49ers Bill Walsh Offense Not Adopted Much on High School Level

Steve Mariucci 

An interesting blog post over at SmartFootball.com has it that high schools have largely stopped using the Bill Walsh / San Francisco 49ers Offense after a few seasons. Mainly because many high school coaches have tried to throw the whole playbook at their kids.

That means terminology, formations, and plays. In many Bill Walsh Offenses there are thousands of plays. A novice coach can't determine which ones to pick.

That's where the problem lay.

The real idea of the Bill Walsh Offense is in the approach to the passing game. As then-Cal Head Coach Steve Mariucci, and the late Bill Walsh himself told this blogger, the difference is in how we think about the passing game. Or footwork, vision, and throwing.



In other words, you can use any formation you want to and still run the basics of the offense. In fact, one can have a Wishbone Formation and still run a play with the split end going 12 yards downfield to an In Pattern, the right halfback running a Swing Pattern, the fullback running a Circle Pattern, the left halfback running an Up Pattern, and the other wideout running an Out Pattern.

The Quarterback takes five steps, reading the outside linebacker, takes a hitch step, and throws to the split end.

And still, the coach can run the Triple Option.

Sometimes football coaches are in such a hurry to try the newest flavor, they forget they don't have to force-feed it to their players.

That's the case with Bill Walsh' Offense.

Jennifer Aniston - Call Her "Jen Air" After R-Word Issue

The last Zennie62 blog post about Jennifer Aniston's gaffe where she used the "R-word" on Regis and Kelly and in reference to her behavior during her Harper's Bazaar photo shoot contained a new nickname for Jen Aniston: "Jen Air."

Think about it.  Jen Air.

It just popped in this blogger's head while thinking of why she would make such a comment, then finally coming to the conclusion that she's perhaps at times lovably airheaded. Thus, "Jen Air."

In fact, it would have gone down a lot better if she just said "You know, sometimes, I'm just Jen Air," rather than what she did say on Regis and Kelly.

Still, ultimately, Jennifer Aniston's incredible legs are going to get her through all of the r-word storms. Here's my take:



OK. As a way to make sure Jennifer Aniston doesn't make such mistakes again, just use the tag Jen Air. That'll do it.

Movie Trailer : Prince of Broadway, A Lee Daniels Film, September 3rd

Academy Award Nominee Lee Daniels (for Best Director for Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire), is using his new fame to advance a movie that's made the way around the festival circuit since 2008: Prince of Broadway.

This movie's gritty, realistic story style focuses on what two young men do when one of them is faced with taking care of a baby boy a woman says belongs to him.

Here's the movie trailer:

Aiden Noesi and Prince Adu

Prince of Broadway, unlike Precious, which had two name actresses in Academy Award-Winner Monique (Best Supporting Actress) and Mariah Carey, as well as Oprah and Tyler Perry to help lure audiences, has a cast of unknowns, including Prince Adu and Victoria Tate making their first film debuts.

Also making his film debut is an adorable little boy named Aiden Noesi, who plays Prince.

Here's the synopsis of Prince of Broadway from the movie's website:

Prince of Broadway is the story of Lucky and Levon, two men whose lives converge in the underbelly of New York's wholesale fashion district. Lucky, an illegal immigrant from Ghana, makes ends meet by soliciting shoppers on the street with knock-off brand merchandise. Levon, an Armenian-Lebanese immigrant, operates an illegal storefront with a concealed back room where counterfeit goods are showcased to interested shoppers. Lucky's world is suddenly turned upside down when a child is thrust into his life by a woman who insists the toddler is his son. While Lucky copes with his new domestic dilemma, Levon struggles to save a marriage that is falling apart. The seedy side of the wholesale district is revealed through a journey that continually confronts the interplay between what is fake and what is real.
Set in the shadow of the Flatiron building and soaked in the colorful bustle of Broadway, the film is as much a brutal drama as it is a tender comedy. Shot in a fast-paced guerilla style that is akin to the hustler lifestyle, the film reveals the lives of immigrants in America seeking ideals of family and love, while creating their own knock-off of the American Dream.

The movie is not directed by Lee Daniels. Sean Baker is writer, producer, director, cameraperson and editor of the film. But the power of Lee Daniels name, coupled with the quick desire to get out information about it, causes some to list Daniels as its director. He's not.

