Two Wunderkinds Take on New Jobs, Great Challenges

(Composite photo.)



Last week, two rising stars in their respective fields both assumed new roles with tremendous opportunities following sudden, unexpected events.

On Monday, it was revealed that Baylor quarterback Seth Russell will undergo "season-ending" neck surgery. Russell, whose performance as starting QB this season for the 2nd-ranked Bears has been nothing short of amazing, suffered a fractured bone in his neck trying to run for a first down in the fourth quarter of Baylor's Homecoming game against Iowa State. BU won the game but lost Russell.

That means that what Yahoo! Sports columnist Pat Forde called "the most fun position in football" will now be filled by 19-year-old true freshman Jarrett Stidham, a highly-prized recruit from Stephenville High School. (Yes, the same Stephenville High School whose football team won four state championships under Coach Art Briles. They won a fifth state championship in 2012 when Stidham was a sophomore.) The FBS's top offense will be depending on young Stidham to deliver as they pursue a berth in the college-football playoff and, God willing, a national championship.

Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) was elected and sworn in as the new Speaker of the House on Thursday, succeeding the leathery, emotional John Boehner, who had held the post since January of 2011 and shocked the nation last month when he announced his sudden resignation.

Like Stidham, Ryan is taking on huge responsibility with the support of a team that is excited to have him but can't be certain how he'll fare in his new role. Fans of both (or either) have reason for confidence, however, as neither man is a neophyte. Ryan is currently serving his ninth term in Congress and has already chaired two important House committees: Budget and Ways & Means. Stidham has played in every game this season, thanks to Baylor's habit of building up runaway leads well before the end of regulation.

 

Actually, not only are Ryan and Stidham experienced, but both already have some exceptional accomplishments on their resumes. Stidham put up crazy numbers in his senior year at Stephenville, passing for 2,934 yards and 35 touchdowns and running for an additional 969 yards and 15 TDs, and Ryan took on the third rail of politics--entitlement reform--as a little-known congressman from a Democratic-leaning district when Republicans were the minority party. Sports writers, analysts and college coaches around the country took note of Stidham's prowess and achievements and dubbed him one of the top recruits in the country, just as Republicans recognized Ryan as the asset he was and moved him into position to take over as chairman of the House Budget Committee when they regained the majority in that chamber five years ago. Ryan saw his first bill become law as a freshman. Stidham's first-ever pass in a college game was a touchdown.

 

Similarly, both men will face tests early on in their new roles, as greater challenges loom large in the near future. Stidham will debut as Baylor's starting QB this Thursday against the Kansas State Wildcats, who are 0-4 in conference play this season. This is a game the Bears should win, and a decisive victory will probably be necessary to show that Stidham can handle the upcoming Big 12 tilts against Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and TCU, all of whom have defeated K-State this year. Ryan's first real test as speaker will likely be passing a long-term bill to fund highway programs. Beyond that, he will have to deal with his own fractious conference, troublemaking Democrats and a hostile White House on weightier necessities, such as an omnibus spending bill, as one of the most critical elections of our lifetimes draws nearer.

 

Both men also have the advantage/burden of taking the helm at a time when their party/team is enjoying historic success, with their sights set on even higher goals. Republicans started this year with their biggest congressional majority in 84 years, and they'd like to keep that majority and win the presidency next year to boot. Baylor's football team is gunning for their third consecutive Big 12 title and first-ever appearance in a national championship game. Their offense has led the FBS in both yards per game and points per game the past two seasons and is currently first in both categories this season.

 

The similarities are not endless, however. For example, Ryan never desired the position he now holds and only sought it after much cajoling and pressure from his party, whereas Stidham was already contemplating getting "the starting job" when he committed to Baylor last December. Then there are the stark differences between their predecessors. While John Boehner turned out to be a disappointment (and, some would argue, a traitor) to his own people as speaker, Seth Russell proved himself worthy of the position he inherited from Bryce Petty. As reported by Graham Watson (“Dr. Saturday”), “Russell leads the FBS in passing efficiency (189.7), passing touchdowns (29), passing yards per completion (17.68), points responsible for per game (30.0) and passing yards per attempt (10.52).” He threw for 2,104 yards and ran for 402 more for a total of 35 touchdowns this season, stats that are made all the more impressive when you consider that he did not even play all four quarters in any of his seven starts.

 

So, Stidham has some big shoes (or cleats) to fill, but I for one am confident he's capable of delivering for Baylor just as Russell was prepared to do. As for Paul Ryan, there is a reason—or two (or several)—that his image was one selected to grace the banner of this blog and our web site. His intellect, work product and passionate advocacy for conservative policies has earned him a place alongside the late, great Edmund Burke, Milton Friedman and William F. Buckley, Jr. Here's hoping these two white knights exceed expectations and that the best is yet to come for the Baylor Bears and the GOP.

