| Wednesday, June 12, 2019 |
| Ann Brett Strickland: Mississippi State fan base continues to grow | |
 | For Ann Brett Strickland, seeing the Mississippi State Bulldogs succeed is as much a business matter as it is one for cheering for the home team. Strickland is the general manager of Bulldog Sports Properties of Learfield Communications and spoke to the Starkville Rotary Club on Monday about the work the organization does to promote Bulldog athletics. Bulldog Sports Properties works with MSU's Athletic Department on marketing and broadcasts. While the two are closely intertwined, Strickland said, Bulldog Sports Properties is an independent, for-profit organization. Mississippi State's recent athletic success -- consistent winning in football, one of the top women's basketball programs in the country, back-to-back trips to the College World Series in baseball and the continued resurgence of the men's basketball program -- have helped drive growth for Bulldog Sports properties. |
| City Bagel Cafe to close after more than two decades | |
 | The Starkville culinary scene will soon lose a longtime staple, with the owners of City Bagel Cafe announcing plans to close the restaurant later this month. Owner Ty Thames, of Eat Local Starkville, confirmed to the Starkville Daily News that the eatery will close for good on June 23. Thames said the restaurant group made the decision to close City Bagel due to increased overhead, along with a dramatic decline in sales over the last 11 months since the beginning of construction projects on the property surrounding the restaurant's University Drive location. "We will sincerely miss serving each and every one of our guests and being a part of their day," he said. "Thank you to our great staff for their passion and dedication over the years." City Bagel was first opened by the Tkach family in 1996 and was purchased by Eat Local Starkville in May 2016. |
| Mississippi ABLE launches savings program for disabled | |
 | A new program is opening the door for people with disabilities and their families to save for the future. This week, the Mississippi ABLE program launched across the state. Similar to a 529 educational savings account, the ABLE account will allow people with disabilities and their families to set aside funds without jeopardizing Social Security and Medicaid benefits. The funds can grow tax-free as long as they are used for disability-related expenses. Spencer Kirkpatrick, who signed up with his dad Kevan Kirkpatrick, will start contributing to his ABLE account this summer. The Mississippi State University Access Program student will have a paid internship. "This will allow him to stand on his own two feet more," Kirkpatrick said. |
| Northeast Mississippi families welcome ABLE Program | |
 | People with disabilities in Mississippi now have more independence and financial freedom, thanks to a program that has been years in the making. Spencer Kirkpatrick is getting ready for his senior year at Mississippi State, and he also has a paid internship this summer. He has a busy schedule, but managed to spend a few minutes, with his Dad's help, signing up for a special savings account. The savings account is part of Mississippi's ABLE Program, which allows people with disabilities to save money without losing Medicaid or Social Security benefits. Until the ABLE program, Spencer would lose some benefits if he had more than $2,000 in assets. "When he earned that small paycheck he was penalized a little bit , so this allows him to earn and keep more money and really stand on his own two feet a little bit more. It may sound cliche but he can be a productive member of society," said Spencer's dad, Kevan. |
| Fix by Five campaign aims to reduce cat overpopulation | |
 | The conventional wisdom is that cats should be spayed or neutered at 6 months of age. The Fix by Five campaign challenges that assumption, aiming to reduce cat overpopulation by reducing the standard age of spay and neuter to 5 months or earlier for cats. Dr. Phil Bushby serves as a veterinary spokesperson for the Fix by Five campaign. He is chair of humane ethics and animal welfare at Mississippi State University College of Veterinary Medicine. He became aware of and concerned about pet overpopulation in the early 1970s. After joining the veterinary faculty at Mississippi State, he started taking veterinary students to the local animal shelter to do spay and neuter. Now the veterinary college has a comprehensive shelter and spay-neuter program. "Given the fact that cats can become sexually mature between 4 and 5 months of age, it doesn't make a lot of sense to wait until 6 months or older to spay and neuter them," Dr. Bushby said. |
| Brothers arrested for Starkville park shooting | |
