| Tuesday, November 14, 2017 |
| Property taxes key for local governments | |
 | County residents in Mississippi pay on average 43 percent of their ad valorem taxes (property taxes) to support their local school district and another 3 percent to help fund their local community college. The mechanics of how property is taxed and an explanation of where the revenue is directed were explained Monday during a luncheon meeting of the Mississippi State University Stennis Institute of Government/capitol press corps by Joe Young, who served 28 years as Pike County tax assessor. Young who now works part time for the Stennis Institute provided a primer on the state's complex property tax laws. |
| Vote expected on hospital sale moratorium | |
 | Two Oktibbeha County Supervisors are voicing their support for a moratorium on county efforts to sell OCH Regional Medical Center after last week's referendum. County voters, by a margin of 58.55 percent to 41.45 percent, voted against the sale of the county owned hospital last Tuesday. The vote ended a contentious, nearly year-and-a-half long process that started when supervisors began seeking a potential sale or lease of the hospital. With the vote concluded, District 1 Supervisor John Montgomery said he plans to raise the issue of a moratorium on efforts to sale the hospital when supervisors meet Tuesday at 10 a.m. "We need to go with the will of the people," Montgomery said. "Around 60 percent said to keep our hospital. I think the best thing we can do for OCH is to let it breathe and give it some space." |
| Two men indicted for 2016 Cotton District murder | |
 | Two Lowndes County men have been indicted for capital murder in connection to an incident that left a Mississippi State University student dead in the Cotton District in 2016. Jaylen Barker, 20 and Syboris Pippins, 18, are in the Oktibbeha County Jail, with Barker accused in the shooting death of Joseph Tillman, after Pippins robbed Tillman in the Cotton District on Nov. 6. Tillman was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity and was a senior marketing major at MSU. Both Barker and Pippins were charged on Nov. 10, 2016. |
| Mississippi Farmer Producing a Crop to Pop | |
 | John Mark Looney has been farming full-time with his father on Six Mile Farms in Tribbett, Miss., since graduating from Mississippi State University in 2008, but until last year, popcorn was just something he ate at the movie theater. "My father grew rice on our farm for 30 years, but we let the rice go and went with soybeans and corn until last year when a friend in the food service industry asked if I'd ever considered growing popcorn," says Looney. "His request took me by surprise but I thought, why not?" Looney has an undergraduate degree in agronomy and a Masters in ag business. While at Mississippi State he also participated in the National Agri-Marketing Association's (NAMA) student chapter. The team-based marketing experience he gained during his time in NAMA gave him some real-time marketing prowess. "Our team marketed a product we called Catfish Crisp for Simmons Catfish in Yazoo City, Miss., and sweet potato-based deer feed we named Sweet Buck," says Looney. "On the marketing side, I think I can push this as far as I'd like to push it. It's just going to take time and effort." |
| Spoofers beware: New 'do not call' app in Mississippi a first to crack down on robocalls | |
 | The phone rings and although the display shows it's a local number, the caller is someone named Heather again, and you hang up before finding out what she's selling. Or a caller asks for Linda, and when you tell them they have the wrong number, they go on to ask you for money. There is a way to fight these telemarketers, said Brandon Presley, chairman of the Public Service Commission, who recently introduced members of the Gulfport Rotary Club to the new "MS No-Call" app. It's free, downloads in less than a minute from the Apple Store for iPhone users or Google Play for Android cell phones and lets users register their phone number on the Do Not Call list. The app is the first of its kind from any state in the country, he said. He said the app makes it easy to report the phone number immediately, so there's a better chance of cracking down on telemarketers. |
| Casino: Choctaws vote Thursday on opening gaming site in Leake County | |
 | The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians will vote Thursday on whether they want a new casino. If approved, it would mark the tribe's fourth casino. Two casinos, Silver Star and Golden Moon, are in Choctaw in Neshoba County and a third is in Bok Homa in Jones County, 13 miles north of Laurel. The nearly 11,000-member tribe reopened the Golden Moon full time in 2015, following a $70 million-plus renovation. Red Water is in Leake County, bordering Carthage on the north. Choctaw Chief Phyliss J. Anderson had been pushing for the casino for several years. The Tribal Council finally backed her recommendation in January. She said the new casino will bring in about $50 million in annual revenue, plus provide more than 250 jobs. |
