 
Maybe the Q is the best sight.  And maybe down road, a portion of unused land, becomes our new Sports Arena too, if the economy, and the city’s progressive mindset gets right.
 
Salute the Task Force for what they have done in a pressurized situation.  Now we await the financing package.  Won’t be easy, but smart-caring people, in the community should find a way, with the team’s help to make this work.

An Historic Day in the NFL

Posted by on March 11th, 2015  •  0 Comments  • 

It was a day like never seen before in the history of the NFL and free agency.  
 
We have had historic days in the National Football League, whether it was Joe Namath’s New York Jets Super Bowl win over the Colts, or it was OJ Simpson of Buffalo being the first ever to rush for 2,000-yards behind the Electric Company line in Buffalo, or the Ice Bowl in Green Bay, or the Hershel Walker or Eric Dickerson trades..
 
But never off the field have we seen a day like yesterday, launching the 2015-free agent shopping season.
 
There were 5-blockbuster trades announced, involving leading rushers, starting quarterbacks, and big money players.  Then 55-players changed teams on the first day of free agency, including some high water-big money contracts.
 
The landscape in the NFL has forever changed.  The salary cap is at an all time high of $143M, and now trades amongst NFL teams in the offseason are very much changing the look of rosters.
 
Eagles quarterback Nick Foles is now a Ram.  Philadelphia has ex St. Louis big money quarterback Sam Bradford.  LeSean McCoy has a record contract and lots of carries coming in Buffalo.  The Jets have brought in explosive wide receiver Brandon Marshall.  Seattle wound up with pass catching tight end Jimmy Graham. The Lions dealt for massive defensive tackle Hloti Ngata.  
 
Some of it was salary cap driven, some of it was changes in coaching staffs.
 
Then NFL teams opened their checkbooks, and the contract offers made were staggering, as were the signing bonuses, and more so than ever, the guaranteed money.
 
Ndomukong Suh heads to the Miami Dolphins on a (6Y-$114M) deal with $60M guaranteed.  He is as good a defensive tackle in the history of the game, and if he stays healthy for four season, should pay off handsomely on the deal. 
 
The New York Jets fired another volley in the long standing border war with the Patriots, signing CB-Darrelle Reavis to a record (5Y-$70M) deal with nearly $40M-guaranteed. 
 
Seahawks young DB-Byron Maxwell is headed to the Eagles on a (6Y-$63M) package, alot of money for a player who has blossomed in just 18-months.
 
Kansas City shelled out ($55M) to Eagles WR-Jeremy Maclin, a huge amount of money for a player who has had just two really good seasons in the league.
 
New England was stunned in the loss of Revis, but did hand over ($47M) to safety Devin McCourty, a proven stars.
 
Julius Thomas, the young tight end, left Denver for Jacksonville, lured by a ($46M) package.  Green Bay’s big play WR-Randall Cobb elected to stay there at a price of ($40M).  
 
Offensive lineman set records too, with the Raiders giving Chiefs OC-Rod Hudson  a wild ($44M) payday, and Arizona handing over ($40M) to guard Mike Iupati of the 49ers, contracts never seen like that before.
 
Of course there were those players franchise tagged, who got guaranteed one year deals, like the ($14M) to Dez Bryant of the Cowboys, the ($14M) deal to Denver’s Demaryius Thomas, and a $13M-package for Chiefs linebacker Justin Houston.  
 
The NFL Union has done an amazing job at the bargaining table on behalf of players.  NFL clubs had to spend to 88% of the salary cap in years gone by, but the union found a number of teams sitting on cap space, and pocketing the money.  The new rules in the CBA, you must spend to the cap, and the NFL guarantees teams will spend 95% of all available cap space.  Lots more money going around.
 
And as we saw on day one, sign early, and get the money while it’s still available.  What was spent in day one, won’t be there for today’s second day of deals.
 
Players getting rich; teams hoping now they get big time production out of the people they just gave big time contracts to.
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