Posted on 07/25/2006 10:19:23 AM PDT by Colonel Kangaroo
Unless lawmakers remove the Confederate flag from the State House grounds, the road to the College World Series could become longer for Clemson, South Carolina and the state’s other schools.
An NCAA subcommittee is re-examining the flag issue after the head of the Black Coaches Association questioned why Clemson hosted regional and super regional games before advancing to Omaha this past season.
In 2002 the NCAA implemented a two-year moratorium prohibiting schools in South Carolina from hosting any pre-assigned championships. A year later the NCAA extended the ban indefinitely.
Now BCA executive director Floyd Keith wants college athletics’ chief governing body to consider broadening the ban to keep all postseason contests out of the state.
“At least from our viewpoint, there should not be any postseason events awarded,” Keith said Friday during a telephone interview.
Robert Vowels, commissioner of the Southwestern Athletic Conference and chair of the NCAA’s Minority Opportunities and Interests Committee, said an eight-person subcommittee plans a teleconference in the coming months to discuss the issue. The group wants to review the original moratorium and the selection process for championship sites in sports such as baseball and tennis, in which the highest-seeded schools often are chosen as hosts.
“The main thing is understanding the selection process and just seeing what’s what,” Vowels said. “Once we can understand processes, then we can go from there.”
The NCAA maintains the same postseason ban in Mississippi, which incorporates the Confederate flag into its state flag.
Greenville’s Bi-Lo Center hosted first- and second-round games of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament in 2002 because the bid had been awarded before the ban took effect.
Since then, however, South Carolina has lost out on several NCAA-sanctioned events.
• A cross-country regional that Furman had hosted for 21 years was moved.
• The ACC pulled its baseball tournament out of Fort Mill in 2003.
• Officials with USC and the Bi-Lo Center were turned down after submitting bids to serve as first- and second-round sites for the NCAA men’s basketball tourney.
“March Madness is March Sadness in South Carolina because there will be no March Madness here. And the NAACP is in lockstep with it,” said Lonnie Randolph, the NAACP state president.
Lawmakers have not addressed the flag issue since 2000, when a legislative compromise moved the flag from atop the Capitol dome to a Confederate monument on the north side of the State House grounds. Beginning in 1999, the NAACP asked African-Americans to boycott South Carolina’s tourism industry, an effort Randolph said would continue until the flag comes down.
In the meantime, the only postseason games that have been staged in the state have been at the conference level. While aware of the NCAA’s moratorium, the SEC allows its schools from South Carolina and Mississippi to submit proposals to host the conference’s neutral-site championships.
The SEC held its 2005 women’s basketball tournament in Greenville after a scheduling conflict at Atlanta’s Philips Arena forced organizers to look for an alternative site. This past fall the SEC cross country championships were run at Fort Jackson.
However, despite attractive arenas in Greenville and Columbia, event organizers across the state have had their hands tied when it comes to trying to host games in the lucrative NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
Said Randolph: “(Basketball fans) don’t drop pennies in your community. They drop millions of dollars in your community.”
Vowels said his subcommittee would study the issue of extending the NCAA’s ban to include all postseason events and would make a recommendation to the NCAA’s executive committee by the end of the year.
Even if no changes are made, Keith, the BCA director, believes the ban has been effective in drawing attention to the flag.
“It’s certainly an issue of awareness that has been supported and embraced by the NCAA. That in itself is a positive step from our platform,” Keith said. “Is it completely eradicated or something we can say it’s done? No. The issue is still there.”
I am a pure Yankee, New England born, New England bred, and i'll probably end up New England dead, but I fully support flying the confederate flag. It is NOT a racist symbol.
Now the rainbow flag the faggots hijacked from little kids makes me sick.
Nope. You're just full of sh**
Why is that? You think I am racist?
No, just a troll.
ROFL!!
Give it up, loser.
And if I don't......
I've scrapped better trolls then you off my zipper.
How so?
i've never met an Indian, who thought that "redskins" wasn't a DEROGATORY & PREJUDICED term. NONE!
so i guess if you think we shouldn't be offended by its use, then you believe Blacks shouldn't be offended by "n@gger", either.
free dixie,sw
So you are a homosexual, too?
don't you get tired of being RIDICULED as a FOOL & a BIGOT???
free dixie,sw
DU & that pack of IDIOTS, leftists & weirdos is waiting on you!
free dixie,sw
Yeah, and I never met a black American who thought the CBF wasn't a DEROGATORY & PREJUDICED symbol. NONE!
Maybe YOU and KWEISI MFUME can join forces and rid America of ALL her RACIST symbols, huh?
OBVIOUSLY, you KNOW few Blacks. (tell us, when was the last time you invited a Black family to your home for dinner???)
also,are you trying to replace "Mr. SPIN" as our in-house BIGOT???
lol AT you.
free dixie,sw
The only DUmmy here is you Stand. Your position on INDIAN team mascots is identical to the NAACP & the NEA.
"The National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) declared that the American Indian nicknames used at at least 18 colleges are presumed “hostile and abusive” and can’t be used in post-season play. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, the National Education Association and the NAACP also oppose such nicknames." Link
The only difference between YOU and KWEISI MFUME on this subject is that you're a HYPOCRITE!!!
"Seminole Nation in Florida endorsed FSU, that's why Chief gets to stay I guess."
It's going to be hard for McMurry to find endorsments for the generic term "Indians".
you "know NOT & know NOT, that you know NOT!"
99% of what you post is MEAN-spirited, IGNORANT bilge, out of the most extreme, lunatic fringe of LEFTIST/SOCIALIST, northeastern academia. bet you didn't even KNOW that that NONSENSE is what you keep parroting.
free dixie,sw
What mandate was that?
Hey STAND, how does it feel to have been EXPOSED as a STOOGE for the NAACP & NEA, and as a HYPOCRITE?
Perhaps a cup of STFU would be in order?
I'm thinking of having tee shirts made for us, but the acronym would be a killer.
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