| MHA head: Mississippians should seek sustainable health care | |
| The health care business is changing rapidly, and Mississippi's hospitals need help to weather the shifting tides. Mississippi Hospital Association president and chief executive officer Tim Moore spoke to the Tupelo Rotary Club about challenges facing the state's health care infrastructure and the need to find long-term, sustainable ways to deliver medical care. "It's very frightening to the people who are operating hospitals," Moore said. "We know we have to do something different." Moore believes it is unlikely Congress makes another serious attempt at repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act before the 2018 Congressional elections, but there will be opportunities to act at the state level with Medicaid, which covers 25 percent of Mississippians. Next year, the Mississippi Legislature will have an opportunity to help lay the foundation for a shift as it reauthorizes the technical bill that governs the Medicaid program. |
| Failed green energy in the Pine Belt: Investments that cost taxpayers millions | |
 | Former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour led Mississippi on an ambitious endeavor into green energy in 2010. "They will spend more than $85,000,000 a year on Mississippi labor," Barbour said. Barbour was speaking of Kior, a biofuel corporation, and the legislature backed this hopeful venture by loaning Kior $75 million to set up shop in Mississippi. Other green projects followed with Twin Creeks Technologies, Green Tech Automotive and Stion. "Our people are hungry for it," Barbour said at an event in 2011 announcing Stion would come to Hattiesburg. Fast forward seven years and there is a void the green projects failed. The latest bust happened in the Pine Belt when Stion, located in the Hattiesburg-Forrest County Industrial Park, announced in October that it would be closing its plant on Dec. 13 and laying off more than 130 employees just before the holiday season. "Nobody back in 2012 saw this coming," Forrest County Board of Supervisor President David Hogan said. |
| Attorneys defend Mississippi law on denying LGBT services | |
 | Attorneys for Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant are defending a state law that lets government workers and private business people cite religious beliefs to deny services to LGBT people. In arguments filed Monday to the U.S. Supreme Court, they wrote that the law protects people from being penalized for refusing to participate in activities they consider "immoral," such as same-sex marriage. Legal experts say the 2016 Mississippi law is the broadest religious-objections law enacted by any state since the high court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in 2015. The law took effect last month amid multiple court challenges. It protects three beliefs: that marriage is only between a man and a woman, that sex should only occur in such a marriage and that a person's gender is determined at birth and cannot be altered. |
| Sen. Chris McDaniel 'at peace' with run for higher office, but he won't say which one yet | |
| Republican state Sen. Chris McDaniel said Monday he's "at peace" and will make an announcement "in a matter of weeks" about his political future. McDaniel has been considering both a primary challenge to U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker next year and a run for lieutenant governor in 2019. "I've come to peace with one of those seats," said McDaniel, R-Ellisville. "Internally, I'm at peace. I will make an announcement one way or the other in a matter of weeks." The deadline to qualify for the 2018 Senate race is March 1. The lieutenant governor's seat will be vacant in the 2019 statewide elections. McDaniel, in his third term in the state Senate, had previously said he hoped to have a decision by the end of October but that he hadn't set a hard deadline. |
| McDaniel woos Olive Branch crowd | |
 | Potential U.S. Senate challenger and current State Sen. Chris McDaniel, R-Ellisville, made a stump speech in Olive Branch this past Thursday, wooing perspective voters at Sweetpea's Table restaurant. Within the next several weeks and months, the political world is waiting to see if McDaniel will run against incumbent U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker in the 2018 GOP primary or target another foe. "I am 46 years old, from Ellisville, Mississippi and ready to take on the task of representing conservative Republican Mississippians. Washington has to change, and that change will be led by and will come from the South," added McDaniel. President Donald Trump has indicated his support for Wicker while conservative firebrand Steve Bannon has expressed support for McDaniel. |