Day of the Upset ... but not in Austin

I am admittedly a little late getting this post up, but then, I don't write about sports for a living. (To loyal readers and followers of this blog, sorry it has been so long since I've posted something. I've had ideas, believe me, but starting a law practice from scratch and keeping it afloat are very time-consuming.)

It's been a while since there's been so much upheaval in the NCAA football rankings in one week, or even in one day. On Saturday, 11th-ranked Mississipi ("Ole Miss") beat No. 3 Alabama, No. 4 Oklahoma lost to TCU, which had just made it into the AP Top 25 this season, and 12th-ranked Mississippi State battered some stupid cow college that was ranked No. 6. Add to that No. 2 Oregon's embarrassing home loss to unranked Arizona, and you had four of the top six teams losing this week, causing a scrambling of the rankings at the top of the AP poll. No. 17 Wisconsin and 18th-ranked Brigham Young University also lost to unranked teams, (Northwestern and Utah State, respectively).

Other top-ranked schools avoided being upset, most importantly No. 7 Baylor, which handed Texas its third loss at home this year. The Bears almost shut out the Longhorns, but two costly penalties against Baylor's defense on UT's last possession of the game allowed them to score a touchdown with 2:14 remaining.

The 'horns nearly scored twice in the first half, but Baylor defensive lineman Beau Blackshear successfully blocked a 52-yard field goal attempt, and safety Terrell Burt scooped up the ball and returned it 62 yards for his second career touchdown. Then, right before halftime, Texas quarterback Tyrone Swoopes fumbled the snap at the 1-yard line, and Blackshear was there to recover the ball.

The most spectacular drive of the game was easily the one kept alive by Baylor punter Spencer Roth’s faked punt and 19-yard run on fourth-and-5 in the third quarter. Three plays later, quarterback Bryce Petty completed a pass to Antwan Goodley, who ran it into the end zone for a 30-yard touchdown.

The 28-7 final score could easily have been more lopsided, but the referees took six points for Baylor off the scoreboard in the second quarter after an official review determined that Petty was stopped short of the goal line when he ran with the ball on 2nd & Goal from the 5. Texas's surprisingly strong defense managed to keep Baylor out of the end zone on its ensuing two attempts, resulting in a turnover on downs.

Much to my chagrin, the Bears chose to let our QB take a knee on the last play of the game, when Baylor had the ball on the Texas 7-yard line with one second remaining on the clock. The obvious call for me would have been to let Chris Callahan attempt a field goal. I know we didn't need the extra points, but our poor kicker could have used a confidence boost after missing five of his six field goal attempts so far this season, and to deny him that opportunity, when there was nothing on line, came across (to me, at least) as a slight at the young man.

For those of you not familiar with the history and dynamics of the Big Twelve, let me explain why this game was such a big deal. Texas used to be the big dog, the king of the conference. They're the most recent Big 12 team to win a national championship (in 2006). They are the school that produced Earl Campbell and Dallas Cowboys icons Tom Landry and Tex Schramm. Movies have been made about Texas football, even about their cheerleaders.

But, in recent years, the mighty have fallen. As mentioned earlier in this post, Texas has lost three home games already this season, putting them at 2-3 overall and 1-1 against conference opponents. They are 14½-point underdogs going in to this Saturday's game against Oklahoma, perenially played at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. Longtime coach Mack Brown, who led them to that national championship and another Big 12 conference title in 2009, stepped down at the end of the 2013 season, and the team has apparently not been doing well under his successor, Charlie Strong.

Even before Brown’s exit, the school's football program was clearly in decline. I'm told that that their 8-5 record last year made Brown the first coach in Texas history to have four straight seasons with at least four losses.

Texas's decline overlapped with Baylor's rapid ascent. In the past four years, my alma mater has played in four consecutive bowl games--a first in school history--turned out a Heisman trophy winner--another first--and won its first Big 12 title. Oh, and we've got a fancy new stadium on the north bank of the Brazos River now, too.

The unofficial passing of the torch may have come last December when Baylor defeated Texas 30-10 to win that conference title.

The feelings of resentment among other teams, especially Texas, are stark, as Jordan Garrettson reported for the AP last week:

"They're still Baylor," said John Harris, who leads Texas with 336 receiving yards. "Just because they started playing better, that's good for them. We're still Texas."

Those remarks came about six months after Longhorns linebacker Steve Edmond was reprimanded by the Big 12 for his disrespectful comments toward the Bears after spring practice.

"I really don't like Baylor. I still feel they're trash," Edmond said. "Y'all think it's funny, but I'm dead serious. They've had some good players. But I don't understand how we lost to Baylor."

