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Looks like I'm gonna be spending a lot more time with you all.

This situation cannot, nor should be confined to just the lawsuit filed by Brian Flores. There are NUMEROUS individuals who have been "bushwacked" by the pretense of an actual interview/opportunity that was brought by the "Rooney Rule". As for Hue Jackson, he seems to be in compliance and the embodiment of TANKING for draft picks, supplemented by $$ to lose. He says that "Why would you give a contract extension to HC that was 1-31 over 2 years if it wasn't clear that you wanted to lose and did NOTHING to improve the quality of the team?"... The owners within the league are the problem. Yet, again their employ (Goodell) is the front-man who has to answer for all of this. As usual, the NFL will dodge/pivot and ultimately not answer for anything. It's quite clear that they blackballed Kaepernick out of the league, and got away with it. But with 70% of the league consisting of AA players, this is not a situation that they cannot address. It would be a great opportunity for those players to boycott a week, and see what the effects would be. A number of these men have looked at their futures beyond the playing field, and see no opportunity for advancement. The time came years ago for the NFL to diversify. Yet in 2022, the same ole, same ole continues and is the norm.

This is fun. Look at this stat: Playoff wins: 37 — Patriots 36 — Steelers 36 — Packers 35 — Cowboys 35 — Tom Brady Tom Brady has more playoff wins than 28 franchises.

Well considering Carmel and Center Grove are now both Independent... they have the freedom to rearrange their schedules however they see fit. Merrillville (and most other schools in the state) are likely very stuck when it comes to their non-conference availability. As was stated previously, the DAC has their conference games all lined up weeks 3-9, so if Center Grove was trying to play Merrillville during those weeks, yeah, no duh they couldn't rearrange their schedule.

It was always going to be tough sledding as the smallest public school in the SIAC. I think the football program was better prepared for the increased competition but not all sports were, which is why the withdrawal is happening IMO. I hope the Alices are able to keep a few SIAC teams on their football schedule.

From a strictly legal standpoint, there are some real problems with bringing this case as a class action. Just filing it as a class action is not enough. Before it can go forward, the judge has to certify it as appropriate for class treatment under all the very complex procedural requirements that are quite different than “normal” civil litigation. To be certified, the judge has to find that the class is defined in a way that “common questions of law and fact predominate” in the claim of each putative class member. The second issue I see is proof. In large employment race discrimination class actions, statistical proof is often key. Because there are large numbers of employees and large numbers of employment-related decisions, statistical analysis can be brought to bear to show a systematic bias, despite the fact that employment decisions are done on an individualized basis. NFL coaching decisions are not nearly so numerous, which would leave any statistical analysis open to serious attack on any purported conclusions. That leaves the proof to rely on individualized scenarios, with a lot of “he said, she said” type situations. The fact that such decisions are so individualized not only presents proof problems, but argues against class certification. Also, I wonder where the EEOC is in all this. Civil claims by an employee or applicant for employment based on Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which protects against racial discrimination in the workplace, must normally be first presented to the EEOC, which investigates and can take action against the employer itself. Once the EEOC investigation is over, they issue the employee a “right to sue” letter, which you normally have to get before you can file a case in court. Haven’t heard any mention of it here. On the other side side of the coin, it’s highly unlikely the NFL allows this to go anywhere for very long. They run from any sort of publicity that might turn off the money printing machine they are operating. They’ll settle this with some sort of an agreement that is a stronger version of the Rooney Rule. The owners will sign some sort of pledge. Maybe the League will even create a position specifically to monitor compliance. Flores may get some money. His lawyers certainly will. I’m very interested to hear what the NFLPA has to say about this. Crickets, so far.

Coach Gilbert has a great book(true story) called Team of One. I may be biased but it's a solid read and available on Amazon. It's behind the scenes and gives you a seat at how decisions were discussed and made. I think you will really like this true story of a 1A program.

Yes, but his inference was unwarranted. More significantly, I take exception to something everyone else is glossing over: the idea that winning every game should be the highest priority for a team, i.e., anything else is “tanking.” I can conceive of several scenarios where other things might legitimately be higher priorities.

Bosse DLmen Ashon Stewart and Hurley Esters both committed to play football at Bethel University. We knew Bosse had some talented players and it’s nice to see some colleges notice! Coach Mullen is a great fit to build that program and get his kids opportunities.

Merrillville's schedule probably was already locked for Week 3. Like many schools in conferences, especially larger conferences, typically Weeks 1 and 2 are the weeks for non-conference games ... and sometimes Week 9 if there isn't a crossover championship in split conferences. Merrillville's schedule is filled in Weeks 3-9 with other Duneland teams. Week 1 and Week 2 are taken up with non-con Andrean and Hobart. They've played Andrean consistently for over a decade and, looking at the schedule, it looks like they had a home-and-home with Hobart that will hit the second cycle of that finishing out at Hobart this year. Don't know if Andrean's more of a year-to-year, but I suspect that the Hobart games are part of a contract agreement.

This blew my mind..

So schedules can be rearranged? Weird. I was told Merrillville couldn't do that to play us.

Yes! I have published over a dozen books about Indiana High School Football. Here’s a link if you’re interested: http://www.almanacsports.com/books.php Working on another one too which I hope to announce soon 😊 Dan “Rudy” Engler

They’re not the only ones “elated.” There’s Ohio State, Michigan State, Penn State ….

So yeah..haven't really been on here much to give my take on the SIAC exit rumors. I wanted to be sure that it was really going to happen and in fact was confirmed this week by administration. If I'm being honest it's bitter sweet...a little more bitter. Not exactly agreeing with the decision. As I've said on a few occasions, 2 years is not enough time to evaluate how competitive a school can be in any conference in any one sport. And for VL, the timing at which they entered the SIAC (through sheer bad luck) couldn't have been worse in the case of our football and basketball programs with a number of contributing factors. But unfortunately, that's just how it played out. I still feel it was the right decision to join the conference 2 years ago when the opportunity presented itself, and still believe we would've been competitive in the long run. Definitely going to miss the consistent 45 min - 1 hour travel times. But to say I'm not intrigued by joining the PAC would be lie. Kind of feels like a 90's Big 8 reunion minus Jasper, which does feel like home.

But the subjectivity ,of making the hires ,is so individualized for each team that it’s almost too intricate to put blame on discrimination. Okay I’m not Naive enough to know it might play a part, in some teams over several years ,but proving and trying to enforce is almost too complicated. But winning requires putting the best people available,at all the positions on the team, and this includes coaches.

Jasper has the perfect home and they won't leave any time soon. 812hoops does some amazing things for local kids and their exposure but this suggestion was really really dumb. There are several divisional conferences in the state. I say add Tecumseh to Small school PAC and Vincennes to Big school PAC and call it a day. Scheduling just got a little easier in the PAC and the SIAC gains some much needed non-conference matchups. Seems like a win, win, win.

Any internal candidates or coaches with Catholic school experience that would want this job? Hard to imagine any public school teachers taking a significant paycut for this position.

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/touchdowns-and-the-death-of-expertise/ Yeah, give me the NFL over Congress any day.