| Trump critic Bob Corker, Senate committee to examine president's nuclear attack powers | |
 | Just a month after he warned that President Trump may be setting the nation on the path to World War III, Sen. Bob Corker will preside Tuesday over a hearing that will examine the president's authority to launch a nuclear strike. The hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will mark the first time in more than four decades that the panel or its House counterpart has specifically reviewed the issue of the president's powers to order a nuclear attack. "This discussion is long overdue," said Corker, the Tennessee Republican who called the hearing as chairman of the Senate committee. "The committee is clearly looking for remedies to ensure that a demented president could not unilaterally start a nuclear conflagration," said Bruce Blair, an expert on nuclear command and control and a research scholar at the Program of Science and Global Security at Princeton University. |
| Gadsden locals say Moore's predatory behavior at mall, restaurants not a secret | |
 | Roy Moore's penchant for flirting with teen girls was "common knowledge" and "not a big secret" around Gadsden, according to some area residents. The Senate candidate has denied any wrongdoing in the wake of a report from The Washington Post in which four women accused Moore of inappropriate advances - and in one instance, a sexual encounter - toward them when they were teens and he was in his early 30s. One of the four women claims she was 14 at the time, making her the only one whose claim would represent a legal violation. Moore has said he never met her. A fifth woman came forward Monday afternoon. "These stories have been going around this town for 30 years," said Blake Usry, who grew up in the area and lives in Gadsden. "Nobody could believe they hadn't come out yet." |
| GOP leaders threaten to expel Roy Moore from Senate if he wins Alabama race | |
 | Amid new allegations that Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore molested teenage girls decades ago, GOP leaders intensified their calls Monday for him to quit the race, even threatening to expel Moore if he wins. The accusations against Moore have thrown the GOP into a crisis, splintering the party and risking defeat in the Dec. 12 special election, for which polls show Democrat Doug Jones now has a narrow lead in the Deep South state. On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called on Moore to withdraw from the race. The head of the Republican campaign committee, Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), said the Senate should vote to expel Moore if he is elected by Alabama voters. "I believe the women," McConnell told reporters Monday in Kentucky. "I think he should step aside." |
| Justice Department to Weigh Inquiry Into Clinton Foundation | |
 | The Justice Department said Monday that prosecutors were looking into whether a special counsel should be appointed to investigate political rivals President Trump has singled out for scrutiny, including Hillary Clinton. The department, in a letter sent to the House Judiciary Committee, said the prosecutors would examine allegations that donations to the Clinton Foundation were tied to a 2010 decision by the Obama administration to allow a Russian nuclear agency to buy Uranium One, a company that owned access to uranium in the United States, and other issues. The letter appeared to be a direct response to Mr. Trump's statement on Nov. 3, when he said he was disappointed with his beleaguered attorney general, Jeff Sessions, and that longstanding unproven allegations about the Clintons and the Obama administration should be investigated. |
| Restoration complete at William Carey after January's tornado | |
| The President of William Carey University is focused on new construction nearly ten months after the deadly EF-3 tornado hit campus earlier this year. "We're in all of the buildings that could be restored, so now we only lack the construction of new buildings to replace those that were totally destroyed," said Dr. Tommy King at the university's 125th Anniversary Convocation Monday morning. The ceremony is usually held in August to start the new school year, but the university had to postpone it due to damage and ongoing repairs at the auditorium in the Thomas Fine Arts Building. January's tornado put a hole in the roof of the auditorium, which ruined the stage and surrounding area. "It's great," King said. "I heard students, many of them as they were walking over say, 'well, we are back in the auditorium." |
| Student allegedly attacked on Meridian Community College campus Friday, suspect quickly arrested | |
