Like a heaping helping of its signature appetizer Nachos Grande, Chevys Fresh Mex kept piling it on Monday night in a 17 to 8 drubbing of RFT at Legion Ballpark in Overland. Adding to the heartache -- and heartburn -- for the alt-weekly players was the knowledge that for much of the contest the game was theirs to lose.
Then came the feeding frenzy.
Vashon High School today was stripped of three state championships in basketball for recruitment violations and use of ineligible players. The school was also forced to forfeit five seasons' worth of games for the years 2000-'01 and 2002 through 2006.
The ruling by the Missouri State High School Activities Association, the state agency that governs high school sports, came during a closed session of the association's board of directors this morning in Columbia.
"It's what I expected," says Sam Dunlap, athletic director of the Public High League, in which Vashon competes. "Violations happened; the rules were applied."
Dunlap declined to say whether he thought the ruling is fair. "Any time you have something like this, it's not a happy day," he says.
"Like Sam said, we had a feeling it was going to happen" adds Keith Northway, Vashon's athletic director the past two years. "I have no other comment."
With four rainouts this season, the RFT softball team has had plenty of time to sit at home watching the Cardinals on television. Evidently the hours parked on the couch have served them well.
Like the Redbirds, the RFTies have ignored the preseason naysayers to get off to their best start ever. After just three games, team RFT is 2-1 and already tied with its 2007 win total. With one more victory, the team will equal its franchise victory count dating back to ’06.
Officials from Vashon High School reported today that five ineligible students played for its championship boys’ basketball team between the years 2002 and 2006.
Two violations resulted from improper recruiting; the other three students were ineligible because of residency violations.
The findings were presented in a closed session to the Missouri State High School Activities Association’s Board of Directors this afternoon during the board’s quarterly meeting at the Tan-Tar-A resort at Lake of the Ozarks.
MSHSAA would not disclose the students’ identities because of federal privacy laws. (More on that later.)
According to a MSHSAA statement, a sixth student could also be found ineligible. Vashon is taking more time to investigate.
Vashon today also asked the MSHSAA board to act on these violations at its next association meeting, in June. The high-school waived its rights to any appeals. That means that state championship titles could be removed.
Here’s our 2006 “Basketball By the Book” cover story, which launched this MSHSAA investigation beginning in January 2007. And here’s a cheat sheet to the alleged cheaters.
I didn't make it to the Pink Galleon over the weekend to try my hand at the new Wheel of Fortune pinball game, but my guess is that John Miller, a.k.a. "JR," still holds the high score.
As of Thursday afternoon, that was about 258 million. Miller says he had a good strategy think that day on his way home from work, so he swung by the Galleon for a rematch.
Miller is one of the pinball aficionados I profiled back in December. He and his buddies, Steve and Carol Walker, Brian Bannon and Adam McKinnie (a.k.a. "Zed"), have been brushing up on their skills ahead of an international tournament next weekend in Las Vegas.
The tournament is sponsored by the International Flipper Pinball Association, the same group that created the World Pinball Player Rankings. The rankings are a fairly new development in competitive pinball. Much of a player's standing depends on how often he or she competes in sanctioned events. Miller, for example, is ranked at 25, while McKinnie stands at 101. Two weekends ago McKinnie held the high score on Pink Galleon's Wheel of Fortune, 148 million to Miller's 143 million. "He's a better player than what his ranking is," Miller says.
If you're interested in becoming a world-ranked pinball player, your chance is coming up. CP Pinball in South Roxana, Illinois, will hold its first sanctioned tournament on April 5. The entry fee is $20. Qualifying rounds run from noon until 5 p.m. Playoffs begin after 5 p.m. (There are no cash prizes.)
The competition will be mostly local, but unfortunately that does include JR. For someone who calls himself "pinball wizard," he doesn't harbor many secrets about his sorcery. If you want to save yourself a few quarters on Wheel of Fortune, Miller recommends going for the right-side drop targets on the first shot, then trying to hit the left and right ramps consecutively.
Released last fall, the pinball version of Wheel of Fortune might be more fun than watching its namesake game show for the gazillionth time. Miller reports that it comes with an engaging, complicated set of rules. "It's a throwback, playfield-wise, to the early '70s, late '60s. But technology-wise, it's awesome."
Tyler “Psycho-T” Hansbrough, now leading the University of North Carolina Tarheels in their pursuit of another NCAA men's basketball championship, was profiled, along with his brother Ben, by the Riverfront Times back in September 2004.
Not surprisingly, the story is coming back to life on the web, as more readers are interested in learning about the tenacious center from Poplar Bluff, Mo.
Read the story here.
An excerpt:
In their free time, Ben (now playing basketball at Mississippi State University) enjoys cavorting with friends while Tyler retreats to the solitude of one of the area's local fishing holes.