These players' jeers at the new king of the Big 12 underscore what is becoming an undeniable fact: the upper echelon of the NCAA bowl subdivision (the FBS) is, to many schools, an elite club of historically dominant teams, and they don't like it when schools they used to beat the tar out of improve themselves and break into that upper echelon. I'm sure it hasn't been fun for Texas, Oklahoma or Baylor's old archrival, Texas A&M, to hear sportscasters gush over Baylor this season and last and how we're now the stars of the Big 12 and had the No. 1 offense in the FBS last season after years of ridicule and derision.

Baylor's upcoming game against TCU is also significant for many reasons, including some of the same. See, no matter what they say now, TCU was grateful to be a part of the Big 12 after the conference reshuffling in 2011-12. For years, the Horned Frogs felt that their football team was underrated and underranked. A 13-0 record and a Rose Bowl victory in 2011 brought them national renown on a level they had not enjoyed since the days of Abe Martin. (I'm sure former Horned Frog LaDainian Tomlinson's star power helped as well.) It's fair to say that a lot of TCU students, alums and other fans expected them to be the talk of the Big 12 when they joined the conference in 2012.

But it was not to be. Roughly eleven months after the Horned Frogs capped their undefeated season with their first Rose Bowl win, Robert Griffin III won the Heisman Trophy, a high honor in a remarkable season for Baylor. RG3 proved to be not only a stellar quarterback but a recruiting boon like nothing Baylor's football program had ever had before. Although they had some adjustments to make in its first season post-RG3, the Bears still managed to finish a respectable 8-5, including a stunning upset of then No. 1-ranked Kansas State and a Holiday Bowl victory over UCLA. Meanwhile, despite a 49-21 rout of Baylor in October, TCU finished their debut season as a Big 12 team with a bowl game loss to Michigan State and a 7-6 record overall (4-5 in conference games). They ended the year unranked for the first time since 2007. More importantly, Baylor was picking up a lot of high school talent that would otherwise have gone to other schools, such as TCU. One of BU's most potent weapons this year and last, running back Shock Linwood, was once a commit to TCU. So was current Baylor defensive lineman Andrew Billings.

 

The long-running Baylor-TCU rivalry (which I've just learned has been nicknamed "The Revivalry") got even hotter last year, when Baylor defeated the Horned Frogs 41-38 in Fort Worth on their way to that Big 12 title. After the game, TCU coach Gary Patterson unloaded on his Baylor counterpart. Sports columnist Gil LeBreton wrote for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

“The bottom line,” Patterson said, “is he’s picking on the wrong guy.”

It was one of a steamy series of Patterson-issued “bottom lines” Saturday. His voice shook with anger, even though Patterson claimed he wasn’t mad.

He professed, more than once, that he had “respect for him” and “respect for his program,” even as he questioned the Bears’ class.

At the root of it, Patterson tried to explain, was Baylor senior safety Ahmad Dixon’s targeting penalty on Frogs receiver Trevone Boykin and what Briles did or didn’t do in the wake of it.

“Here’s the bottom line to it,” Patterson said, “No. 6 [Dixon] beats a guy up at the beginning of the season and he didn’t get suspended. He takes a shot today, and I want him kicked out.

 And the head coach comes across the field at me.”

Patterson contended that while officials were discussing the penalty, Briles came onto the field and yelled something at him.

Their postgame handshake later, Patterson reported, was brief, but went right to the sore spot at hand.

“I didn’t say anything,” the TCU coach said. “He said, ‘Leave it on the field.’

 I said not. You come across the field at me and later you want me to leave it on the field? No.”

Dixon was arrested on a misdemeanor assault charge in a September incident. He was not suspended from the team, leading Patterson to say Saturday, “They didn’t correct the problem a long time ago.”

Instead of Briles admonishing Dixon for Saturday’s illegal third-quarter hit, Patterson became further agitated that TV cameras spotted the ejected player still sitting on the Baylor bench.

“I’ve got coaches up in the box saying he’s laughing on TV underneath his towel,” Patterson said. “Well, I didn’t think it was that funny.”

Patterson continued, “The bottom line is, we’re not going to do that. Gary Patterson lives in Fort Worth. If he’s got a problem with me, here’s where I live.”

Read

“No, I just told him his kids did a great job and good luck during the rest of the year and then in recruiting,” Briles said.

But Patterson took the brief interchange more personally.

“He comes across the field at me?” Patterson said. “Nuh-uh.

“I didn’t build this program to back down to anybody, and I’m not going to do it to him. Not in recruiting or in anything we do.”

Briles, expectedly, responded to Patterson's rant with customary Baylor class:

“No, I just told him his kids did a great job and good luck during the rest of the year and then in recruiting,” Briles said.

But Patterson took the brief interchange more personally.

“He comes across the field at me?” Patterson said. “Nuh-uh.