 | A Meridian Community College student was allegedly attacked on campus by her boyfriend on Friday. 20-year-old Kendricuz Hodges was arrested and charged with felony aggravated domestic violence and disorderly conduct. MCC Administrators and Campus Police are taking this alleged assault seriously. "They got there in approximately one minute, and they had an individual that took off running on foot," Chief of Police Shane Williams says. "A short foot chase ensued and they ended up taking the individual into custody." WTOK-TV was told it started as a verbal argument and quickly escalated into a physical altercation in the Thornton Hall parking lot. |
| Bill Hardgrave to step into Auburn provost role in January | |
 | Bill Hardgrave, dean of Auburn's Harbert College of Business, will move into a new office in January. The Auburn University board of trustees unanimously approved Hardgrave's appointment as provost at its Friday meeting. Hardgrave will officially replace provost and vice president for academic affairs Tim Boosinger on Jan. 1. Boosinger announced his retirement in September. "It's fantastic," Hardgrave said of being named to the position. "I've had the wonderful privilege of serving Auburn University as dean of the Harbert College of Business for the past seven-plus years. This is just, in my opinion, a way that I can serve Auburn in a bigger, broader role. And I look forward to that." A committee chaired by Vini Nathan, dean of the college of architecture, design and construction, performed an internal search for provost. |
| U. of Arkansas logs drop in six-year graduation rate | |
 | For the first time since 2013, the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville reported a drop in its six-year graduation rate. The graduation rate for students entering in the fall of 2011 fell to 61.5 percent compared with the 64.5 percent rate for the previous year's freshman class. It is the lowest six-year graduation rate since the 60.1 percent graduation rate for incoming freshmen in 2007. The university's top academic officer, Jim Coleman, in a statement said it wasn't known why more students from the 2011 freshman class failed to earn UA degrees. That class consisted of 4,414 first-time, full-time, degree-seeking students, according to UA. "We don't know for sure what caused the reductions for the 2011 cohort, but it does appear to be an anomaly relative to more recent cohorts," said Coleman, UA's provost since January. |
| U. of Tennessee police launch program to help student veterans in crisis | |
 | A new program at the University of Tennessee Police Department is teaching officers how best to respond to veterans in crisis and is particularly focused on helping student veterans on campus. About a dozen UT police officers, all military veterans, completed the veterans Crisis Intervention Team training this week, according to UT Police Chief Troy Lane. Lane, who served in the Army during the first Gulf War, said the training will help officers recognize issues specific to student veterans and make connections to appropriate community resources. As part of its emphasis on responding to veterans, the program also teaches officers to recognize the issues they face and how to best respond, including by encouraging officers who also served in the military to use that experience to inform their responses. About 975 veterans, military spouses and dependents are attending UT this fall using VA benefits. Of those, 530 self-reported as veterans, according to the university. |
| Capilouto announces that U. of Kentucky's provost search will be internal | |
| The University of Kentucky's president announced Thursday that the search for a new provost will be internal. President Eli Capilouto sent a campus-wide email with an update about the search for a new provost, since Tim Tracy recently decided to accept a position at Aprecia Pharmaceuticals. Capilouto said he has since been speaking to "dozens of people across our campus." He said that after taking to these people, "what emerged most clearly was a sense of urgency and a commitment to the goals and initiatives we already have established and are pursuing." Capilouto said his decision to conduct an internal search was based on four factors: his recent conversations, the university's confidence in its Strategic Plan, the initiatives the university has undertaken and the unsettled environment in which university employees work. |
| A&M Foundation gifts will allow $90.8 million in donations to university | |
 | The Texas A&M Foundation announced Monday it will be providing Texas A&M University with $90.8 million, thanks to gifts from former students and other supporters over fiscal year 2017. Officials with the A&M Foundation said the money represents a combination of endowment earnings from previous gifts as well as new donations intended for immediate use. Among the areas where funds are directed are student scholarships, graduate fellowships, faculty chairs, research, construction, college-based programs and student activities. In total, the A&M Foundation received $134.2 million in contributions during fiscal year 2017, officials said, much of which is set to be used as endowment funds for continued support in the years to come. |