| Two Washington County brothers are being held on high bonds for their roles in a Monday evening shooting in a crowded Starkville park. The Starkville Police Department arrested Cedric "Rambo" Splounge, 19, of Greenville, and charged him with aggravated assault. He is being held in the Oktibbeha County Jail on a $2 million bond. Kentravius Splounge, 18, of Greenville, is charged with accessory after the fact to aggravated assault. His bond was set at $1 million. Police responded to a call of shots fired at McKee Park in the central part of the city just after 6 p.m. June 10. One male was struck by gunfire. He was transported to the Oktibbeha County Hospital with non-life threatening injuries. Officials say the incident followed a dispute during a pick-up game at the park's basketball court. Witnesses said one person left the court, retrieved a gun from a car and fired multiple shots. At the time of the shooting, the park was filled with families attending youth sporting events. |
| Louisville company awarded military contract | |
 | Mississippi Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith announced Tuesday that Taylor Defense Products LLC of Louisville won a Navy contract worth up to $84 million. Hyde-Smith is a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Taylor will repair and maintain all-terrain cranes for the U.S. Marine Corps. It's part of the Navy's Service Life Extension Program. "The Service Life Extension Program extends the lifespan of equipment used by our men and women in uniform to carry out their missions. I'm pleased Taylor Defense Products will be responsible for ensuring the reliability of cranes used by the Marine Corps," Hyde-Smith said. The company will receive an initial $9.71 million in FY2019 defense appropriations to begin repair and maintenance on up to 145 all-terrain cranes, which are designed to provide high-speed, all-terrain capability to lift and swing extremely heavy loads. |
| California company to build and test rockets in Mississippi | |
 | A California rocket company announced Tuesday that it plans to build and test rockets at a NASA facility in Mississippi, part of its bid to use three-dimensional metal printing to reduce the complexity of rocket building. Los Angeles-based Relativity said that it would invest $59 million, with a plan to increase to 200 workers from 90 current employees. The company will lease space from NASA at Stennis Space Center on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The facility has long hosted rocket tests. State and local governments are likely to give Relativity more than $4.7 million in aid and tax breaks over the next 10 years as part of the deal. Mississippi Development Authority spokeswoman Tammy Craft says the state will give the company $1.5 million to renovate a building. |
| UPS leader supports raising Mississippi, U.S. gas tax levels | |
 | The Delta-raised CEO of the world's largest package delivery company, United Parcel Service, has backed a Mississippi and federal gas tax increase to help fund road and bridge repairs. "We call it user pay, user benefit," David Abney said at the Delta Council's annual meeting Friday. "It just makes sense to us." But Gov. Phil Bryant and two of three Republican candidates vying to replace him next year don't agree with the corporate leader. Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves, the Republican front runner to replace Bryant, has long resisted a gas tax hike, or tax increases of any kind. He reiterated that stance Friday in the Delta after hearing Abney's endorsement, telling the Greenwood Commonwealth he would "continue to oppose raising the gas tax." In an interview with the Clarion Ledger, candidate Bill Waller Jr. said he would support a gas tax hike, and was "taken aback" by the UPS leader's comments, which he said were met with a "rousing round of applause." |
| In GOP governor's race, Waller hits the May campaign trail harder than Foster and Reeves | |
| Down in the polls and thin in the pocketbook, Bill Waller Jr. and Robert Foster are using a tried and true campaign strategy to gain ground on Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves in the 2019 Republican primary for governor: Retail politicking. Waller out-traveled Reeves and Foster during the month of May, a Mississippi Today analysis of campaign schedules shows. The schedules were compiled using schedules submitted by the campaigns, social media posts and news articles about election events. Reeves, holding more than $6 million in campaign cash and running pricey television ads airing across the state since April 23, could afford to stay closer to home last month. The second-term lieutenant governor made 30 campaign stops in May, visiting 19 of the state's 82 counties. More than half of Reeves' stops were made in the 12 counties that were home to the most Republican voters in 2016. But with considerably less money to spend on television advertising, Waller and Foster hit the road hard, exhibiting two different campaign strategies. |
