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.”
The goal was accomplished once the declaration of secession was signed. Fort Sumter was bombarded because it was occupied by a foreign army, who refused to leave.
The fact that slavery was, and is, a blight on the history of the States (North and South) cannot be disputed, but to continuously argue that it was the sole reason for the Civil War is simply wrong. Slavery did play a major role in the start of the war, but not because the South wanted so much to keep slaves, it was more due to the way the Federal government wanted to abolish it. As wrong as slavery was, it was protected by the constitution. Say what you will, but States Rights, and denial of such, was a very major issue contributing to the start of the war.
Why should they? It was their fort.
Slavery did play a major role in the start of the war, but not because the South wanted so much to keep slaves, it was more due to the way the Federal government wanted to abolish it.
I would ask you for a single quote from Lincoln prior to the rebellion stating he planned on abolishing slavery. Contain it, yes. Prevent its expansion, yes. But abolish it, not. The southern states weren't about to sit back and see that happen, so they rebelled.
Say what you will, but States Rights, and denial of such, was a very major issue contributing to the start of the war.
And what state's right was being denied or threatened?
"What they did do is delay our economic punch for 100 years,"
Well said!
"If you recall United States military installations were bombed by organized insurrectionists. Today we call that terrorism and counter the terrorists accordingly, as Lincoln did."
No, they were an Organized State Militia that were authorized by the State of SC to remove the Federal troops from SC.
That's BS
Blessings still occur.
I think we may have lost the fight, but in the end we won! Ever notice that you don't see folks moving North when they retire? Lots of reasons for this, and none good for the Northern states.
The Confederate flag is beautiful and a part of the history of the South. The whole flap is nonsensical! Slaves were first brought to the north, where folks tried to use them for labor but, since they came from Africa, they could not survive the cold winters. Let's do some research and find who those slave owners were. Then we can remove the American flags from our northern states.
Sometimes I think there's a lot of envy of southerners. Maybe that's why we keep being invaded by people who formerly lived in the north.
Makes about as much sense as the stars and bars being bad...: ) <<< me
I don't know about that. We have that many fewer crabby, whining, complaining, black-socks-with-shorts-wearing, left-turn-signal-leaving-on, doing-40-in-a-60-zone, senior citizens to deal with. That's not such a bad thing. I can think of a couple more you can take, if I can get my mother-in-law to move.
Actually the NCAA dropped that. Chief Illiniwek and the Flordia State Seminole get to stay.
But they still bombarded a federal military facility and tried to kill the troops stationed there. And you didn't think we'd get a ilttle pissed at that?
Male Bovine Fecal Effluvia. The Stars and Bars is a symbol of honor and valor.
It's the PC brigades such as the NAASomeCP that have bastardized it and tried to change the meaning.
That is akin to claiming the 2nd Marine Battalion and 101st Airborne is fighting in Iraq over oil because President Bush and VP Dick Cheney are affiliated with or involved in the oil business.
No, their reason for fighting was an attempt to thwart the formation of a centralized government which they perceived and much feared would come to resemble the monarchy from which their ancestors had previously declared their independence and protection of the liberty they fought to achieve. Swearing one's "lives and fortunes" to perpetuate that goal of freely governed states was by far more important to them than was to keep any individual or people in bonds. Slavery was an issue, but it wasn't the primary issue of contention until the North made it so and for that issue alone, many Southerners or Northerners would not have fought.
The Southerners' principle summons to service was to protect their state, which they answered - just as those of the North did. Had either been given slavery alone as the issue to fight for, there wouldn't have been any conflict or any would have been short lived, for the Northern counterparts didn't want the Negro among them and hadn't intended to battle to "free" them.
To wit: note the declining determination among the CSA to continue battling once slavery BECAME the North's central claim for its aggression against the South. Had the slaves' freedom been a paramount objective, Lincoln would have openly declared it within his Gettysburg Address, but his prime motivator was preservation of the Union. Even the Lincoln Memorial states on the right hand wall that Lincoln's objective was the preservation of the Union.
Since the latter part of 19th century, the Federal government has taught publicly educated school children "freeing the slave" as its excuse to justify centralizing its power and for expanding its control over the states and the individual. Many have accepted that excuse as legitimate, many have not, many don't care.
And again, absent their leadership's launching a war to protect their institution of slavery then they would not have had to figt over anything. Once cannot divorce the cause of the conflict from the going off to fight.
Since the latter part of 19th century, the Federal government has taught publicly educated school children "freeing the slave" as its excuse to justify centralizing its power and for expanding its control over the states and the individual. Many have accepted that excuse as legitimate, many have not, many don't care.
Well it has taught that slavery was the reason why the North fought the war, which is something I've never agreed with.
Using a contemporary mindset to gauge 19th century "feelings" is flawed logic.
In 1861 the only daily Federal influence in the lives of an American was if one interacted with the US Postal Service. The love of Federalism wasn't embraced with the fervor it is today, nor did it have nanny state tentacles as it does today.
The organization, existance and acceptance of State Militias as being the entity that protected a given state from a threat was as common as Interstate (Federal) Highways are today.
The leaders of the south believed the were within their rights to kill occupying Federal troops.
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