NFL Hall Of Fame - Michael Irvin Speech Text Transcript

From NFL Media.com.

MICHAEL IRVIN


JERRY JONES: Will, W‑i‑l‑l, I've never seen anybody with more of it. Competitiveness, whatever it took, the competitiveness for the entire team not just for himself. I think of focus. When it was time to practice, it was complete focus.

To the person that will ever talk about Michael Irvin, it's the first thing they'll say, He's the hardest worker we've ever been around. Strength was his number one thing. I'm talking with physical strength. When I was on the Competition Committee, at my protesting the league made a Michael Irvin rule as to just how much you could use that strength against d-backs.

We had it all on the table there. We spot San Francisco 21 points in five minutes. That team fought back all day long. Michael Irvin statistically had one of his greatest games. It was like a heavyweight prize fight. The battle that Michael was involved in with Deion Sanders on almost every play, boy did he make play after play after play.

It's one of only three games that I've ever teared up after the game was over. It meant that much and more to everybody in the organization. Go with me, if you will, for a high point in his career, to Pasadena, the Rose Bowl. 100,000 people out there. Beautiful mountains in the background. Michael scored two touchdowns in the second quarter. One of them, when he scored, he had his back to the end zone. He wheeled and ran through the end zone with one arm outstretched, and we go up on them. Right then I had the feeling, We're going to be world champions. There Michael Irvin was what the scene was all about.

Mike was going across the middle on a short slant and he didn't get up when he was hit. He didn't get up. That great competitor, the guy who won't take "no" for an answer, the guy with all that will, was laying there compromised.

I got in the ambulance with him. We got his wife Sandy on the cell phone. All of a sudden he started moving. He reached over. I said, Michael, you're moving your hand, you're moving. We got Sandy back and said, Hey, he's moving. He's starting to move. Boy, didn't realize that was it.

Induction day will be like the day you get up when you get an opportunity to be in the Super Bowl. It's a privilege to be there. It's a privilege to be a part of it. But more important than anything, to have the honor to get to be a part of Michael Irvin going into the Hall of Fame, be there, have something to say about him going in there. When I know of all of the people that he's touched and the great things that they can say, for me to get the chance to say those and a few short minutes, it's Super Bowl day for me.

(End of video presentation.)

JERRY JONES: Hey, man, that will fire you up there. What an honor to be here with you, to be right here on this historic ground with these champions, these champions sitting here behind us.

You know, it is unique what can be the makeup of a championship team. A championship team can have a catalyst. They can have a spark, someone that can put a fire in another person's heart.

The Dallas Cowboys of the 1990s were champions. They were in three Super Bowls and won them in four years' time. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm here to tell you tonight that the heartbeat, the heart and the soul of those championship teams, was Michael Irvin. Michael came to Dallas with a self‑proclaimed nickname, the “Playmaker.”

Now, at first many people didn't understand why this young guy would brand himself with such a bold nickname. But we begin to figure it out real, real soon.

When it was third‑and‑long, opposition coaches knew exactly where Troy Aikman was throwing the ball. The defensive backs knew exactly where Aikman was going with the ball. Everybody in the stadium knew where the ball was going, but they couldn't stop it.

Troy Aikman often said the greatest thing about Michael Irvin is you could throw him the ball when he was covered or you could throw him the ball when it was open, and the results were usually the same almost all the time. It was either a completion and most of the time it was for a first down.

Now, when you've got a quarterback that has that kind of confidence in your receiver, you can have some offense. That's how you earn the name “Playmaker,” and that's how you keep it.

His performance always improved as the level of competition increased. He routinely had his best games against Deion Sanders, Darrell Green, Rod Woodson, Aeneas Williams. And his numbers increased as that long season went along and we got closer to the playoffs. From the regular season to the playoffs, from the playoffs to the Super Bowl, that was Michael Irvin's best days.

At the pinnacle of his career in 1995, he had 11 100‑yard receiving games, a mark that is still an NFL record today. But the Dallas Cowboys' offenses really weren't designed for the receiver to get big stats. They really weren't designed for Troy, the quarterback, to really rack 'em up in statistics.

The teams were designed to win championships, and what that meant was take what the defense gave you. Now, with the backdrop of all of that, the fact that one team could produce the NFL's greatest all‑time rushing leader in Emmitt Smith, the fact that last year the first opportunity that he had a chance to be honored with these men, Troy Aikman came into the NFL Hall of Fame.