"That's the Bluff comin' out," Tyler concedes.
I have received a lot of requests for the entire transcript of the November 12, 2007, interview between former Vashon High School basketball coach Floyd Irons and executive director of the Missouri State High School Activities Association (MSHSAA), Kerwin Urhahn.
We previously published the first 50 pages of that Nov. 20007 interview here and here.
(To clarify: As part of Irons' plea agreement with the U.S. Attorney's office for his involvement in a real estate fraud scheme, Irons agreed to provide information involving recruiting violations to MSHSAA. Irons' attorney, Rick Sindel, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Hal Goldsmith sat in on the interview between Irons and Urhahn, as did FBI agent Shannon McGarry. Irons is questioned by Urhahn and McGarry about the residences of players found by Riverfront Times to be in violation of MSHSAA and St. Louis Public School district policies.)
Below you will find three PDFs containing the final 143 pages of the transcript. The names of the students have been blacked out by MSHSAA. Our chart of Vashon basketball players published back in November, 2006, provides a cheat sheet.
Part 3: Pages 50-99
Part 4: Pages 100-150
Part 5: Pages 151-193
Former Vashon High School coach Floyd Irons, one of Missouri's most victorious high school basketball coaches, and his former confidant and booster Mike Noll, were sentenced to federal prison Monday, along with mortgage broker John Mineo Jr., thus closing the book on a real estate fraud case that earlier resulted in prison time for a property appraiser as well.
U.S. District Court Judge E. Richard Webber showed leniency with Irons, Noll and Mineo.
The judge sentenced Irons to two twelve-month prison terms, to run concurrently, as well as five years' probation, and ordered him to pay $653,147.09 in restitution to the banks that lost money as a result of the mortgage fraud. Federal sentencing guidelines, which judges may stray from, had called for a 27- to 33-month sentence.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Hal Goldsmith had recommended 18 months.
John Mineo Jr. received a sentence of twelve months and one day -- which ends up amounting to a lesser sentence than twelve months, because of prison rules, Judge Webber noted -- and was also ordered to pay restitution of $653,147.09. Guidelines had called for jail time of 21 to 27 months. The federal prosecutor had recommended 14 months.
It was a long afternoon, with proceedings beginning at 2 p.m. and not wrapping up until 7:15 p.m. Irons was the last to be sentenced; his day in court ended with an unlikely sight: a receiving line of well-wishers offering hugs and handshakes. More than 100 people -- standing-room only -- had crowded the courtroom in his defense.
Degree of culpability, as well as character, seemed to factor most into Judge Webber's rulings.
Noll's attorney, Ed Dowd, claimed that Mineo approached Noll about the scheme to purchase and flip properties using false paperwork. But the judge rejected that idea and determined that Noll was the ringleader.
Dowd asked for leniency for Noll, based on Noll's twenty-year history as an informant on gambling and organized-crime cases. Dowd said Noll has had shots fired at him and received oral threats against his life because of his work for the FBI. "He has lived in danger while he served his country for no reason other than he wanted to help," Dowd said. "He has given the government everything he knows and is willing to continue to cooperate."
Dowd also referred to Noll's decades of providing financial assistance and support for children across the metro area to attend sports camps and tournaments, high schools and colleges. "He has no assets at all to support his family or to pay his legal fees," Dowd said, "so [my fellow attorneys] and I have been working on this case for free...because, particularly, of the numbers of young people he's helped."
Dowd read from letters written on Noll's behalf by parents and students who were recipients of his beneficence. The defense attorney also cited from letters written by two Catholic brothers and by St. Louis Rams executive vice president Bob Wallace.
Noll himself asked Judge Webber to spare him from prison: "Basketball kids, my extended family and my immediate family, they will bear the brunt of a lengthy punishment -- "
"How is that true?" Webber interrupted. "You're going to have to pay back more than one million dollars, and if you ever try to do anything like that again you're going to get arrested."
Back in January Rick Majerus offended local Catholics (and particularly Archbishop Raymond Burke) when the Saint Louis University basketball coach publicly stated his support of stem-cell research and abortion rights.
The comments came at the close of a ten-minute interview on Monday, March 17, in which host Dan Patrick asked Majerus to quickly provide his picks for the tourney. "Let me run down the list," said Patrick. "You just say who you like. You don't have to tell me why unless it's a really insightful comment that the listeners will say, 'Damn, that was insightful.'"
When asked about the BYU-Texas A&M matchup, Majerus responded, "A&M. I don't like BYU from my Utah days. The magic underwear Mitt and those guys send themselves."
Huh? During his tenure at University of Utah, Majerus apparently learned quite a bit about the Mormon culture, including the practice of wearing temple garments under their clothes. The garments -- often referred to as "Mormon underwear" -- are traditionally worn by adherents as a reminder of their promise to live a virtuous life. Though as Slate reported prior to BYU's entrance in last year's tournament, few Mormons wear the garments while competing in sports.