| U. of Missouri Black Studies event examines 2015 fallout | |
 | Marshall Allen, one of the youngest of the original 11 members of the Concerned Student 1950 group, on Monday evening asked for the recently enacted speech codes at the University of Missouri to be viewed from the perspectives of those protesters. In the fall of 2015, along with blocking the Homecoming parade to send a message to then-UM System President Tim Wolfe and camping out on Traditions Plaza to support Jonathan Butler's hunger strike, Concerned Student 1950 demonstrators protested at the financial aid office and in the office of interim Vice Chancellor Chuck Henson. Now the speech codes prohibit entering offices with vital university records, protests in or outside official meetings and camping on campus. "The reason why we can claim these and promote these as reactionary is because each of these have direct correlation to the events and activities that occurred in the fall of 2015," he said. |
| U. of Missouri team aspires to contribute to electric car revolution | |
 | Every Sunday morning at 7:30, Jason Pae awakes, ready to research the best technology to build an electric race car. Pae and the other members of the Mizzou Electric Car Team meet every Sunday from 9 a.m. to around 3 p.m. to research and design electric vehicles. Recently, they've focused their attention on an electric race car they hope to use to compete against other university team's cars. As electric vehicle technology continues to evolve throughout the automotive industry, the MU College of Engineering and the team's members aim to contribute to that evolution. Promoting awareness of the benefits and performance of electric vehicles isn't the team's only ambition. They are now trying to engineer the quickest, most-efficient and well-designed electric race car with the best handling to compete in the Formula SAE Competition -- a series of international competitions where universities compete to design and build an electric performance race car -- in 2019. |
| College administrators: no easy answers for controversial speakers | |
 | Over the last year, college and university leaders have grappled with provocateurs who effectively shut down campuses with their appearances and tap deeply into the institutions' pocketbooks. Administrators have not yet figured out how to handle a speech by white supremacist Richard Spencer, for instance, and those like him, without spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on security to monitor possible protests. Though not every controversial speaker will generate a crowd, some campus protests have turned bloody . But academe is adapting, according to administrators speaking at the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities' annual meeting Monday. They offered tips on managing controversial speakers. |
| Do Parents Fuel Binge Drinking in College? | |
 | John E. Thrasher, the Florida State University president who last week announced an indefinite ban on fraternity and sorority activities, says he is battling a culture of alcohol abuse that takes hold among students in middle school and continues with the encouragement of parents. The ban at Florida State, which is the latest among similar measures taken at several colleges and universities, was prompted by the death this month of Andrew Coffey, a 20-year-old pledge at Pi Kappa Phi who was found unresponsive after a party. Mr. Coffey's family applauded the ban, saying in a letter that it was a step toward fixing a culture "that is obviously broken." But Mr. Thrasher, during an interview at The Chronicle's offices on Monday, said he had heard from other parents who were not as supportive, some of whom had told him that "you've ruined my so-and-so's cultural life." |
| Could GroupMe lead to cheating guilt by association? | |
| News dropped this month that Ohio State University charged scores of students with cheating in a business course taken in the spring, saying that 83 students used the messaging app GroupMe for "unauthorized collaboration on graded assignments." "Students are welcome to use social media tools like GroupMe to communicate with classmates but must remember that the rules are the same for online and in-person interactions," OSU spokesman Ben Johnson said in an email. The specifics of the case remain unknown for now, but with the app's prevalence on college campuses -- especially for legitimate purposes, such as to form study groups, organize group projects or disseminate information about the syllabus -- the accusations also lead to some questions about the safety of using the app. In a worst-case scenario, could students who used a GroupMe for legitimate purposes get in trouble when someone shares test answers? Could one post taint a whole group message and everyone involved in it? |
| Nurturing a desire to learn is the first challenge | |