And the fact tonight that Michael Irvin is going to go in the Hall of Fame, it just shows you the team concept and shows you the balance that was there. The player that epitomized it more than anyone on the team, the player that taught it, the player embellished it, that was Michael Irvin and his leadership.

You can't get to Canton, Ohio without exceptional talent. But athletic ability alone was only a part of Michael's gifts. His hard work is legendary. In two‑a‑days, the grind of all of it. When you'd be on the field in the morning and in the afternoon, someone would look around and find, Where is Michael? He'd be down on the field with pads on in the hot sun getting some more in.

His passion, his competitiveness were really possibly his greatest gifts he shared them with his teammates on a daily bases. He practiced every day with the determination of a rookie that was hanging by a thread to make the team, and that's the way this great player approached it.

Aikman told me yesterday that Michael would never let the team have a bad practice. If there was a lull, he would create something between the defense and the offense. He'd get some stuff going just so that team could practice and get better for what they had to face Sunday.

Maybe that's the quality that separates the good players from the great players, the Hall of Fame players. Or maybe it's just the natural instinct of a man who had 16 brothers and sisters and knew that nothing in life was going to be given to him.

In the locker room, he was a teammate first, a competitor second, and a superstar third. His leadership style not only transcended the cliques in the locker room, but his leadership style on our team and our organization went from the locker room and the equipment room all the way to the boardroom. It permeated it.

I don't know that we'll see again a professional football player with a combination of his strength and his skills as an athlete on the field and his unbelievable people skills. Smart, resourceful, communication, charm, the kind of charisma and tremendous will with the strength to get the respect of the team. He had his faults. But in a unique way, that only Michael Irvin could pull off.

His fallibility by the people who followed him, by the people who were looking at him, his fallibility gave them strength because they knew, too, how fallible they were, and they wanted to see somebody that could go down and come up stronger and try to get better when they got on their feet. That's what Michael Irvin brought to the Dallas Cowboys and his locker room.

He learned his game from his older brothers in Fort Lauderdale. He had a great high school he played for, St. Thomas High School. He became a star at the University of Miami, drafted by Gil Brandt and Tex Schramm. He was nurtured by coach Tom Landry. He was coached in college and embellished when he got to pro football by one of the greatest coaches, Jimmy Johnson.

He spent his entire career in the loving embrace of the Dallas Cowboys. His journey reaches a destination tonight here in Canton, and it was a longer journey than most, with a lot of bumps in the road. He got knocked down for the last time at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. But tonight he'll get up again and he'll take his place among the immortals of this great game.

Michael Irvin, he's a friend. If you're in my shoes, you feel like he's a son. He's an inspirational and natural born leader. He's a loving father and husband. He's a wonderful brother and son. He's a Dallas Cowboy.

And tonight, forever more, he's a member of the professional football Hall of Fame. It's with pride that I present to you Michael Irvin. C'mon up here.

MICHAEL IRVIN: Thank you. Father, I'd like to thank you for allowing us all to travel here safely, thank you in advance for the same in allowing us to travel home.

Father, thank you for the man that you sent me to help me in Bishop T.D. Jakes, my spiritual father. I ask you now to put your arms around my Hall of Fame classmate Gene Hickerson and his family. Father, hold them tight and love them right. In Jesus' name, I pray, amen.

Thank you.

I want to send a special love to all the people in Dallas, Texas, special love to all the Dallas Cowboy fans all over the world. Special love goes to my hometown of South Florida and all the Miami Hurricane fans, St. Thomas Aquinas fans.

I want to send love to every fan everywhere because you hear so often that people say, Oh, these are the guys that built the game. No. It's your hunger and your love for the game, your love for what we do that make this game what it is. I thank you for loving the game like we love it.

Jerry, those were kind words. Thank you. You know, when I first met Jerry he had just purchased the Dallas Cowboys. He had a bit of a concerned look on his face. I said to him, I said, We will have fun and we will win Super Bowls. You see, I knew Jerry had put all he had into purchasing the Cowboys. That's the way I see Jerry. He's a man that's willing to give all he has and all he wants to bring the Cowboy family Super Bowls.

Jerry, I appreciate your commitment to family, the Dallas Cowboy family and your own family. He has a beautiful wife, Jean. I tell her this. I just love her to death. Her spirit exudes beauty. Her mannerisms exude class. She's one of a kind. Jean, I do love you.