Prince of Broadway opens September 3rd at the Angelika Film Center in New York City, and September 17th at the Sunset 5, Los Angeles.

Visit Prince of Broadway.com.

Jennifer Aniston's Legs Save Her From R word Damage

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Jennifer Aniston's Legs Will Make Us Forget

Jennifer Aniston's Legs Save Her From R word Damage? Yep.

On Thursday, Superstar Actress Jennifer Aniston appeared on Regis and Kelly as part of her publicity tour for the movie The Switch, and in the process of talking about how she was dressing to look like Barbra Streisand for her Harper's Bazaar photo shoot, said "I play dress up. I do it for a living, like a retard."

What she should have said was "I play dress up. I do it for a living, like a little girl."

The offhand comment was met with a collective polite chuckle from the audience, and no rebuke from her hosts, but the fuse was lit for what's become a much-chatted and blogged-about error in her use of a term that degrades special needs people.

It got the attention of Special Olympics and its campaign called "End The Word," which advocates for the end of the use of the "R-Word." @EndThe Word issued this tweet on Twitter:

Sad to hear Jennifer Aniston use the #Rword on @Regis_and_Kelly. Another illustration how pervasive the word is in our society.
11:59 AM Aug 19th via web

And it went from there as that tweet and others blasting Jennifer Aniston were sent around the Internet.

That somehow turned into a mindless blog by the LA Times asking why Jennifer Aniston is still a movie star, given that she's not had a movie with a memorable, Oscar-winning performance? This blogger's answer to that mean-spritted post is that Jennifer Aniston's legs will literally hold her up against any reputation damage her silly and unfortunate comment may have.

See?  

Jennifer Aniston is a mix of beauty queen, cheerleader, and average white girl. It's that mix, and the fact she uses her incredible legs, praised by everyone from fans to Gerard Butler to this blogger, that will keep her earning multi-million movie paychecks for a while.

Loves To Flash Legs to David Letterman

Just look at the photos of Jennifer Aniston flashing her gams to David Letterman on The Late Show. Her skirt's so short it might as well not be there. That, folks, is her selling point, and since someone's going to get pissed off about that (Yeah!), I'll remind them her legs and looks were what got her the Harper's Bazaar photo shoot.

The R-Word Comment Was Dumb, But...

Hey, the R-Word comment Jennifer made was just plain dumb. But here's a chance for "Jen Air" (as in occasional, lovable airhead) to right that wrong by helping the Special Olympics as a spokesperson.

The fact is, we're going to pay attention to Jennifer anyway; it might as well be for the right reasons.

Hmmm. "Jen Air." I kinda like that.

The Expendables NY cute guy says great! by Suzannah B. Troy

I am not going to see The Expendables so I asked this young man for a review! He just loved the movie. I have to say I just thought this young man was winning and I would like to see him up on the big screen.

Since I wasn't going to see this big action flick that has been kicking butt at the box office I really appreciated this young man taking the time to fill me it.

He thought the film, The Expendables and all the action packed stars in the film were great. He said the only thing better would be more explosions and even longer....

This guy was terrific!

Here is our very one Zennie Abraham at the press conference interviewing the stars of The Expendable including Sly Stallone. I had to smile at one of the questions Zennie asked.

Jay Rosen attacks Google News; forgets his own ideas in the process

Image via CrunchBase

NYU Professor of Journalism Jay Rosen is a person this blogger has not met, yet.

With that, Rosen's writings on journalism and the web have been consistently consumed by this video-blogger. It's too bad that Professor Rosen, in an attempt to blindly discredit Google News and Google, forgot his own writings of the recent past.

All of this started on Twitter after this blogger found Rosen's tweet about a Salon post called "Google News gets gamed by crappy content farm."

This is not an attempt to at all defend Associated Content, nor to say that I'm a journalist as I am a blogger (to me there's a vast difference), but it is to defend Google News and tech. Frankly, some journalists spend too much time whining about the Internet, avoiding contact with techs and nerds, and precious little time learning about the Internet. I never thought Jay Rosen would be one of the people I'm talking about, or at least seem to be.

Jay tweeted this:

The one thing about content farms that I've never gotten: how can they be good for Google? They can't. http://jr.ly/zzqh
about 2 hours ago via web

To which I explained to Professor Rosen that Google revenue was (in part) based on the content posted on Google News and revenue was the ultimate end. In fact, according to Google Search VP Marissa Mayer, Google News generated over $100 million in revenue for Google in 2008, mostly from paid searches.