| Longtime Mississippi journalist Charlie Mitchell writes: "All the king's horses and all the king's men have had their first meeting. Their challenge is to put the Jackson Public Schools back together again. No small feat. Credit Gov. Phil Bryant and Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba -- whose politics are polar -- with breaking the mold. ...Earlier this year, when JPS again failed almost all state standards for effectiveness and accountability, it fell to Bryant to make the expected takeover announcement. Instead, he took the matter under advisement, as it were, and decided to work with Lumumba to try a new way to break the cycle. Under the 'Better Together' initiative, Bryant, Lumumba and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Education Commission of the States and Mississippi Economic Council created a 15-member group -- a very impressively credentialed group -- to devise an action plan for the 27,000-student district." |
SPORTS
| Bulldogs will stay aggressive on defense | |
| This is the defense Dan Mullen wanted -- and he's not going to let it change just because No. 1 Alabama is chasing a game-winning touchdown. Mississippi State's head coach took to the marketplace over the offseason looking for two things in a new defensive coordinator: stability, after one-year stints from his last three choices, and anything but stability for the offenses that face him. He wanted a defense that attacks. With four years of offensive coordinator experience and nine more as a playcalling head coach, Mullen knows better than most what that means. The blitzes that come with attacking defensive ideologies can halt otherwise productive offensive drives with one sack; those blitzes can also create openings for explosive plays behind the defense. On Saturday against the Crimson Tide, Mullen got both. |
| MSU Notebook: Young WRs basking in spotlight | |
| Program sales might be up at Mississippi State of late. Injuries to the Bulldogs' receivers have riddled the unit to the point where casual fans may not be familiar with the names and numbers of the players currently catching passes. MSU has made an effort to spread the ball around so that no one among that inexperienced group has to shoulder so much of the load. "Our first 10 completions (in the Alabama game) were to 10 different receivers," said MSU coach Dan Mullen. "There are a lot of teams that are basically looking to throw it to one guy. That's not how we've been. We're going to distribute and take what the defense gives us. The benefit of that is when you have the massive amounts of injuries that we've had at receiver, there's confidence in that next guy up to go make the play." |
| Mississippi State is on pace to play in the Citrus Bowl | |
| During Dan Mullen's postgame press conference following Mississippi State's loss to Alabama on Saturday, there were two attendees who stood out in importance. Both were Citrus Bowl representatives. Both also represented what Mississippi State has left to play for. The No. 16 Bulldogs (7-3, 3-2 SEC) put on a good show against No. 2 Alabama, which will surely move to No. 1 Tuesday night in the next College Football Playoff poll after top-ranked Georgia's loss to Auburn. The crowd did its part at Davis Wade Stadium, too, and representatives said they were impressed with the atmosphere, which matters to them because they want fans in the building for their bowl game on Jan. 1 in Orlando. With Auburn and Georgia in position to land at a New Year's Six bowl, at least, the Bulldogs have a major chance at ending up in Orlando -- unless they lose at least one of their final two games or South Carolina upsets Clemson. |
| Dan Mullen on Tennessee opening: 'I have a great job' at Mississippi State | |
| Dan Mullen has been on the wish list for some Tennessee fans long before the Vols fired coach Butch Jones on Sunday. It's understandable why UT fans would be intrigued by Mullen. He has a 68-45 record in nine seasons at Mississippi State. Mullen was asked Monday at his news conference how the attractiveness of the Tennessee job compares to the job he has. "I love the one I have," Mullen told reporters in Starkville. "When you look around, we've been able to build the facility," Mullen said. "I have an AD that has been a coach. I have a president that hugely supports the football program. We built a team that's a Top 25 program, in my mind, with the atmosphere on Saturday nights. So, I have a great job." |
| Mississippi State at Arkansas: Bielema suspends QB Kelley indefinitely after arrest | |
| Dan Enos was in no mood on Monday to talk about quarterback Cole Kelley's weekend arrest. Enos, the Arkansas Razorbacks' third-year offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, was asked twice at his weekly news conference about Kelley, who was suspended indefinitely by Coach Bret Bielema following his early Sunday arrest by Fayetteville police on suspicion of driving while intoxicated and two other charges. "That's a private conversation," Enos said. when asked what he had to say to his freshman quarterback Sunday. Asked later how disappointed he was in the 6-7 freshman, Enos replied, "I don't have a comment on that." Thus the Razorbacks (4-6, 1-5 SEC) enter Saturday's game against Mississippi State (7-3, 3-3) with senior Austin Allen at starting quarterback operating at less than peak efficiency and redshirt sophomore Ty Storey as the backup. |