They have beautiful kids, daughter Charlotte, son Steven and Jerry, Jr. Each have played a role in my life and I thank all of them.

A heartfelt thank you to the selection committee, especially Rick Gosselin and Charean Williams. Charean is the first woman to have a seat on the selection committee. Charean, congratulations to you.

These gentlemen behind me, these men, they inspired me to become the player that I became. As I spent this week with these gentlemen that I've admired growing up, I kept thinking about how gifted they are. Man, they're gifted to run and cut, gifted to throw and catch, gifted to run through blocks and make great tackles.

And then I met their wives and their families and I realized that it's not only about the gift God gave us, but equally important is the help that God gave us. It's the people that God put in place to support us on our journey. So I will try to put the credit in the right place tonight and share with you my help and my journey.

I thank God for the help of my father Walter Irvin, whom I lost at the age of 17. He was my hero and he loved, I'm telling you, he loved the Dallas Cowboys. I woke up this morning smiling knowing that my father had not be here in the flesh but that he is in heaven watching and celebrating with his all‑time favorite coach, Coach Tom Landry.

Also Tex Schamm, Derrick Shepard and Mark Tuinei. Those guys, we think about them here, we feel them here. They will always be with us.

Before my father made his journey to heaven I sat with him. His final words to me were, Promise me you will take care of your mother. She's a good woman. As you've heard, my mother raised 17 children, most of whom are here tonight. There were challenges. But she would never complain. She always walked around the house and said, God has promised me that my latter days will be better than my former days. My mom and my Aunt Fanny, her oldest sister, they are part of my travel squad now.

As we travel, all they want is a nice room and an open tab on room service. When my workday is done I get to come by their room and we tell stories and we laugh and we have fun. We always end the night with them telling me, Baby, this is what God meant when he said, Our latter days will be better than our former days.

I can't tell you how it makes me feel to know that God uses me to deliver His promise. I love you, mom. I love you, Aunt Fanny.

For better or for worse, those are the vows we take before God in marriage. It's easy to live with the for better, but rarely can you find someone who sticks around and endures the for worse. Sandy, my beautiful wife, I have worked tirelessly, baby, to give you the for better. But I also gave you the for worse, and you didn't deserve it. You didn't deserve it.

But through it all I experienced the depth of your love and I thank God for you. I love the mother that you are, the wife that you are, I love the way that you take care of our family, our daughters Myesha and Chelsea, and our sons Michael and Elijah. I thank you from a place that I can't mention, I can't even express, baby, for keeping our family together. I love you so much.

My football family, as Jerry told you, began at St. Thomas Aquinas High School under the wise tutelage of a great coach named George Smith. George Smith dedicated 37 years to that great program. He's a great man. I thank all the people at St. Thomas for believing in a young man like me.

And then I went on to the University of Miami. I think most of y'all know how I feel about the U. Yeah, the U. You better believe it. After that I was drafted by the Dallas Cowboys where I played and worked with some of the best to ever be around this game. For example, Emmitt Smith. Emmitt Smith is the all‑time leading rusher.

The great thing about that, his rookie year he said to me he was going to become the all‑time leading rusher. I doubted him like I think everybody would have. But what an inspiration to be in a room and see a man set a goal so high and then be persistent, be dedicated, and accomplish that which he set out to accomplish. Emmitt, you're an inspiration to so many.

The third part and the third member The Triplets is Troy Aikman. My quarterback, our leader. Troy Aikman led us to three Super Bowls. When I said "led," I mean led, to three Super Bowls. He's the winningest quarterback in the decade of the '90s. If you talk to him and you ask him what's his most memorable game, he will tell you that '94 NFC Championship game that everybody's talking about.

It's a game we were down by 21 and we lost, but we never gave up. That's the mark of a true leader. All he wants is for each player to give all he has all the time. That's Troy Aikman.

That game is one of my most memorable games for all those reasons, but it had a little something extra for me. We were down 21. Troy came to that huddle with those big blue eyes and he looked up and he said, Hey, I'm coming to you no matter what. Whew, let me tell you. As a wide receiver, that's all I ever wanted to hear. Just come to me no matter what. And he did, he did. He came to me no matter what.