Rosen tweeted back that I should not treat him as if he's a moron.  Frankly, that's the last idea this blogger would ever have in association with Jay Rosen.  Rather, he's a person who seems to have forgotten recent history.

What Old Media organizations have done in recent history is sue what they don't understand.  Rather than really working to understand the Google approach and the Internet overall, or working with Google to achieve revenue gains for both parties, and to absorb both the Internet and Google as part of their business models, many old media companies have just filed lawsuits against Google or acted as "friends of the court" on the opposite side of Google.  And how's that working overall?  Not well.

Meanwhile, they have no business model, other than whining or suing, of course.

The last organization to try lawsuits as a business model was the Oakland Raiders, and that didn't do well for them either.

Tech rules.

Pointing The Way Toward The Future, Right Jay?

An April 22, 2008 post by Rosen was one that was particularly liked by this blogger. Called "Where's The Business Model for News, People?," it caused me to think that Rosen understood the need to embrace the Internet and not attack it. The blog post contains quotes from others that Jay Rosen presumably agrees with, and that I do. For example, he quotes Jeff Jarvis here:

"One problem I've had with much discussion about the future of news lately is that it's too press-centric," writes Jarvis. "It focuses on the press as if it were at the center of the world, as if it owned news, as if news depended on it, as if solving the press' problems solves news. That's not the ecosystem of news now... So pardon my simplistic drawings, but here's an attempt to begin to illustrate that new ecosystem of news and media…." With diagrams!

Also see Jarvis again: Newspapers in 2020. "What will newspapers look like in 2020? Well, what’s a newspaper?"

So, it would seem Jay Rosen agrees with Jarvis and by extension, this blogger. Instead, on Twitter, Rosen comes off on what seems for all the world to be a press-centric attack based on the Salon work, and then on this blogger.

The Salon blog post is correct about Associated Content, but wrong about Google News, as is Jay Rosen. For every example of a content farm based on Google Trends, there are examples of new media, bloggers, and mainstream media organizations that use Google News and Google Trends to produce effective work. Here, I praise the Los Angeles Times, who's "game" in this area has improved dramatically.

Unfortunately, The LA Times is more often than not the only one of its kind that seems to get it.

Tech is the answer, not whining. As I said to Rosen on Twitter, I bet he couldn't take a blank sheet of paper and write the code for a web page, let alone a website. I can.

The day that journalists can do that, is the time we will see imaginative approaches to the presentation and monetization of media, and the end of whining.

Jayson Williams former NBA star admits drunk driving by Suzannah B. Troy

News Flash from 1010 Wins:  Jayson Williams NBA star admits he was driving drunk and crashed his car in to a tree here in NYC.


Well here is my two cents: Jayson Williams descent in to ////edness sorry for a lack of better words is disturbing....His bio reads like a twilight zone from hell.  He also is another one of these athletes less than forth coming when it comes to owning up and taking responsibility.


Williams is already in jail for the accidental shooting of a limo driver Gus Christofi and than there was the too bizarre incident which was an alleged suicide attempt where the NYPD had to taser him....not self destructive and bizarre enough so he gets drunk and hits a tree here in NYC a week before sentencing for the accidental shooting of Gus Christofi.


Something is very wrong with this elite group of athletes that earn obscene amounts of money and have luxuries that people can only dream of -- if the even bother to dream and these guy in the most violent, thoughtless and stupid ways flush it all away leaving bullet wounds, broken marriages, crushed kids and more....






Why is that....?  Why so prevalent.   Having a great athletic ability doesn't make you above the law, accountability, etc. and it is very wrong to send a message that it does.  Why so little self respect for oneself and for others.  You can buy fancy cars but so what...what did a big fancy house and cars mean when you go to jail or break you family's heart?

Apple Mac IPhone 4 thoughts from Suzannah B. Troy

I converted to Apple at age 45 and I drank the kool-aid.  You know the early stages of sizzling love when your lover can do no wrong...well almost none...It is like that with Apple and yes I have had so many disappointments with  Apple but still crazy in love.