 I didn’t build this program to back down to anybody, and I’m not going to do it to him. Not in recruiting or in anything we do.”

Perhaps Patterson, who deserves credit for what he's done as TCU head coach, was truly upset about what Dixon did (BTW, Gary, football is called a "contact sport" for a reason.) and what he perceived as Baylor's failure to "correct the problem" sooner, but methinks it was a column by the very popular and respected Randy Galloway in the Star-Telegram earlier that month that really got the notoriously hot-tempered coach's goat. Under the biting headline "Gary Patterson is no longer the flavor of the fall," the doyen of Texas sports writers described the recent (and sudden) reversal of fortune for the Horned Frogs' football program and its illustrious coach thusly:

What the heck happened to Gary in Fort Worth?

Just one year ago, after taking a backup quarterback into Austin on Thanksgiving night and beating Texas, there were columns being written on why Gary Patterson should NOT be the leading candidate to replace Mack Brown.

Those columns were in response to Austin stories that the UT money boys wanted to hire GP, hire him like right now. But with all the outside crap involved with that particular job, a dug-in Patterson didn’t seem to be a guy who would tolerate the program’s built-in distractions.

Even in a somewhat disappointing first season (2012) in the Big 12, Patterson’s reputation didn’t lose luster. In August, in a conference poll of players, the question was what coach would you like to play for other than your own?

Patterson was the players’ choice.

But at the moment, with TCU struggling, GP has dropped off the hot list of college coaches. He’s not even lukewarm.

Guess who Randy called "the new football flavor of the fall"?

I'll give you three guesses, and the first two don't count. But you can see him and his team in action Saturday afternoon against TCU.

And Then There Were Two

There’s not a lot I fear in life, mostly because everything I have reason to be afraid of can be categorized as either (1) unknown or (2) inevitable. If the former, then I’m pretty good about just not thinking about it. If the latter, then I can’t help but think about it but am usually able to convert my worry/anxiety into something constructive. Sometimes, though, I am overcome by a fear I can’t shake.

I am compelled to admit that I fretted about our men’s basketball team travelling to Kansas to take on the No. 7 Jayhawks. It was arguably the biggest challenge yet this season for the 17-0 Bears, who until last night were one of only three undefeated NCAA-I men’s basketball teams. Sure, KU’s 14-3 record wasn’t exactly daunting, but the reigning Big 12 Champions did not look like the same team that had suffered an embarrassing defeat at the hands (paws?) of the unranked Davidson Wildcats last month.

Just ask Iowa State. In Lawrence on Sunday, the Jayhawks overcame a 12-point deficit in the second half to beat the Cyclones 82-73. Senior guard Tyshawn Taylor led the way with a career-high 28 points. It was Kansas’s 15th straight victory at home.

The Jayhawks have now extended their home-game winning streak to sixteen. They handed my beloved Bears their first loss of the season and now sit alone on their perch atop the Big 12. (None of their three losses were conference losses.)

Baylor's defeat means that only No. 1 Syracuse and 12th-ranked Murray State remain undefeated this season. Coach Jim Boeheim, recently the subject of some negative press following the revelation of another sex abuse scandal involving an NCAA coach, racked up his 876th career win last night with a 71-63 victory over the Pittsburgh Panthers, who had bested the Orange in the teams' previous five meetings. Syracuse's 20-0 start is unprecedented in the team's 111-year history, and Boeheim is now tied with the late, great Adolph Rupp of Kentucky for fourth place all-time in Division I. The Racers, meanwhile, managed to cope with the loss of its leading rebounder (to a broken hand) just fine, handling Tennessee Tech on Saturday for their 18th win in a row. Tomorrow night they get to host the 9-10 Morehead State Eagles, whom they defeated, 70-62, the last time the two did battle.

Can either team finish the regular season undefeated? (The last NCAA-I men's team to do so was UNLV under legendary Coach Jerry Tarkanian.) If so, then will either make it all the way to the championship, something none of their peers have accomplished since 1976, when the Indiana Hoosiers went 32-0 under temperamental head coach Bobby Knight? Frankly, I don't care all that much. What matters to me, now that the Baylor men have lost, is whether the Lady Bears can go the distance. Not only are they ranked No. 1 in the nation, no other team received any first-place votes in either the AP or USA Today/ESPN polls this week...or last week...or the week before that. Okay, I'm pretty sure they're been alone at the top for over a month now. Maybe two months. The point is, we've got two kick-ass basketball teams, and the women are 17-0 with only six games left in the regular season. Also, the men can enjoy being ranked 3rd in both major polls for a whole week, thanks to Florida State's shocking upset of then-No. 3 North Carolina this weekend.

Not Your Typical Saturday

This was an emotionally draining day.