But, Troy, you've always come to me no matter what, and I'm not just talking about on the football field. For that, you have a special place in my heart. You always will no matter what. I love you, Troy. I love you deeply.

As The Triplets, we received most of the press, the credit. But we were surrounded with some great guys, great players, talented guys. Guys like Darren Woodson, Dallas Cowboys all‑time leading tackle. My Cowboy counterpart Jay Novacek, what a great tight end he is. Daryl Johnston, the unsung hero, Moose. Larry Allen and Eric Williams are two of the better linemen, if not the best linemen, to ever play this game. The big fella, Nate Newton. Jim Jeffcoat. And one of the best cornerbacks and the finest athlete I've ever been around, that's Deion Sanders, Prime Time.

So, so many more.

You can't accomplish what we've accomplished with just great players. You also need great coaches. And we had that. We had guys like Norv Turner, Dave Wannstedt, Dave Campo. My position coach, coach Hubbard Alexander, who is my heart. Coach, you took me as a young man out of high school, and I know I gave you a lot of mess through the years. Thank you for being there, Coach. And our head coach, he had always be my head coach, that's Jimmy Johnson.

We worked hard. We had the best, and I'm telling you the very best, and I'm willing to take an argument with anybody on this, strength and conditioning coach in the world. His name is Mike Warsick. He has six Super Bowl rings. Six, people. Twice he has won three Super Bowls in four years, once with us and now with the New England Patriots. So if anybody wants to take an argument, I am a debater. I am here and ready.

Mike Warsick, you are, man, the very best. You put me back together from that knee injury. As we always tell each other when we say good‑bye, MissPaw (phonetic), which means may God hold you till we see each other again.

I also walked on campus at the University of Miami the same day with our PR director, Rich Dalrymple. I know some of you are saying it's fitting that you are tight with the PR director, Michael. But Rich has been a great friend. When I walk in his office now Rich has a picture of us. He has pictures of us at the University of Miami with this nice beautiful black hair, and then he has pictures of us now when he's all gray.

He says to me all the time, You see these gray hairs? I say, Yeah. He says, You gave them to me. I tell him, I say, Well, you see those four championship rings you have? I gave them to you, too.

I have experienced all this game has to offer on the football field, the losing, going 3‑13, even 1‑15. In my second season the career‑threatening knee injury, thinking I would never play this game that I love again. And even in 1999, the career‑ending neck injury. That which football players fear the most.

But I've also had some beautiful victories. We won three Super Bowls in four years. I can't tell you what that feels like. And we did it with guys that we loved to play with and guys that we loved. Folks, I'm telling you, that's the true essence of a football family, and that's exactly what we are ‑ not was ‑ what we are. I love all of those guys that I played with.

Since retiring I have developed a deeper awareness and understanding for this game. First as a fan and then as an analyst. That is why I've learned it's so much more than merely a game. Thanks to ESPN. Thank you, ESPN, for giving me the opportunity to travel to NFL stadiums throughout this country, visiting with fans, and seeing this game from a completely different perspective.

The movie, Remember the Titans, is my favorite movie, staring Denzel Washington. I love the way in this movie the game of football brings those boys together, it unites those boys on that football field. It unites a whole town, black, white, old, young, rich and poor. It happens every year around this time in NFL locker rooms and NFL stadiums. So don't tell me it's just a game.

My favorite day was Monday, September the 25th, 2006. New Orleans, Louisiana, site of the Superdome. I watched our people who had suffered so grievously through Hurricane Katrina fill a stadium hours before a game and stay hours after the game. I witnessed those fans as they looked for each other, hugged one another and just be thankful to be in that stadium.

You see the game flexed its greatest muscle that day: the ability to heal. I experienced a football game that contributed to the healing of a city. So don't tell me it's just a game.

You know the Bible speaks of a healing place. It's called a threshing floor. The threshing floor is where you take your greatest fear and you pray for help from your great God. I want to share something with you today. I have two sons. Michael, he's 10, and Elijah, he's 8. Michael and Elijah, could you guys stand up for me. That's my heart right there. That's my heart. When I am on that threshing floor, I pray. I say, God, I have my struggles and I made some bad decisions, but whatever you do, whatever you do, don't let me mess this up.

