This and That

Some interesting tidbits from the day:

• Big news for the alma mater as Berry scores a $4 million donation for new residence halls and the Cage Center, as well as endowing a new scholarship program that gets Berry back to its roots. Berry also picked up two wins over archrival Shorter on the hardwood the other night, which always brings a smile to my face.
  
• Are we trying to do too much too fast when it comes to transportation? So far this session, we have at least three bills that will dramatically change transportation in Georgia. Will any of them pass? See this story for the Governor's plan to reorganize transportation governance. Wasn't this what GRTA was supposed to do? Lets keep our fingers crossed that something gets accomplished this session.
• This is really impressive. Perhaps Clarke should consider something similar as it seeks to expand its landfill. $250,000 per year is nothing to sneeze at either.
  
• Georgia Power has been pushing a bill in the legislature that will allow the company to stretch the charges for a planned nuclear plant over a number of years, basically, effective immediately, despite the plant won't be on line for many years. This appears to make a lot of financial sense for Georgia Power, and perhaps for their rate payers. Initial opposition came from usual suspects -- Democratic interest groups, anti-nuclear activists, environmentalists. Things seemed to be moving along smoothly, and they even fended off an unusually strong challenge from Clark Howard and announced polling results that show Georgians on their side. But now the battle is truly joined. Conservatives at Peach Pundit have decided it is not a good idea, and are making a fight of this thing. This will be an interesting test to see how strong the new media movement is and if it can impact policy, and also an interesting clash of social networks and old fashioned networking. Georgia Power is perhaps the state's best and most prominent corporate citizen, investing heavily in local communities all over the state and building a lot of goodwill. Will be interesting to see if Erick Erickson and his crew slow things down for Georgia Power.
• We're about to get to work identifying historic homes and properties in Watkinsville. We are particularly focused on preventing "demolition by neglect" which has already occurred to at least two Main Street properties in the past five years. Let me know if you have any suggestions.
  
• I just don't understand how we're thinking about cutting revenue in Georgia right now. While I'm not as vehement as JMac, one of the big problems with our state's tax policy right now is a lot of well intentioned tax breaks that add up to a lot of $$$$. This is one reason Rep. Bob Smith had a point when he called for a constitutional convention (an idea which appears to have disappeared, by the way).
  
• Interesting post from Maria Saporta on the challenges facing Metro Atlanta. This is right on target, and the rest of the state needs to pay attention. As Atlanta goes, so goes Georgia.
• I'm sorry Coach, but you can coach attitude and effort. Sometimes you have to. In fact, I would argue at many levels in many sports, it isn't the X's and O's that make coaches great, but it is the coach's ability to get the most out of his or her players. Exhibit 1. Exhibit 2. Exhibit 3.
  
• Be sure you read this story. Sportsmanship still lives, and it's a very good thing.

Major UGA Investment in Oconee

Who would have guessed that Oconee County would soon house one of UGA's most successful athletic programs?

Not me, but it looks like High Point Farms in Bishop will soon be the new home for the UGA Equestrian team according to the Athens Banner-Herald and UGA's official web site. This is great news for Oconee, and based on a message at the High Point web site it looks as if they will be relocating as well and staying in the area.

When I was the editor of the Campus Carrier in college, I had my run-ins with the equestrian team (they didn't think I gave them enough coverage, and I probably didn't). Now one of those riders is the coach at UGA, and has certainly represented our alma mater well. And I must say after attending a competition earlier this year with my daughter, I came away very impressed with the poise and skills of these young women and their horses. I would certainly be proud to see my little girl ride for UGA some day.

UGA Equestriennes, welcome to Oconee!

Photo Courtesy of UGA Sports Communications

The Alma Mater

It doesn't exactly fit into local politics, but in a previous life, I was a collegiate athlete. I attended Berry College and we competed in the something called the NAIA. What is the NAIA? It is a smaller, less bureaucratic version of the NCAA that mainly features small private schools, some Canadian schools, religious schools, etc. At the time, there were programs like Liscomb, Birmingham Southern, Belmont, Kennesaw State, and other reasonably high-profile institutions (note that some of these programs have since gone so far as to have made the NCAA tournament in basketball and have won national championships in other sports).

Today, most of the respected academic schools have fled the NAIA for the NCAA, either Division I, II or III. Division III technically does not allow athletes to accept scholarships just for athletic performance. There are many reasons schools have moved away from the NAIA -- low eligibility requirements, difficulty scheduling NCAA teams, declining prestige, lack of awareness, difficulty recruiting, less competition -- and Berry is now having a debate on campus about making the move.

Predictably, the coaches don't want to change. They like it where they are. Also predictably, the academic side of the institution wants to change so that Berry is affiliated with more "like-minded" institutions (read: better academic schools).

My take: I have been saying for years that Berry needs to leave the NAIA. While I'm not privy to all the considerations that Berry and its board of trustees must consider, this is a pretty clear cut issue for me. The NAIA is a joke to many athletes, coaches, high school students, etc. Lax eligibility requirements and virtually no enforcement allow schools to "buy" athletes who have competed professionally or who are 30+ years old. When I was running, I had to compete against a mercenary program from Life College (a chiropractic school in Marietta) that included a former professional track and field athlete from Germany, a 30+ year old marathoner, an athlete who was kicked out of a Division I program for accepting prize money, and a Kenyan who ran on the European track circuit. It was ridiculous.

So where to from here? Frankly, division III makes the most sense. Now that it has the Cage Center, Berry needs to move quickly to align itself with the institutions with whom it competes for academic and athletic talent and find a way to provide need or merit-based grants to athletes as well. It won't be easy, but it is the right thing to do long term for an institution near and dear to my heart.