This afternoon we laid my grandmother to rest. She went to be with Jesus last Sunday, and I traveled to Arlington yesterday for the visitation and funeral. My mother wanted me to speak at the service. A series of her friends and relatives spoke; I opened and closed. It was my first formal eulogy. I was very pleased with the turnout; that little chapel was packed. It was also the first time I was a pallbearer. After the service, we held a reception at this nice place in southwest Arlington called the Ventana Grille. Nearly all of the relatives who came to the funeral showed up, which really meant a lot, especially since some of them had to drive all the way back to Houston that evening. I myself had to drive back to Waco, where I learned that Robert Griffin III had won the Heisman Trophy. Now that was exciting. No Baylor footballer had ever won the Heisman before. Naturally, I and the rest of the Baylor Nation were very excited.

There's a tie-in here: my maternal grandfather and his brother attended Baylor back in the '40s. I didn't learn this until I had started college, but I think that my grandparents came down here while I was an undergrad. I was glad to have the chance to walk around the campus with my grandfather, especially since after he succumbed to Alzheimer's disease and died in 2008. His deterioration and death were a terrible blow to my Grammy, who was already dealing with serious health problems of her own. They had been married for over 55 years. She was never the same after Papa died. That was three and a half years ago. Now they are together again.

It's always appropriate to grieve after the loss of a loved one, but in the case of both my maternal grandparents, the worst tragedy was watching them decline and not being able to do anything about it. While I mourn the loss of my Grammy, we are all happy that she has been reborn and will spend eternity with her sweetheart in the kingdom of God.

The Case for RG3

The five finalists for the 2011 Heisman Trophy were announced Monday. Not surprisingly, Baylor’s junior QB Robert Griffin III was among those selected.

It would certainly be a coup for my alma mater, whose football team has slowly gained national renown in recent years, after nearly a decade of ridicule, scorn and derision from other schools who questioned why we were still in the Big 12. Under the leadership of Coach Art Briles, the Bears have risen from a 3-9 team that lost every conference game in 2007 (the year before Briles took over) to a 9-3 team that is now headed to its second consecutive bowl game. (Yes, it's the Alamo Bowl, but still.) After Baylor's 48-24 rout of Texas on Saturday night, the characteristically humble and down-to-earth star of our football team told ESPN's Samantha Steele, “I could be wrong, but I think Baylor won its first Heisman tonight.”

Griffin was right: He could be wrong. I'll leave it to more learned sprots analysts to speculate on each finalist's odds of winning the trophy. Right now I just want to offer an argument why Griffin is the best choice of the five.

I'll start with the only other QB in the running. No doubt Andrew Luck is an impressive player. Anyone who's seen him in action should acknowledge that. I'm not going to try and compare the finesse displayed by him and RG3 on the field this season; you would need to see them perform to get the full picture. So let's compare their stats. Luck has passed for 3,170 yards and 35 touchdowns while completing 70% of his attempts this season.

Pretty good stuff. RG3, however, finished the regular season with 3,998 passing yards, 36 touchdowns and a 72.4% completion rate. He was intercepted six times to Luck's nine, and, while Luck ranks fifth nationally in passing efficiency, Griffin leads the nation in passing efficiency. He has also rushed for 644 yards and nine touchdowns. By almost every measure, Griffin has outperformed Luck on the field this year.

As to the two running backs still in contention, Trent Richardson of Alabama and Montee Ball of Wisconsin, I won't endeavor to declare one of them superior to the other; I'll only say that neither deserves the Heisman as much as RG3. Statistically, Ball has a more impressive record than Richardson this year: He leads the nation in rushing yards (1,759) and touchdowns (32 Rushing, 6 Receiving). Unfortunately, I'm out of time and have other things to do. Let's just say the Honey Badger is amazing, and it would be interesting for a cb to win a trophy that usually goes to offensive stars, but it's just not his time yet. I'll probably update this post later in the week.

Did a Blow to the Head Knock RG3 Out...of Contention for the Heisman Trophy?

My fellow Baylor Bears and I were privy to another exciting game this weekend (actually three, but I'm talking football here). Our 66-42 rout of Texas Tech was significant for many reasons. For one, it capped the Red Raiders' first losing season since 1992, and we knocked them out of Bowl contention. Probably the most exciting play of the game came late in the third quarter, when Joe Williams, our stocky, 5'10" sophomore cornerback, picked off Tech QB Seth Doege and ran the ball back 90 yards for Baylor’s seventh touchdown of the game.
What the Texas Farm Bureau Insurance Shootout (which apparently is what this game was called) will probably most be remembered for is Robert Griffin III's head injury and subsequent absence from the second half. As Stephen Hawkins of the AP put it:

Griffin had scrambled from one side of the field to the other and slid inside the 5 with a first down when defensive back Cornelius Douglas came in hard with an elbow that knocked Griffin’s head back to the turf. The quarterback remained flat on his back for a couple of moments before coming out of the game for a play. He then returned for his second touchdown run to make it 31-21.