I say, Please, help me raise them for some young lady so that they can be a better husband than I. Help me raise them for their kids so that they could be a better father than I. And I tell you guys to always do the right thing so you can be a better role model than dad. I sat right here where you are last year and I watched the Class of 2006: Troy Aikman, Warren Moon, Harry Carson, Rayfield Wright, John Madden, and the late great Reggie White represented by his wife Sara White. And I said, Wow, that's what a Hall of Famer is.

Certainly I am not that. I doubted I would ever have the chance to stand before you today. So when I returned home, I spoke with Michael and Elijah . I said, That's how you do it, son. You do it like they did it. Michael asked, he said, Dad, do you ever think we will be there? And I didn't know how to answer that. And it returned me to that threshing floor. This time I was voiceless, but my heart cried out. God, why must I go through so many peaks and valleys?

I wanted to stand in front of my boys and say, Do it like your dad, like any proud dad would want to. Why must I go through so much?

At that moment a voice came over me and said, Look up, get up, and don't ever give up. You tell everyone or anyone that has ever doubted, thought they did not measure up or wanted to quit, you tell them to look up, get up and don't ever give up.

Thank you and may God bless you.

2007 NFL Unrestricted Free Agency Period Over - 88 Re-Sign; 126 Switch Teams

This is from NFLMedia.com - more information on this subject, soon.

Unrestricted Free Agency Period Ends -- 88 Re-Sign, 126 Switch Teams - NFLMedia.com
07/31/2007

UNRESTRICTED FREE AGENCY PERIOD ENDS;

88 RE-SIGN, 126 SWITCH TEAMS


Eighty-eight veteran free agents re-signed with their old teams this year during the free agency signing period, while 126 signed with new teams, the National Football League announced today. The four-month UFA signing period, under terms of the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the league and players, ended July 22.


The Arizona Cardinals signed the most unrestricted free agents from other teams (9), while the Oakland Raiders signed eight, followed by the Denver Broncos and Houston Texans with seven each.


There were a total of 308 unrestricted free agents this year. The total player pool is approximately 1,700.


Four of this year's 94 restricted free agents signed with a new team – Indianapolis cornerback JASON DAVID with New Orleans, Dallas linebacker RYAN FOWLER with Tennessee, Miami punter DONNIE JONES with St. Louis, and Cincinnati defensive tackle SHAUN SMITH with Cleveland. Eighty-eight restricted free agents returned to their former clubs. The period for restricted free agents to accept offers from other teams ended April 20.


The 130 total free agents who switched teams represent only eight percent of all NFL players. Of 449 players who were free agents in the various categories of the system, 312 signed new contracts with either new teams or their old clubs.


Under the NFL Collective Bargaining Agreement, players without 2007 contracts who had four or more seasons of free agency experience qualified to be "unrestricted free agents" and were free to sign with any club between March 2 and July 22.


If a player's prior club made a 110 percent tender on or before June 1, the prior club retained exclusive negotiating rights after July 22 if the player did not sign with another club. If the player and club are unable to negotiate a contract by the 10th week of the regular season (November 13), the player may not play the remainder of the season. If the player sits out the season, he becomes an unrestricted free agent next year.


Under the CBA, restricted free agents are those players who have three seasons of free agency experience and are subject to compensation and/or right of first refusal.


A "transition" player is a designated restricted or unrestricted free agent whose team must tender a one-year contract at the average of the 10 highest-paid players of 2006 at the transition player's position, or a 20 percent increase, whichever is greater. A "franchise" player is a designated restricted or unrestricted free agent whose team must tender a one-year contract at the average of the five highest-paid players at the franchise player's position in 2006, or a 20 percent increase, whichever is greater.

Commissioner Roger Goodell On Bill Walsh - NFLMedia.com

NFL COMMISSIONER ROGER GOODELL ON BILL WALSH:

“His Hall of Fame coaching accomplishments speak for themselves, but the essence of Bill Walsh was that he was an extraordinary teacher. If you gave him a blackboard and a piece of chalk, he would become a whirlwind of wisdom. He taught all of us not only about football but also about life and how it takes teamwork for any of us to succeed as individuals. He helped the league on many important initiatives, from improving opportunities for minorities in coaching and the front office to our executive training and international development programs. Bill Walsh was a mentor to me and many others. He revolutionized the game with his ‘West Coast Offense’ and will always be remembered as one of the most influential people in NFL history.”

ABC Iowa Debates - Vloggercott ABC For It's Abuse Of The Community - Video

This is the video companion to my article on the ABC Debates.