| Mississippi-Based Federal Judge Nominated to Appeals Court | |
 | President Donald Trump is nominating a federal district judge from southern Mississippi to serve on one of the nation's most conservative federal appeals courts. The White House on Tuesday announced the nomination of 52-year-old Halil "Sul" Ozerden to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The New Orleans-based court handles cases from Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Judicial nominations must be confirmed by the Senate. With Ozerden, the 5th Circuit would be back to its full contingent of 17 judges. Ozerden was confirmed as a district judge for the southern half of Mississippi in 2007 after being nominated by Republican President George W. Bush. Ninety-five senators voted for his confirmation, and none voted against it. He usually hears cases in Gulfport. Mississippi's Republican U.S. senators, Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde-Smith, said in a joint statement that they will work for Ozerden's confirmation. |
| Iowa has a senior moment | |
 | Oh, yes, perhaps you've heard: These two men leading the long parade of people trying to win the presidency in 2020 are both rather old -- between them, 148 years of experience on the planet. And Donald Trump and Joe Biden have had careers on the public stage for nearly 90 of those 148 years, a fact that might at first call into question the whole premise of their showdown Tuesday in Iowa, where they were in separate locales but spent the day talking very directly to and about each other: What can either man hope to tell voters about the other that they don't already know? Both men, of course, believe the answer is plenty. It made for an arresting few hours in the narrative wars on which modern presidential campaigns are waged -- an exercise that seemed as much about psychological intimidation as political persuasion. In both cases, Biden and Trump with their mockery and insults seemed determined to get in each other's head as much as in voters'. And in both cases, the message was a variant of, It's getting late in the day for you, old man. |
| Governor's school continues to challenge state's brightest students | |
| Dakiriyah Doss, 15, said she didn't know when she applied to Mississippi Governor's School that she would be helping her fellow classmates at Columbus High School. The rising CHS junior arrived at Mississippi University for Women ready to enroll in an academic adventure specifically for honors students from Mississippi, knowing she would perform community services, but not how. The 59 MGS scholars spent Saturday morning cleaning up Union Academy, a previously shuttered school Columbus Municipal School District will use as the alternative school this coming fall. The alternative school was previously housed in Hunt Success Academy, which was partially destroyed after a Feb. 23 tornado, and then moved to one hallway in CHS. t was just one of the activities the MGS scholars have embarked on in the annual program, run by MUW's Department of Outreach and Innovation. |
| Amid turnover at the top, how are people choosing the next chancellor? | |
| Barron Mayfield has a question for anyone who wants to be the next chancellor at the University of Mississippi: "What is your vision for what the university is going to be?" "It's no secret the university is changing," said Mayfield, the Associated Student Body president. "We're going from what we used to be to -- what now? I don't know. And there's no vision of what we're going to be as an institution. We need someone who's going to be a strong leader and answer the question of where we're going as a university." He, along with 38 other people, was selected last Friday to serve on the Campus Search Advisory Committee for the University of Mississippi chancellor search following former Ole Miss Chancellor Jeffrey Vitter's abrupt resignation last November. The advisory committee will meet Friday in the ballroom at The Inn at Ole Miss in Oxford to discuss the search. |
| Auburn University plans to weather decreases in federal funding | |
 | The state of Alabama could lose more than $40 million in research funding in 2020 and Auburn University will feel the losses. The Science Coalition, a non-profit organization that works to sustain the federal government's investment in basic scientific research, said federally funded research institutions stand to lose billions without a lift of spending caps implemented by the Budget Control Act. The act, put in place in 2011, gives Congress the ability place budget enforcement mechanisms that mandate specific budgetary policies or fiscal outcomes. These decreases could affect Auburn University, one of the more than 50 member universities in the coalition and the state's largest land-grant and research university. The coalition's analysis shows all 50 states stand to lose millions of federal research dollars if Congress and the administration do not reach a deal. |