What's missing from Hawkins's summary but probably obvious to anyone familiar with the rules of the game is that Douglas's blow was a late (and ergo illegal) hit. Had this occurred in the NFL, he would've been fined and probably ejected from the game. Instead, his team was penalized, and he was allowed to play the rest of the game.

In fairness, it's not clear whether Douglas intended to hit RG3. Often times, these guys already have their bodies or body parts in motion when the clock stops. The bigger story may be the stellar performance of backup Baylor QB Nick Florence, who was 9 of 12 for 151 yards, including a pair of long touchdowns. Here on the Baylor campus, however, there's much chatter about how this might effect Griffin's Heisman chances.
Last week, after his record-shatterring performance in Baylor's unprecedented defeat of OU, RG3 was the talk of the town. Y! Sports' Eddie George and Pat Forde both listed him as their No. 1 pick to win the Heisman Trophy. I even joined in the media hype. Now, people are wondering if he'll even play in our season finale vs. Texas. He insists he will, but I'm getting tired and would like to wrap up this post. Good night.

Not a Good Day to be an Oklahoman

If you follow NCAA Football, then you should be aware that yesterday was full of upsets. Oklahoma's two largest universities were on the losing end of two of them. Oklahoma State, ranked 2nd in the nation, was handed its first loss of the season by unranked Iowa State. More importantly, No. 5 Oklahoma rolled into Waco prepared to take on my beloved No. 22 Baylor Bears. Baylor had played OU 20 times prior to last night and lost every time. I can recall one particularly memorable game that went into double overtime back in 2005. I was a freshman at the time; the game was played in Norman, and it wasn't even supposed to be close. Now we have beaten the Sooners. Our mercurial WR Terrence Williams caught a touchdown pass from RG3 (Robert Griffin III, for those of you unfamiliar with the next Heisman Trophy winner) with eight seconds remaining in the fourth quarter. As if that weren't awesome enough, WR Trey Franks (a Texas native) fumbled the ball on the ensuing kickoff. His Baylor counterpart, WR Clay Fuller, recovered the fumble to avoid another OT showdown agaisnt the Sooners. Could there be a more exciting finish to game that got off to such a slow, error-riddled start?

As to the other upset in the Big 12 this weekend, I didn't watch the OSU-ISU game, but there is something I want to share that ties in with it. My paternal grandmother (who appeared in one of my first YouTube videos ever) went to OSU back when it was Oklahoma A & M. She's a big Cowboys fan. She called me repeatedly last night. (Unbeknownst to her, I was at a social event known as "Law Prom" and couldn't be disturbed.) When she finally got ahold of me this morning, she was still excited. She didn't even care about her alma mater's bruising loss. Perhaps there's some lesson in there for disheartened sooners/Cowboys fans. I'm not sure what it is, but maybe other OSU alums can take some solace in their teams 10-1 record and look forward to their upcoming showdown with the team we just sent crying back to Norman.

A Tale of Two Executions

Two men were executed yesterday. (Maybe more people were; this article won't discuss them.) You probably heard about one of them, a man named Troy Anthony Davis. In 1991, Davis was convicted of killing Savannah Police officer Mark MacPhail, who was moonlighting as a security guard at the time. According to the testimony of multiple witnesses, Davis pistol-whipped a homeless man in a Burger King parking lot and then shot MacPhail when he tried to break up the fight. As MacPhail laid bleeding to death in the parking lot, Davis reportedly walked over to him and shot him several more times before fleeing the scene. (One witness even testified that Davis "had a little smile on his face" when he shot MacPhail.) A Chatham County jury convicted Davis of murder, obstruction of a law enforcement officer, two counts of aggravated assault and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. He was sentenced to death for the murder.

Davis had become a cause célèbre in recent years, and not just on the Left. True, most of Davis's high-profile supporters were well-known liberals opposed to capital punishment, including Rev. Al Sharpton and his cohort Rev. Jesse Jackson, former Pres. Jimmy Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and some guy named Mike Farrell. Even the Pope personally appealed to the Governor of Georgia for clemency. But several well-known death penalty proponents–most notably former Congressman Bob Barr, former federal judge and FBI Director Bill Sessions, and former Texas Gov. Mark White–also joined the fray. (Sessions and White hold special clout with yours truly because both are Baylor lawyers who also earned their undergraduate degrees from the University.)

Speaking of Texas, I want to talk a bit about the other execution I referenced in the opening line of this column. Remember James Byrd, Jr., that black man who was chained to the back of a pickup truck and dragged to death in Jasper, Texas, back in 1998? Ever wonder what happened to the three men who were arrested, indicted and tried for Byrd's murder? Well, all three were convicted of capital murder. (Byrd's murder took place in the course of a kidnapping, making it a capital offense under the Texas Penal Code.) Two were sentenced to death. One of them, a white supremacist named Lawrence Russell Brewer, was executed by lethal injection last night in Huntsville. Did you hear about that?