Field Position.com's New Website Is Up

Field Position.com , which has the most popular podcast in the land, has a new website design. Check it out!

Profootballtalk.com Calls For Brady Quinn To Fire CAA's Tom Condon

Will CAA Sports Divsion's Tom Condon lose yet another high profile quarterback, having just lost Matt Leinart earlier this year. Well, there's no official word but if Profootballtalk.com has its way, it could happen. This is what Florio and his people over there are Profootballtalk.com wrote:

QUINN SHOULD FIRE CONDON

Earlier this week, a league source opined to us that Browns quarterback Brady Quinn should fire agent Tom Condon. We disagreed, due in large part to the rule that requires Quinn to wait five days before hiring a new agent.

But given the fact that Condon has displayed no sense of urgency to get the contract finalized so that Quinn can commence his career as a member of a football franchise that desperately needs to give folks in Cleveland a reason to cheer, we now believe that Quinn should write up the letter disengaging from Condon and send it to the NFLPA.

Just do it, Brady. Forget about the marketing guarantee or whatever other inducement Condon offered to get you to sign. He has given you, in our opinion, nothing but bad advice, every step of the way.

The tipping point for us was when we read that Condon only "talked briefly" with the Browns on Friday, and that Condon has invited Browns management to travel to Kansas City to get the deal done.

Condon, in our opinion, should pack his bags and get his ass to Cleveland, and stay there until there's a contract. Quinn clearly wants to play, as evidenced by his response to a question from ESPN's Collen Dominguez regarding whether he is willing to sit out the full season.

"You know, I don't think it's gonna go that far," Quinn said. "I don't think we're in that sort of situation. That's something that I don't wanna do."

Does Condon have the entire Quinn family so bamboozled that they can't see that the agent's foot-dragging does nothing to get Quinn ready to pursue his next contract? You know, the one that will pay him more than $30 million in guaranteed money, if Quinn becomes the player that he thinks he is.

With that said, there's a school of thought that Condon is holding out for the best deal possible for Quinn because Condon believes that Quinn will be a bust, and thus Condon thinks that he needs to get the most possible money for Quinn now, since there likely won't be a second big contract.

And part of Quinn's reluctance to dump Condon could be due to the fact that Quinn is unwilling to admit that he might have erred by hiring him.

Regardless, it's time for the deal to get done. It's wrong for Condon to be exercising so much control over the player. Reasonable people should be able to work something out reasonably quickly, if they all can get together and work on making it happen.

As we've previously said, we think that this is all about Condon setting the stage to attract his next crop of quarterback clients, and not about Condon taking the best possible care of his current one.

We also think that the Browns should call Condon's bluff and go to Kansas City and tell him that they are ready and willing to do whatever needs to be done to make this contract happen. That'll put even more pressure on Condon to crap or get off of the commode.

Also, why not publicly disclose the specific terms of the offer that the Browns have made, and the terms that Condon is seeking? Sure, this stuff usually happens under a veil of confidentiality, but we think that the Browns should put it all out there, so that folks can make their own assessment as to who's right, and who's wrong.

WILL QUINN AGREE TO A REBATE?

Though we continue to hear that the primary sticking point in the Brady Quinn contract is that agent Tom Condon wants to get more guaranteed money and more total dollars than Quinn's draft slot dictates, one of the other issues is the back-end incentives that Quinn will receive based on playing time and other factors.

The Quinn camp wants the triggers to be easy to meet, and the Browns want the bar to be higher than that.

But, as one league source pointed out to us, if Quinn and company are so focused on ensuring that he is paid a "fair" amount if/when he becomes the starting quarterback, is Quinn also willing to agree to reduce his future pay if he ends up being the next Ryan Leaf or Akili Smith or Cade McNown or Dan McGwire or David Klingler or Andre Ware or Tim Couch or any of the other first-round quarterbacks who got a bunch of money for, in the end, not much at all in return?

Probably not, because the player-friendly rookie compensation system never accounts for the fact that the first-round pick might be a first-class bust.

So, on one hand, Quinn and Condon want to tilt the field in their favor if Quinn becomes the starting quarterback (which most quarterbacks taken in round one are expected to do), and on the other hand they'd never agree to reduce future salaries figures if Quinn becomes the starter, but has a passer rating lower than his jersey number.

