The “Frisco” Treat
by Cheval John
Frisco, Texas- From the time that Frisco has been hosting the NCAA Division I National Championship Game at FC Dallas Stadium, the United States has witness a first class city that has all the amenities to offer.
The suburban city of the Dallas-Ft. Worth area was the fastest growing city in the nation from 2000-09 with a population of 123,000.
“Hosting the NCAA Division I Championship Game fits into our family atmosphere,” Maher Maso, mayor of Frisco said. “We are a sports centric community and the city is nice and safe.”
Frisco was founded in 1904 around the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway. Before that time, Preston Trail (now Preston Road) was used as a trail for moving cattle through the state of Texas.
The city’s population was at 35,000 in 2000 and with the completion of the Stonebriar Centre Mall, the city started to experience explosive growth.
“We have really grown exponentially since 2000 and I love it here,” Dana Baird, director of communications for the government of Frisco said.
Prior to joining the city government, Baird was a reporter for WFAA-TV, an ABC affiliate in Dallas from 1995 to 2000. She moved to Frisco in 1996 and fell in love with the city.
Though the center was the foundation of the city’s growth, it was just the beginning as sporting venues was another priority for the city council.
“Developing the city with sports focus was not necessary the goal, but it was one of the pillars of opportunity that we wanted to pursue,” city councilman John Keating said.
“In doing that, we formed a public/private partnership so that the entire burden was not on the taxpayers in order to make it easy for them to do what they wanted to do.”
Because of that agreement, various sporting venues was completed along the way: the
The Southland Conference, an NCAA Division I athletics organization, moved their headquarters to the city in 2006.
They worked in conjunction with the Hunt Sports Group and the city of Frisco to host the NCAA Division I FCS National Championship Game from 2011 to 2013.
Fans and visitors got to experience the hospitality from the residents during the festivities leading up to the championship game.
Their hope is to keep the championship game beyond 2013 so that they can continue to share the “Frisco” treat with everyone.
BCS Don’t Make Any Sense
By Cheval John
“To come out here and win this bowl game, today, with these people I worked hard with from day one, it feels so good. There’s nothing like it.”
That was the quote of senior wide receiver Junior Hemingway to The Michigan Daily, the independent newspaper of the University of Michigan after the Wolverines defeated Virginia Tech Hokies 23-20 in overtime to win the All-State Sugar Bowl last Tuesday night.
I can understand his feelings because he went through two head coaches before current head football coach Brady Hoke arrived and had to learn a new system in the process. However, there is one problem with that statement: the Wolverines was not playing for the national championship, but they were involved in one of the four Bowl Championship Series (BCS) Bowls.
In the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), the BCS is a post-season system in which the universities have the opportunity to play in one of 35 bowl games after the regular season based on rankings. Those that ranked in the top 10, have an opportunity to participate in the prestigious BCS bowl, while the top two teams play for the BCS National Championship.
Schools that are in the six conferences: Southeastern Conference (SEC), Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), The Big East Conference, Big Ten Conference, Big Twelve Conference and the Pacific Twelve Conference (PAC 12), have an automatic-qualifying bid while those in the other conferences in the FBS, don’t have a chance unless they finish in the top 12 rankings.
The rankings are accumulated in three parts: the BCS computers, the Associated Press (AP) Polls and the Coaches Polls. Basically, in order to finish in the top 10, teams have to finish the season undefeated, defeat their opponents by a huge margin and have a strength of schedule that shows voters that they are worthy to play for the national championship.
The Creation of the BCS
The BCS was created in 1998 in an attempt to resolve the issue as who was the best team in the country. Before the creation, the national champion was declared based on the voting by the sports writers in the United States (U.S.). Teams were often declared co-champions without facing each other because they were obligated to play in the respective bowls if they were their respective conference champions.
Because of that, the top two teams did not have an opportunity to play for the national championship. The BCS was supposed to solve that problem, but instead, it has brought more controversies as teams that had undefeated seasons did not play for the national championship.