I wanted to bring up these two executions for a number of reasons, but mostly because it presented the opportunity to do a small compare-and-contrast piece that touches on a slew of intriguing issues: capital punishment, due process, the writ of habeas corpus and, of course, race. That's right, race. Let me ask you something: if I were to say, about one of the aforementioned cases, “Race is everything in this case,” then which case would you guess I was referring to? The obvious answer would be the grisly killing of James Byrd, which few would argue was racially motivated. Yet a few years ago, Georgia Congressman and former civil rights activist John Lewis uttered those exact words in reference to the Davis case. The editors of the Nation (an actual magazine, I'm told) were even less subtle: "Davis is a black man convicted of killing a white police officer," they declared in a piece that will appear in the next issue, "and in Southern and Northern states alike, this fact alone will trump all others."

Never mind that seven of the twelve jurors who convicted Troy Davis and sentenced him to die were black, or that most of the eyewitnesses who implicated him in the shooting death of Officer MacPhail were black. Nope, it must be racism! Okay, okay, I'm being a tad facetious. No serious, intelligent person believes Davis was executed because of his race. Indeed, race was curiously absent from the arguments made on Davis's behalf by Reverends Sharpton and Jackson, two notorious race hustlers. Their appeal, like those made by most of Davis's high-profile advocates, centered on "serious doubts" about his guilt/innocence.

One line frequently repeated by Davis's supporters was that seven of the nine witnesses against him had recanted. That's misleading, to put it mildly. First of all, as Ann Coulter points out, "the state presented 34 witnesses against Davis -- not nine -- which should give you some idea of how punctilious the media are about their facts in death penalty cases." What's more, I don't know that seven of the witnesses against Davis actually recanted; some have merely rehashed doubts and second thoughts they had already voiced on the stand at Davis's trial 20 years ago. Darrell Collins, for example, signed an affidavit in 2002 saying police pressured him into pointing the finger at Davis. Not only did he make that same assertion on the witness stand, but according to CBS News, the "jury heard Collins back off a statement he'd given to police implicating Davis in the shooting." Another witness, Jeffery Sapp, testified at trial that Davis confessed to him just hours after shooting MacPhail. Years later, Sapp signed an affidavit saying he'd fabricated the entire confession. However, the jury knew that when they rendered their verdict. On direct-examination, Sapp acknowledged he made up part of a prior statement to police when he said Davis told him he shot the officer a second time to make sure he "finished the job." Then, under cross-examination, he admitted that he did not believe Davis when he confessed to shooting the officer. He also testified that his false statements were made for revenge due to a recent feud between him and Mr. Davis.

But wait, it gets better. Ann Coulter reports:

Among the witnesses who did not recant a word of their testimony against Davis were three members of the Air Force, who saw the shooting from their van in the Burger King drive-in lane. The airman who saw events clearly enough to positively identify Davis as the shooter explained on cross-examination, "You don't forget someone that stands over and shoots someone."

There were a couple witnesses who did genuinely recant. During the trial, Dorothy Ferrell had identified Davis as the shooter. At trial, with Davis in the courtroom, she testified that she saw him from across the street and was "real sure, positive sure, that that is him." In December 2000, she signed a handwritten statement saying she was telling police what they wanted to hear because she was on parole for a shoplifting conviction and feared returning to prison. "I don't know which of the guys did the shooting, because I didn't see that part," Ferrell wrote. Larry Young was the man assaulted in the Burger King parking lot. At trial, his testimony was used to establish that his assailant was Mr. Davis and not another man, Sylvester Coles, who Davis's defense had tried to point to as the real shooter. In his recantation affidavit, Young claimed that the police refused to allow him medical treatment and that his testimony was coerced. Like Ms. Ferrell, Mr. Young claims he testified by simply stating what the police wanted him to say.

To understand why these recantations were not enough to get Davis a new trial or at least a stay of execution, you need to know the details of the appeals process in this case. First off, Troy Davis did receive a stay of execution; in fact, he received several. The third was granted by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2008. After hearing oral arguments, they rejected Davis's appeal but graciously extended the stay for 30 days to allow Davis the opportunity to file a habeas corpus petition with the U.S. Supreme Court. This is where the case gets really fascinating for legal scholars like me: On August 17, 2009, the Supreme Court of the United States did something it had not done in nearly half a century: it sent a prisoner's petition for a writ of habeas corpus back to the federal District Court "for hearing and determination." To understand the significance of this, witness Justice Antonin Scalia's earnest dissent from the Court's opinion:

Today this Court takes the extraordinary step-one not taken in nearly 50 years-of instructing a district court to adjudicate a state prisoner's petition for an original writ of habeas corpus. The Court proceeds down this path even though every judicial and executive body that has examined petitioner's stale claim of innocence has been unpersuaded, and (to make matters worst) even though it would be impossible for the District Court to grant any relief. Far from demonstrating, as this Court's Rule 20.4(a) requires, “exceptional circumstances” that “warrant the exercise of the Court's discretionary powers,” petitioner's claim is a sure loser. Transferring his petition to the District Court is a confusing exercise that can serve no purpose except to delay the State's execution of its lawful criminal judgment. I respectfully dissent.