| Tipoff time changed for Mississippi State basketball game with FAMU on Saturday | |
 | Due to Saturday night's announcement that Mississippi State's football game at Arkansas will kickoff at 11 a.m. on CBS, the men's basketball team has changed its tip time against Florida A&M from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. This is one of the four games selected for the "Hoops In The Heartland" event, which benefits the non-profit organization, Men Against Breast Cancer. The other three games are against Green Bay (Nov. 20), Stephen F. Austin (Nov. 22) and North Dakota State (Nov. 30). The Bulldogs opened the 2017-18 campaign last week with dominating 96-68 win against Alabama State. |
| Ole Miss takes jab at former football coach Tommy Tuberville with pine-box tweet | |
| Ole Miss hasn't forgotten. Former coach-turned-ESPN analyst Tommy Tuberville will be part of the network's crew on the call for the Rebels' game against Texas A&M on Saturday (6 p.m., ESPN2). Tuberville coached Ole Miss from 1995-98 and made the infamous comment that he'd have to be carried out of Oxford "in a pine box" when asked during his final season with the Rebels about rumors he was leaving Ole Miss for Auburn, where he was coaching the next season. On Monday, Ole Miss took to its official Twitter account to remind Tuberville of his words: "ESPN2 crew for Saturday: Mike Patrick, Paul Carcaterra & former Rebel coach Tommy Tuberville. Word is they're traveling to Oxford via pine box." Tuberville coached at Auburn from 1999-2008 and is even campaigning to be the Tigers' next athletic director. |
| 2 Auburn men's basketball support staff members placed on administrative leave | |
| Two members of the Auburn men's basketball support staff have been placed on administrative leave as a result of the university's investigation into the program, the athletics department announced Monday. Special assistant Jordan VerHulst and video coordinator Frankie Sullivan will remain away from the program "until further notice." "The Auburn Athletics Department has placed men's basketball support staff members Jordan VerHulst and Frankie Sullivan on administrative leave until further notice based upon the University's ongoing investigation into the men's basketball program," the full athletics department statement reads. Auburn's men's basketball program has been wrapped up in a federal investigation and undergoing an internal review for nearly two months stemming from former associate head coach Chuck Person's role in the FBI's investigation into college basketball. |
| Former UGA assistant says he abused his prescription, wants to coach tennis again after treatment | |
 | Bo Hodge hopes to return to coaching tennis "as soon as possible," while admitting he abused prescription medication in hopes of becoming more focused after becoming a new father and having a "demanding job." The former Georgia men's tennis associate head coach plead guilty Thursday in Clarke County Superior Court to the felony charge of possession of a scheduled II controlled substance and was granted first-time offender status. Hodge acknowledges obtaining Adderall from someone other than his doctor to supplement his own prescription which he said he had for 10 years. Hodge was suspended by Georgia in May and later fired after a University of Georgia police investigation. He was charged on July 11 for purchasing a controlled substance and misdemeanor theft by taking. As part of the plea deal, the theft charge was not pursued. |
| Trump Asks Xi for Help on U.C.L.A. Players Arrested in China | |
| President Trump confirmed on Tuesday that he had appealed to President Xi Jinping of China on behalf of three basketball players from the University of California, Los Angeles, who were arrested last week in Hangzhou, China, on suspicion of shoplifting. "I had a great conversation with President Xi," Mr. Trump told reporters as he was leaving the Philippines after a 12-day trip to Asia. "What they did was unfortunate. You know, you're talking about very long prison sentences. They do not play games." In China, where the justice system has a very high conviction rate, theft can bring punishment ranging from a few days to years in prison. Mr. Trump said he hoped the Chinese president would help the players: LiAngelo Ball, a freshman guard; and Cody Riley and Jalen Hill, both freshman forwards. He emphasized that it was a "very, very rough situation, with what happened to them." |
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