My senior citizen cat with severe arthritis and with just one eye feels compelled to walk on my my MacBook and leave a trail of fur so first vist Iskin.com which is what I plan to do when I get time and by a techno -skin my words for my MacBook to protect the board from fur, hair balls and me dropping pieces of chocolate all over it...  Iskin also has some cool protective covers for your Iphone 4 but I went with  big bulky ugly cover that I got at the AT&T store with a holder I can slide the cover in to that clips on to my pants.  You turn the cover to face outward to protect the glass.  When I get time I want to make a cool collage with paper, paint, color pencils and packing tape but hey that is me, Suzannah B. Troy artist....

Today I had a series of phone calls drop which was frustrating but I can't express in words how much I love Iphone 4; way better than the 3GS!    Check out more for tips for you Iphone4.
Apple Rules.  Apple is Radical.  I love Apple

Note:  I was at Apple 57th street and an Apple sales MAN treated me lower than pond scum just now and I believe it was gender bias but I still love Apple even if they have bad Apples.

Has Wolverine 2 Found It's Director By Reginald L Cochran

For the many people who shelled out bucks in anticipation for Wolverine, I hardly think any of them thought that the movie was a masterpiece. In fact horrible, sucked, piece of crap are the types of thoughts that a majority of people ( myself included ) have for the film.

Despite the public reaction that Wolverine has had Fox is going ahead with a sequel, and it may has found its director. David Slade whose resume includes Hard Candy, 30 Days of Night, and most recently The Twilight Saga: Eclipse may step into the directors chair.

The movie is being written by Christopher Mcquarrie ( The Usual Suspects ) and is based on arc written by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller, which has Wolverine traveling to Japan, and while I think the story is a good one i'm not to sure how they can adapt it and sell it as a blockbuster action movie.

Having seen Hard Candy and trying to block the crapfest that was Eclipse, I will admit that Slade has skills. If Slade and Mcquarrie can have full creative control without Fox mucking it up maybe just maybe it can erase the first movie and wipe the slate clean.

White Supremacists? Casslyn Welch and John McCluskey said to be

Escaped fugitives Casslyn Welch and John McCluskey, on the run for something like the entire month of August and the subject of a large "manhunt", which really should be called a "peoplehunt" because we're talking about a man and a woman, have been caught. What's interesting is they're both described as "White Supremacists."

So, this blogger elected to check and see if Casslyn Welch and John McCluskey actually were A-OK with White Supremacists. Interested to learn more, I checked the West Palm Beach, FL - based website for White Supremacists called StormFront. (I wonder what Mayor Lois J. Frankel, the current Mayor of West Palm Beach, thinks about her city being the offline headquarters for White Supremacists' key online home?)

There are 336 search results on the StormFront website for Casslyn Welch, but not the Casslyn Welch. There is, however, this one interesting forum post by DESERTFOX63, who has over 3,000 posts to his credit and must be 63 years old:

Attention Brothers and Sisters,
Three Prison escapes from Arizona are on the move, These men are to be concidered armed and dangerous. We WN's do not need to discredit our movement by aiding and abetting these men, they are fugitives from the law, they are White men but none the less they are criminals.

That's a surprising find! Since hate crimes are, well, crimes, and White Supremacists are known for committing hate crimes, it's heart-warming but weird to find someone who claims to be, as he puts it, "WN" but not wanting to be associated with a criminal.

Talk about making the head spin! A website where the largest search tag is for "race-mixing," meaning white guys moaning about white girls they can't get who are dating black, Latino, and Asian men (really, it's the black fellas that piss them off), and blaming everyone but themselves for their own problems, has a member who says he's concerned about discrediting "the movement" by helping "these men."

Nice.

Casslyn Welch and John McCulskey are caught By Nikky Raney

After escaping from prison the modern day Bonnie and Clyde - Casslyn Welch, 44 and John McCulskey, 45 - have been caught. Welch assisted McCulskey and other inmates escape from an Arizona state prison July 30, 2010, which led to a manhunt for two of the most wanted fugitives.

NY Daily News

Welch is McCulskey's cousin as well as lover. The two are suspected of killing a couple in New Mexico during their run from authorities; the bodies were found in a burned out camper earlier this month.

The two are said to have evaded authorities in at least three six states before being caught Thursday, August 19 at a campsite in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest in eastern Arizona.

U.S. marshal for Arizona, David Gonzales, says that Welch reached for a weapon until she realized she was outnumbered by the special weapons police team.