In re Davis, 130 S. Ct. 1 (2009) (Scalia, J., dissenting). Justice Stevens addressed his brother's arguments in a concurrence:

Justice SCALIA's dissent is wrong in two respects. First, he assumes as a matter of fact that petitioner Davis is guilty of the murder of Officer MacPhail. He does this even though seven of the State's key witnesses have recanted their trial testimony; several individuals have implicated the State's principal witness as the shooter; and “no court,” state or federal, “has ever conducted a hearing to assess the reliability of the score of [postconviction] affidavits that, if reliable, would satisfy the threshold showing for a truly persuasive demonstration of actual innocence,” 565 F.3d 810, 827 (C.A.11 2009) (Barkett, J., dissenting) (internal quotation marks omitted). The substantial risk of putting an innocent man to death clearly provides an adequate justification for holding an evidentiary hearing. Simply put, the case is sufficiently “exceptional” to warrant utilization of this Court's Rule 20.4(a), 28 U.S.C. § 2241(b), and our original habeas jurisdiction.

Id. (STEVENS, J., concurring). Bottom line: the Court overrode usual limits on death-penalty appeals, granted a stay of execution and ordered a federal court in Georgia to weigh Davis’ evidence of innocence. Left-leaning Washington Post writer Charles Lane provides an excellent account on what happened from there:

Chief Judge William T. Moore of the U.S. District Court in Savannah, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, convened the hearing in June 2010 -- whereupon Davis’ case crumbled. Much of his “new” evidence had already been heard by the original trial jury. Some of his witnesses fared badly on cross-examination, while prosecution testimony stood up.

Davis’ lawyers declined to put two of Davis’ purported recanting witnesses on the stand, though they were available – one even waited outside the courtroom. Judge Moore quite logically found these omissions “suspicious.”

Davis’ lawyers did not call the “real” shooter; nor did Davis, with his life on the line, testify. Perhaps this reflected his experience at trial, where he told his story to the jury, and the jury did not believe it.

In August 2010, Moore issued a 174-page ruling, in which he picked apart Davis’ factual claims one by one, concluding, “The vast majority of the evidence at trial remains intact.”

Nearly 30 years ago, then-Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote that the "argument ... that capital punishment is cruel and unusual is dwarfed by the cruelty of ten years on death row inflicted upon [a] guilty defendant by lawyers seeking to turn the administration of justice into the sporting contest that Roscoe Pound denounced three-quarters of a century ago." Troy Davis spent 20 years on death row. He was zealously defended by adept counsel, at trial and on appeal. Finally, after a nauseatingly interminable series of appeals, on March 28 of this year, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously denied Troy Davis’s last petition for writ of habeas corpus.

Before I close this out, there is one more thing about these executions that I wanted to discuss. Despite the atrocious tragedy visited upon them, Byrd's immediate family actually opposed Brewer's execution. Hundreds of people, including Byrd's widow and three children, held a vigil at a church on Tuesday.

Betty Boatner, one of Byrd's sisters, told reporters they were "praying for his family as well as our family, and for the citizens of Jasper." she said her family had "already made peace with it a long time ago."

Byrd's only son, who was in military training when his father was dragged to death, echoed that sentiment.

"Life in prison would have been fine," Ross Byrd, now 32, told Reuters. "I know he can't hurt my daddy anymore. I wish the state would take in mind that this isn't what we want."

I cannot find the words to adequately express how moved I am by this family's incredible strength. I believe they are sincere, and I hope that the families of other victims of violent crimes are able to reach out to Byrd's relatives and that for help in coping with their loss and the understandable emotional toll it takes. (It almost made me forget about how a bunch of political hacks exploited this heinous crime in an attack ad featuring Byrd's daughter Renee during the 2000 election.)

Not all of Byrd's relatives opposed the execution, however.

<-- ERROR! ERROR! ERROR!

We're sorry, but we were unable to complete your request.

When reporting this error to Blogger Support or on the Blogger Help Group, please:

• Describe what you were doing when you got this error.

• Provide the following error code. bX-74br4

This information will help us to track down your specific problem and fix it! We apologize for the inconvenience.

Close

-->