In response to Majerus' comment, a laughing Patrick quickly changed the subject: "You're going to get me put on probation." But not everyone was willing to forgive and forget so quickly.
Posting last week on the sports site bleacherreport.com, blogger Andrew Perkins compared Majerus' comment to Don Imus' ill-fated musings on Rutgers' women's basketball team last year. "Whether or not he has any love towards Mormons is not the issue," wrote Perkins. "The issue is that Majerus said something that is discriminatory and disrespectful to a specific group of people."
Perkins isn't the only one whose shorts are bunched over the remarks. Responding to Perkins' blog post, a reader named Tracy Hall commented, "If Majerus had made a derogatory comment about a Jewish player's 'magic beanie,' he would have been fired on the spot. It's time to realize that anti-Mormons and anti-Semites belong to the same Klan."
No matter whom you support -- the SLU coach or the Mormons -- you can't argue with the coach's pick. The ninth-seeded Aggies beat number-eight seed BYU 67-62.
The Kansas City Star ran its in-depth piece on the hoops school Milestone Christian Academy and its suspended pastor/principal/coach, Peter Flournoy in yesterday’s paper.
High school sports reporter/columnist Candace Buckner details some of the promises (laptop computers, for instance, and Adidas uniforms) Flournoy made to basketball recruits and their parents. According to the story, Flournoy didn’t deliver on the promises.
Buckner also reveals that Flournoy went AWOL from the U.S. Army and may have misrepresented his education and training.
She reports that Milestone’s rolls have dwindled to about 20 students, from 65 earlier this year. Buckner also says that the boys’ varsity basketball team now features three foreigners: two Colombians and a seven-foot Serb.
Remember the great St. Louis Cardinals World Series/St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department scandal of 2007? I broke news of the department's internal affairs investigation into the matter here on STLog back in March of '07.
Well, it's back, thanks to St. Louis attorney Albert Watkins, who frequently goes to bat for the blue shirts of the department. Watkins issued the following press release today:
Police officers involved in the 2006 World Series ticket use inquiry have directed the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department to cease its unilateral delay in the production of records sought by subpoenas issued by the State's Director of the Department of Public Safety.The eight officers, seven of whom remain active with the City's police department, learned late last week that the State's POST Commission had for over a year been seeking the Police Department's files on the World Series ticket use investigation but the City Police Department had failed to release the requested records. "The officers are shocked and disappointed that anything less than full and timely cooperation has been demonstrated by the police department and cannot understand the rationale for the secretive delay," said Albert S. Watkins, legal counsel for the officers.
"The officers involved have previously acknowledged their role in the incident and accepted their discipline. They want nothing more than to demonstrate a continuing commitment to transparency and cooperation with the POST Commission," added Watkins.
The POST Commission (Missouri Peace Officer Standards and Training Program) is a regulatory agency that is responsible for licensure of peace officers.
Watkins also sent along a copy of one of the subpoenas, sent to Captain John Hayden (click to download in pdf form), commander of the city department's Internal Affairs Division. The POST Commission basically wants any and all records related to the IA investigation. More, certainly, to come...
Here's the scoop from Matt Leach at mlb.com.
The Post-Dispatch has a story, of course, but they never link to us, so why should we link to them?
The kicker to Leach's story:
[St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony] La Russa, who said he hadn't talked to Spiezio since learning of the arrest warrant, said news of the allegation wasn't a complete surprise."I had heard there was an incident in California, but I didn't think anything would come of it," La Russa said.
Call me a conspiracy theorist, but the Spiezio debacle sheds a new light on the Cardinals' seemingly counterintuitive decision in early January to re-sign utility infielder Aaron Miles.
It was odd, in that the team seemed to have enough infielder-types going into the spring, and that they'd opted not to tender Miles a contract offer in December, making him a free agent. Then they turned around and signed him for $1.4 million.
That move was decried by sabermetricians all over Cardinal Nation. Larry Borowsky, who operates Viva El Birdos, which for my money is the best Redbirds blogs out there -- and one of the best baseball blogs, period -- surely spoke for many on that fateful day.
(Though not for me. I like Miles. I'll concede his defense doesn't hold up to statistical analysis, and that the same goes for his bat. I like the guy's attitude, though, and I like being able to point him out to my kids as an overachiever who makes his bones the hard way. God forbid there turns out to be a warrant out for his arrest.)
Here's what the Post's Derrick Goold wrote about the signing:
"The way we are set up now, we're fully protected in the infield," Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak said. "You look at the need we had, and there's a comfort level with Miles. ... He gives us added flexibility."Miles provides depth at both middle infield positions and may be the answer if questions arise with [second baseman Adam] Kennedy, [shortstop Cesar] Izturis or switch-hitter Scott Spiezio, who missed more than a month last season in rehab for substance abuse.