| Auburn University's aviation teams prepare for women's Air Race Classic | |
 | Auburn University's two War Eagle Women aviation teams prepare for the 2019 Air Race Classic, competing against 15 universities and colleges to have their names inscribed on the Collegiate Challenge Trophy. "This will be our third year entering the race," Auburn University Aviation Center director and Aviation department head Bill Hutto said. "It means a lot for our students in the experience they will get, but it's about what they will come back with and share. "Auburn University will be seen within the nation and worldwide. It's a really big event, and we are excited to be a part of it." The 2019 Air Race classic will begin June 18 in LaGrange, Georgia, to pass more than 2,400 miles through nine states and one Canadian province, ending in Welland, Ontario, on July 21. |
| Amid audit, former regent calls for renewed leadership, removal of LSU president, CFO | |
 | Monday's audit report questioning LSU management's ham-handed efforts to sell software developed by the university prompted renewed demands Tuesday for the wholesale removal of the flagship's leadership by a former Board of Regents chairman. Baton Rouge businessman Richard Lipsey, a prominent donor to political causes who in December stepped down from the higher education's top policy-making body, said LSU President F. King Alexander and Dan Layzell, the university system's chief financial officer, must go. LSU released a response through spokesperson Ernie Ballard. "LSU is focused on being the best university it can be, period," the statement read. "It is unfortunate that Mr. Lipsey is focused on a personal grudge he has against LSU leadership. That is the opposite of putting LSU and Louisiana first." |
| Students minds broadened by traveling abroad | |
 | Travel can be a big investment. After buying a plane ticket, hotels, food and other transportation, the costs can add up quickly. However, for college students traveling abroad, many see the experience as worth every dollar spent. For some students, going to the University of Georgia is already traveling far from home. Kristen Nicolosi, a senior exercise sport science major and global health minor at UGA, is from West Chester, Pennsylvania. Since coming to UGA, she has been able to explore the state, as well as explore outside the country. Last summer, she took part in a study abroad program in Cortona, Italy, and this summer, she is spending a month in Taiwan. A study abroad opportunity can teach a student a lot. Nicolosi has already learned valuable skills there. "I am studying Chinese medicine and their philosophies, which are super cool. I even got to try acupuncture and fire cupping on my classmates, which is a great experience you can't get in the United States," Nicolosi said. |
| Pulitzer Prize winner Sara Ganim to join U. of Florida's Brechner Center | |
 | A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist will be joining the University of Florida Brechner Center for Freedom of Information. Sara Ganim, former CNN correspondent and 2012 Pulitzer Prize winner, will join the Brechner Center as a Hearst Journalism Fellow, according to a University of Florida news release. During her fellowship, Ganim will help UF College of Journalism and Communication students develop investigative reporting projects about lapses in government data gathering that deprive the public from information, the release said. The fellowship is funded through Hearst Foundation for the Hearst Data Deserts Project. The project is intended to improve civic data by highlighting deficiencies in data gathering and by developing solutions through public policy. The grant includes funding for two visiting fellows for one-year engagements. At the Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Ganim was in the thick of local reporting on the Penn State and Jerry Sandusky scandal. |
| Trustees call the shots at U. of South Carolina. Here's what you need to know about them | |
 | The University of South Carolina's Board of Trustees was hours away from completing what is arguably its most important task -- appointing a president. The university spent seven months and more than $137,000 to name four presidential finalists before reversing course and re-opening the search. As the board deliberated behind closed doors in April, roughly 100 student protesters gathered outside the conference room berating the board for naming four finalists, all of whom were male and three of whom were white. "The board of trustees at the University of South Carolina does not reflect the university," said Lyric Swinton, a senior sports and entertainment major who was a leading activist in the school's presidential search. Having failed in its first attempt to pick a successor to Pastides, the board is set to take up the task again. As they do, here's a deeper look at the board and its members. |