Gonzales tells CBS News:

"We want to tie them to as many crimes as we can. We want to ensure that the New Mexico murders are looked at carefully, working with those agencies. And if there are any more crimes that were committed while they were out, we want to make sure we tie those to them."

The two are said to be white supremacists that are extremely dangerous.

McCluskey was serving a 15-year sentence for attempted murder along with other charges. He had said that he wished he killed the forest ranger who tipped off authorities after seeing their stolen car.

The prison is being reviewed for its security since the inmates were able to escape. It is reported that the prison has a badly defective alarm system.

Media coverage of suicides By Nikky Raney

Originally posted at The Future of Journalism.


Media coverage of suicides

 By Nikky Raney

Suicide is a very sensitive and serious issue, and the last thing any family or friend wants to do is talk to the media after a loved one has committed suicide.

Generally news sources have specific ethics, and for the most part suicides are not covered except in circumstances where the suicide is a part of a bigger situation entirely.

When I blogged about the "Craigslist Killer" dying in jail I made sure not to include the word "suicide" within the title - in order to not feed into the sensationalism of some news sources. I think the family is upset enough over the fact that Philip Markoff is known as the "Craigslist Killer."

The reason why that suicide was covered is that it shines a light on the way inmates are treated and watched over in jails. After being placed under watch for potentially being suicidal it doesn't seem right that he was still able to successfully end his own life.

Life behind bars can certainly effect someone's mental health. The lack of communication with the outside world as well as the lack of freedom really takes a toll. The bigger picture behind the suicide being covered was the conditions that led to the suicide.

NPR covered this subject in November 2009 with a segment called "Media Should Tread Carefully in Covering Suicide." The transcript along with audio focuses on when an adolescent commits suicide and the media reports on it - this has happened quite a few times, and it all comes down to ethics. It's how a journalist chooses to go about covering the story - what angle to take. Sometimes the journalist is not given the option to not cover a suicide, because the editor may assign the story and all the reporter can do is figure out a way to cover the story by the deadline.

The NPR piece includes an interview with psychiatric epidemiologist Madelyn Gould at Columbia University in New York City where she says:

"We know from studies that have looked at the impact of the media that there is something called the 'dose-response association.' So the size of the increase in suicides following a suicide story is proportional to the amount, and the duration, and the prominence of the coverage."

The piece continues:

"There are ways that the media can cover a suicide that can actually help mitigate the risk of additional suicides, says psychiatrist Paula Clayton, medical director of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, who regularly advises the media on how to report on a suicide. For example, they should report on the many complex factors that may have led up to the suicide and emphasize that 90 percent of people who kill themselves have mental health problems."

Journalism Ethics' Stephen J. A. Ward did a piece on whether journalists exploit tragedies such as suicides. 

Ward does an amazing job at explaining what attracts journalists to covering these types of stories, and why journalists feel like it is a responsibility to cover these events. He writes:

"Take the case of suicides. To be blunt, suicides are frequently newsworthy – a public official in trouble commits suicide, a distraught military hero takes his life. But these cases are frequently more than newsworthy. They challenge journalists to explore the economic and social factors that may help to induce suicidal behavior. When we witness a string of suicides at a school or in an aboriginal community, suicide is no longer personal but social. It is the responsibility of journalists to explore the reasons for these disturbing patterns in the fabric of society. "

That really does sum it up quite nicely.  The problem arises when journalists forget about the sensitivity and emotion surrounding the matter and decide to take the sensational route that becomes more of an exploitation.

Some may wonder what counts as exploitation, Ward tells:

"What counts as exploitation? To exploit is to unfairly use people in a less powerful position to achieve your own ends — without a thought to their needs and interests. As Kant famously said, the basic principle of all ethics is: Do not treat other people only as a means to your ends….In journalism, Kant's principle works like this: In reporting on a person's tragedy I am, on one level, treating this event as a means to my end of getting the story. But on another level, I am not exploiting the situation if I treat the persons in question with respect and attempt to minimize harm. "

He continues:

"Ethical journalists still "get the story" but they do so in responsible ways that avoid callous harassment and crude exploitation."

The piece Ward writes is exactly what I believe, and it is good to know that there are journalists out there who share my belief on the ethics of journalism 

Yes, there are many ways to cover a suicide and have the most read or watched coverage - but what is more important is to cover the suicide with respect and sensitivity and get the story without causing more pain to those affected.

"Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do." - Potter Stewart