One controversy that comes to mind is the selection of Louisiana State University (LSU) and Alabama as the teams to play for the national championship on Jan 9. LSU has an undefeated record and are the SEC champions while Alabama has an 11-1 record, with their only loss to LSU. Alabama did not play for the SEC championship, but was still selected because they were considered the “two best teams” in the U.S. Oklahoma State Cowboys was left out despite an 11-1 record and are the Big 12 Champions.
To me, this system is a sham because it doesn’t give any school a fair shot to play for the national championship. The fact that they need a computer to decide who is #1 and #2 is completely ridiculous.
Solution
The only way to solve all of this is to have a playoff system because the teams will have a fair opportunity to play each other after the regular season to earn the national championship.
If it can work in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), then it can work in the FBS.
Tim Tebow Will Continue To Prove People Wrong
I will go out on a limb and say this: Tim Tebow will be a Hall of Famer when his National Football League (NFL) career is over. All of his life, people have doubted that he would succeed playing organize football. And what did he do? Well, he led Nease High School Panthers to a state title as a senior, was a backup quarterback at the University of Florida Gators and was a key contributor to the 2006 Bowl Championship Series (BCS) National Championship team and then as a starter from 2007-09 was the first sophomore to win the Heisman Trophy in 2007, and led the Gators to another national championship in 2008, their third in school history. After he was drafted by the Denver Broncos in 2010, many critics said that he would not succeed in the NFL because he is not a “traditional” quarterback. Before he took over as a starter this season, the Broncos was 1-4. Since he became the starter, the Broncos are 8-7 and are one game away from making the playoffs that will begin this Saturday Jan 7. Even if they don’t make the playoffs, Tebow has a bright future and he has shown that he’s determined to win. As the former head coach and current ESPN football analyst Herm Edwards once said, “You play to win the game.”
Happy New Year!
2011 will be a year to remember. They were many positive things that happen in the year. For example, the Texas A&M women’s basketball team winning the NCAA national championship and of course, the entire sports teams of A&M accepting the invitation to join the Southeastern Conference (SEC) effective July 1, 2012. Of course, let’s not forget the Sam Houston State University Football Team going undefeated in the regular season and swept through the NCAA Division 1 playoffs to reach the national championship game that will be held in Frisco, Texas on January 7, 2012 for the first time in school history under head football coach Willie Fritz. The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) causing another controversy when they selected Alabama, who didn’t even play in the SEC title game, to face Louisiana State University (LSU) for the national championship on January 9, 2012. It shows how the BCS stinks and they need to have a playoff. I will talk more about that on my next post. And in the National Football League (NFL), it was Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow proving the doubters wrong by putting the team in a position to make the playoffs with come from behind wins since taking over as the starter in the sixth week of the NFL. Many important people in the sports world passed away in 2011 and it is for this reason that we should cherish every moment that we have on this earth, because we don’t know when it will be our last. Hopefully, 2012 will be as memorable as 2011. I want to thank all of the readers who follow this blog. I want to wish everyone out there a very happy new year.
The link above the post is taken from ESPN’s SportsCenter. I do not own any of it.
How Times Have Changed
Oh how the mighty have fallen. Two years ago, the Indianapolis Colts was playing in the Super Bowl under first year head coach Jim Caldwell. Fast forward to today, Caldwell was fired by the same Colts.
Sure the Colts finished 2-14 for the season. Yes, the head coach should bear the brunt of responsibility for the performance of the team. But in this case, it was a lot of circumstances that cause the Colts to perform horribly. The main circumstance is quarterback Peyton Manning being out for the season. Why is that? How could one person being out change the entire perplexity of the team? This person, a.k.a. Manning was the most important person that made the Colts offense go. Not only did the Colts build their team around Manning, but they did not add other key components that would keep the team competitive. Components like key running backs, an established defensive line, etc. They did not think that nothing would happen to their star quarterback. Sure, it worked for a decade. Yes, they have made playoff appearances including winning a Super Bowl and appearing in another. Now the team is in disarray and they have cleaned house. The lesson that can be learned from this is to never depend on one person to deliver for a team because if a team becomes dependent on that one person and doesn’t make any improvements when given the opportunity, then they will end up like the Colts.
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