| Annual 4-H Roundup returns to Texas A&M | |
 | Well over 2,000 teenagers and children from across the state used noisemakers, blew into vuvuzelas and otherwise cheered on dozens of scholarship recipients inside Reed Arena at a Tuesday evening general assembly during the annual Texas 4-H Roundup, the state convention and competition that awards about $2.4 million in scholarships. The Texas 4-H Roundup has been on the campus of Texas A&M University since 1946; the four-day event, which began Monday and runs through Thursday night, is the culmination of the 4-H year, organizers and participants say. Students from third through 12th grade travel from as far as Dalhart, Brownsville and El Paso to participate in a broad array of sessions and, for older students, competitions. Texas A&M AgriLife Extension 4-H specialist and roundup coordinator Jana Barrett said the event allows young people from across Texas opportunities to have new, formative experiences and work hard to achieve success in their chosen fields. |
| U. of Missouri System budget sets revenue goals | |
 | The University of Missouri will develop incentives and punishments for programs that don't meet budget goals, a Board of Curators committee was told Tuesday as it approved a $3.5 billion system budget for the year that begins July 1. With the budget for the coming year, the university will begin measuring how closely each major division -- the four campuses and University of Missouri Health Care -- come to meeting targets for a net operating margin. The board will hear plans for how the system will deal with units that miss their goals at a meeting in the fall, Vice President for Finance Ryan Rapp told the board's Finance Committee. When units miss the goal, Rapp said, the university will start with incentives and, if the units repeatedly miss the goal, the consequences, he said. |
| Trump administration issues proposal to loosen standards for college accreditors | |
 | Betsy DeVos issued a proposal Tuesday to loosen federal standards for college accreditors, arguing that the changes would spur innovation. The education secretary wants to allow colleges to expedite plans to outsource programs and to add new degree offerings or branch campuses without getting an accreditor's approval. The changes also would make it easier for accreditors who don't fully meet federal standards to retain their approval. Many of those changes delivered on long-standing demands by higher ed groups to streamline the accreditation process. But consumer advocates and other critics have warned that the proposal would unravel oversight of colleges and allow more low-quality programs to enroll students and access federal student aid. The move also fits the broader agenda of the Trump administration to roll back regulations. |
| DeVos' student aid chief quits foundation board following questions on conflict of interest | |
| The Education Department appointee who oversees the government's $1.5 trillion student loan portfolio on Tuesday stepped down from the board of an organization that owns some of that debt, after POLITICO asked about a potential conflict of interest. Mark Brown, a retired major general in the U.S. Air Force, in March was selected by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to be the new head of the department's Office of Federal Student Aid. Until Tuesday, he also served as an unpaid member of the board of directors of KnowledgeWorks, a non-profit foundation that holds about $30 million in federally guaranteed student loans. Several ethics experts said that arrangement raised concerns about a potential conflict of interest because Brown's unit is responsible for regulating and overseeing student loans backed by the government, including those that are owned by KnowledgeWorks. |
| Oklahoma state regents say higher education key to state growth | |
| Oklahoma's higher education leaders agree next year's $25 million budget increase is better than a cut, but most feel it isn't nearly enough for the state's network of 25 colleges and universities. "The state needs to start supporting higher ed if the state is to grow," said Jay Helm, chair of the State Regents for Higher Education. The regents had requested an increase of $100 million from the state Legislature to make up for a 25% funding decrease from 2012 to 2019. Helm said he's thankful for the funding increase for the Fiscal Year 2020 budget, which will bring total higher education appropriations to $802.1 million. But colleges and universities will have to continue working with a growing student population without corresponding funding increases. A recent study by the State Chamber Research Foundation shows that for every dollar the state invests in higher education, the system of higher education generates $9.40 in economic output. |