The club also has Brendan Ryan, a young shortstop who turned in a solid performance when called up from the minors late last year.
Also, a few weeks ago Post columnist Bernie Miklasz noted that La Russa had "called out" Spiezio for being late to the team's annual Winter Warm-Up event.
I'm just sayin.'
Here's a link to the Orange County Superior Court Web page that details the charges against St. Louis Cardinals utilityman Scott Spiezio in connection with his alleged DUI in December.
As the courts in OC see it, Speez is a fugitive.
Also, here's two relevant paragraphs from a statement from the Orange County District Attorney's Office:
At approximately 12:20 a.m. on December 30, 2007, Spiezio is accused of leaving a bar in Newport Beach after spending the evening drinking several vodka drinks. He is accused of getting into his 2004 BMW and attempting to drive home while under the influence of alcohol. Spiezio is accused of speeding, cutting across several lanes, crossing through the oncoming traffic lanes, driving over a curb, and crashing into a fence. The crash knocked down a fence pole and blew out the front two tires of the car. Spiezio is accused of getting out of the car and fleeing the scene on foot.
The defendant is accused of running to his Irvine condominium complex and going to a friend’s condo, who lived in the same complex. While his friend attempted to clean up the defendant, Spiezio is accused of vomiting in his friend’s room. When the friend made a comment about the vomit, Spiezio is accused of becoming angry and attacking his friend, punching him repeatedly and throwing him against a wall.
Kansas City’s NBC affiliate took hidden cameras into Milestone Christian Academy, the new school that hoped to become a hoops powerhouse, and which drew from KC and St. Louis schools. Regina Taylor Gilbert, mother of former Career Academy and Vashon High School player Marcel Taylor-Smith, sent me the story this morning.
NBC got a look at e-mails from Milestone coach/pastor/principal Peter Flournoy to Regina Gilbert in which he apparently promised to pay Gilbert’s rent, utilities and groceries, and get her a job.
Meanwhile, Second Mile Ministries, which started the school, has suspended Flournoy after learning about his outstanding warrants for bad checks. Here’s a statement from Second Mile:
Having discovered there were misdemeanor warrants in Peter Flournoy's past in Etowah County, Alabama for insufficient checks outstanding, the Second Mile board has taken the following action. Because part of the mission of the church of Jesus Christ is to be redemptive, Mr. Flournoy will be given 90 days to take care of all his outstanding warrants and insufficient checks in Texas and Alabama. During this time, he will [be] suspended as Principal of Milestone Christian Academy. He will be retained as boys basketball coach and will assist in teaching responsibilities.At the end of 90 days, if Mr. Flournoy has not taken care of his outstanding warrants and insufficient checks, he will be dismissed from the staff of Milestone Christian Academy.
C. Michael Bobbitt, Director
Second Mile Ministries
I did find out that the Kansas City Star will be publishing a related investigative story, but the reporter told me the paper hasn’t yet set a run date.
My article “Hoop Raiders, Part 2” came out Thursday, and has apparently already reached basketball families in Kansas City. Today I heard from the parents of two former Milestone Christian Academy players, each of whom wanted to share a laundry list of complaints about the school. Their kids, Willie Reed and Cortez Barrett, are two of the ten varsity basketball players that recently transferred out of Milestone.
Reed, who is six-foot-eleven and has signed to play for the Saint Louis University Billikens next year, attended Milestone for one semester before returning last month to Bishop Miege High School. Barrett, a junior, attended Milestone from January through December 2007 and now goes to Center Senior High, a Kansas City public school.
Reed’s dad, Will Reed Sr., says his son didn’t play basketball this past semester at Bishop Miege in order to focus on academics and maintain his NCAA eligibility. Barrett’s mom, Lynn Richard, says her son is currently ineligible but that she is hoping to get that ruling reversed by next fall.
As I understand it, a sports reporter for the Kansas City Star will soon publish an investigative article about Milestone. I've left messages with the reporter but haven’t heard back with confirmation of the story, or when it will appear.
Until I do, I’m going to hold off on looking into the allegations levied by Lynn Richard and Will Reed Sr. As it is, Milestone’s coach/pastor/principal, Peter Flournoy, still has not returned repeated messages that I left for him last week. SLU assistant basketball coach Angres Thorpe also did not get back to me about Reed’s status.
Milestone is still open. But as I was looking around on the Web for more info last week, I noticed that its Web site is shut down. For some reason, I can’t find the cached version either. On YouTube I came across this “testimony” video (in which Cortez Barrett appears) from last school year, as well as this promo video, also from last year. Here’s one that apparently takes a look inside the school.
I’ll post again and link to the Star article if and when it appears.