| Free Speech on Campus Is Doing Just Fine, Thank You | |
| Lee Bollinger, the 19th president of Columbia University and co-author, with Geoffrey R. Stone, of the new book The Free Speech Century, writes on TheAtlantic.com: Earlier this year, President Donald Trump signed an executive order requiring colleges and universities that receive federal funds to do what they're already required by law to do: extend free-speech protections to men and women on campus. The executive order was a transparent exercise in politics. Its intent was to validate the collective antipathy that many Trump boosters feel toward institutions of higher learning. Its major impact, though, has been to shed light on how serious the purported censorship crisis on campus really is -- or, rather, is not. I have served for more than two decades as a university president, the past 17 years leading Columbia University. I am also a lifelong First Amendment scholar and have written books and essays to try to understand and explain why our laws and norms have evolved as they have. In both these capacities, I can attest that attitudes about the First Amendment are evolving -- but not in the way President Trump thinks. |
| Will the Great Flood of 2019 supplant the benchmark 1927 flood as the state's worst? | |
| Syndicated columnist Sid Salter writes: In what would be his final studio album, the inimitable Mississippi blues legend B.B. King in 2008 covered the 1927 Bessie Smith classic "Backwater Blues" in a style that made the heartbreaking tune all his own: "I climbed up on the high lonely hill, Oh, I climbed up on the high ole lonely hill; And I looked down at the house; Baby, where I used to live." While forever associated with the Great Flood of 1927, Smith actually wrote and recorded the song two months prior to the 1927 Mississippi River flood. Historians suggest that Smith may well have written the song about flooding of the Cumberland River in Nashville, Tennessee around the Christmas holidays in 1926. But for thousands of Mississippians, no song old or new is sad enough to capture their current plight in the Great Flood of 2019 in the backwaters of the South Delta. Late in May at a Mississippi Emergency Management Agency press conference in Jackson and again last week at the Annual Meeting of the Delta Council, Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant -- a Moorhead native and son of the Delta who knows the historical extravagance of the comparison better than most -- called the current flooding worse than the fabled 1927 flood. |
SPORTS
| 'The New Dude' packs in fans during its first year | |
| Mississippi State junior Dustin Skelton and Stanford's Christian Robinson traded words during one of the Bulldogs' two NCAA baseball super regional wins over Stanford over the weekend. Robinson opened the dialogue, voicing that roughly 3,000 fans took in the Cardinal's home regional. "Yeah well, you're in front of 13,000 now," Skelton recalled responding. "How does it feel?" "Man it's unlike anywhere else," Robinson said. Two years and an estimated $68 million later, the New Dudy Noble hosted its first ever Super Regional over the weekend as MSU punched its second ticket to the College World Series in as many years with a two-game sweep of Stanford. The more than 24,000 fans who gathered at the friendly confines Saturday and Sunday validated what many folks had dreamed of with the fresh-faced stadium. Just looking at the numbers, the new ballpark is already living up to its investment. "There are a lot of good baseball programs in the country," MSU Athletic Director John Cohen told The Dispatch. "There are really good teams. There are really good coaches. But our fans are different. They're the ones who make this program what it is and we wanted to build something that honored the fans." |
| 'A pure hitter': How Justin Foscue has stabilized Mississippi State's offense | |
| Baseball gets the best of the best hitters sometimes. Mississippi State's lineup can vouch for that with first-hand experience. Let's take it from the top. ... Those are seven of Mississippi State's eight positional players. The one left out is sophomore second baseman Justin Foscue, who happens to be the only player on the team who has not gone hitless in consecutive games all season. Foscue has started all 64 of Mississippi State's games. He's one of three players to do so. Mangum and Allen are the other two. It's rather remarkable that Foscue has not slumped in the slightest like the rest of his teammates have. Mississippi State head coach Chris Lemonis said Foscue, who hits in the five-hole, has given the rest of the batting order much-needed protection in times in which some of the other guys were struggling. He called him a "steady influence." "He's a pure hitter," Lemonis added. "It doesn't matter matchup-wise. He can pretty much hit anybody." |
| Familiar foes: Tigers enter SEC-heavy College World Series | |
| Auburn's going all the way to Omaha. The Tigers' long, winding ride through the year is ending at college baseball's final stop, far from the Plains and at college baseball's mountaintop. But it's only fitting, at the pinnacle of an up-and-down season, that the team will be greeted there at the College World Series by some familiar faces from series past. Auburn is one of four SEC teams headed to Omaha to make up half the eight-team field at the College World Series. Auburn opens its play there against an all-too-familiar foe in Mississippi State on Sunday. Vanderbilt looms on the same side of the CWS bracket. The Tigers have been through battles with them both before, taking bumps and bruises all through the rigors what's proven itself to be the country's best conference this season. Auburn is 38-26. Mississippi State stands 51-13 after beating Stanford in those teams' Super Regional. |
| Mississippi State's JT Ginn tabbed National Freshman of the Year by Perfect Game | |
 | Boasting eight wins and a 3.36 ERA in 16 starts on the mound, Mississippi State baseball freshman starting pitcher JT Ginn was named the National Freshman of the Year by Perfect Game on Tuesday. After earning Co-National Freshman Pitcher of the Year from Collegiate Baseball Newspaper last week to become the first Diamond Dawg to earn any type of national freshman of the year honor, Ginn is now the first Diamond Dawg to earn the highest rookie honor from a national publication. The 36th Freshman All-American in Mississippi State history after his selection by Collegiate Baseball Newspaper last week, Ginn was just the second Diamond Dawg in program history to earn SEC Freshman of the Year after posting an 8-4 record during the regular season. He joined Mangum as the only two MSU baseball student-athletes to win the award, which was first handed out in 2000. |
| Mississippi State's JT Ginn named National Freshman of the Year | |
| Mississippi State has had some outstanding ballplayers pass through its baseball program but none have ever been named the National Freshman of the Year. At least until now. Perfect Game tabbed pitcher JT Ginn with that honor on Tuesday. Ginn had already selected as the SEC Freshman of the Year and the Collegiate Baseball Co-National Freshman Pitcher of the Year as well as a Freshman All-American. The right-hander from Brandon is currently 8-4 with a 3.36 earned run average in 16 starts. He struck out 103 batters and only walked 18 in 80 1/3 innings of work and only surrendered one home run, which came in his debut on opening weekend. |
| Georgia says no to selling alcohol in general seating areas in venues | |
| Georgia president Jere Morehead and athletic director Greg McGarity indicated at the SEC spring meetings two weeks ago that the school would take a cautious approach when it came to decide whether or not to sell alcohol to fans in general seating areas this football season. They still promised a review of their policy for the next academic year after SEC presidents and chancellors changed its rules to allow for schools to make their own decisions about serving beer and wine. The answer: It's not happening in the 2019-20 academic year for Bulldog home games. Not in Sanford Stadium, Stegeman Coliseum, Foley Field or any other athletic venue. "After consideration of the many facets involved with the Southeastern Conference's revised alcohol policy, the Athletic Association has made the decision to maintain, at this time, the current UGA policy which prohibits the sale of alcoholic beverages in non-premium seating areas of our athletics facilities," McGarity said in a statement released Tuesday afternoon. "However, we will conduct an annual review of this policy to determine if any modifications may be needed in the future." |
| U. of Florida athletic budget receives an increase | |
| The University of Florida's UAA Board of Directors has approved an operating budget of $140.9 million for the 2019-20 calendar year, a 3.9 percent increase over the previous year. The Board finalized the budget Monday. "It's going to continue to support our student-athletes at a high level," UF athletic director Scott Stricklin told floridagators.com. The budget is covered by revenues and contributions and does not receive funds from the state. Football (59 percent) and men's basketball (8 percent) continue to be the primary sources of revenue for the UAA's athletic programs, and royalties and sponsorships (25 percent) generate a significant chunk of the $140,966,000 budget for the upcoming year as well, according to UAA. |
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