The system protects first-rounders from ever having to pay money back. So if Quinn wants to reap the benefit of that system in the event he never delivers as the Browns' quarterback, then Quinn should also respect that same system when formulating his demands.

Indy Colts Release Cory Simon and Michael DePriest - AP

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) -- The Indianapolis Colts released former Pro Bowl defensive tackle Corey Simon on Saturday.

Colts owner Jim Irsay said Wednesday that he expected to release the tackle within the next few days.

Simon did not pass his physical last weekend. He was expected to report to camp on time July 29 but was never seen at Rose Hulman Institute of Technology.

Simon did not play last year during the Colts' Super Bowl-winning season and was eventually placed on the non-football illness/injury list with an undisclosed ailment.

The Colts also waived rookie wide receiver Michael DePriest and placed tight end Mike Seidman on injured reserve with a knee injury. Seidman was signed this past spring after five seasons with Carolina.

Indianapolis also signed a pair of free agents, defensive end Noland Burchette and wide receiver Aaron Brown. Burchette is a 6-foot-2, 259-pound rookie defensive lineman who played at Virginia Tech. He was originally signed as an undrafted free agent by Atlanta.

Brown is a 6-3, 212-pound rookie who played at New Hampshire. He was originally signed as an undrafted free agent by Buffalo.

Michael Irvin, Bruce Matthews, Bob Hickerson, Thurman Thomas, Roger Wehrli Get In The Hall Of Fame

CANTON, Ohio (AP) -- The Pro Football Hall of Fame induction became a family affair Saturday night.

Michael Irvin lauded the Dallas Cowboys family for inspiring him to make it to Canton. Thurman Thomas asked his wife to marry him again. Charlie Sanders finally got to say "Hi Mom."

Bruce Matthews campaigned to have his brother, Clay, join him in the hall. Roger Wehrli praised the timing of his election because it allowed his grandchildren to share the special moment.

And Gene Hickerson's son, Bob, accepted on behalf of his father, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease. Then Gene was brought onto the stage in a wheelchair guided by former teammates Jim Brown, Leroy Kelly and Bobby Mitchell -- all running backs he helped get into the hall.

Irvin kissed his hall bust before he capped the riveting ceremony with preacher's intensity. His eyes wet, his words coming slowly and emphatically, he commended Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and fellow "Triplets" Emmitt Smith and Troy Aikman for motivating him. He saluted Cowboys fans, but saved his most moving tributes for the relatives who stuck with him through three Super Bowl wins and all the difficulties away from the field.

Irvin pleaded no contest to felony cocaine possession and was put on probation for four years after a March 1996 arrest. Police crashed Irvin's 30th birthday party and found him, marijuana, cocaine and strippers in a hotel room.

He subsequently had other incidents with police.

On Saturday, Irvin asked sons Michael, 10, and Elijah, 8, to stand before he recited the prayers he gives up for his sons.

"Help me raise them for their kids, so that they can be a better father than I," Irvin said. "I tell you guys to always do the right thing so you can be a better role model than dad.

"Look up, get up, but don't ever give up."

Thomas set a record by leading the NFL in total yards from scrimmage four consecutive seasons. The 1991 league MVP, he rushed for 12,074 yards in his career, and only all-time rushing leader Smith and Barry Sanders ran for more yards in the 1990s.

Thomas didn't kiss his bronze bust but rubbed the head when it was unveiled, and mentioned "it's really, really scary up here."

He later turned to wife Patti, seated in the crowd of 12,787, and asked if, after nearly 20 years together, she would marry him again.

Finally, Thomas saluted the thousands of Bills fans in the crowd.

"In closing, to the fans of Buffalo," he said to a huge cheer, "every guy that probably has stood here in all these Hall of Fame jackets and said they had the best fans supporting you, I am here to say that's hogwash. No fans are like my fans, Bills fans.

"It was a ride that none of us will ever forget. Unfortunately, we can't buy tickets for that ride again, but we will always have those memories."

Citing what he called a "simple but memorable life," Charlie Sanders entered the hall by thanking a mother he never knew -- she died when he was 2 years old.

Noting how players often mug for the camera and salute their mothers, a teary-eyed Sanders said: `I thought it was something that was always special and I would want to do, but couldn't. So I take this time, right here and right now, in Canton, Ohio, at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, to say, `Hi Mom.' "

To finish his speech, the tight end with the Detroit Lions from 1968-77 read from a poem, "The NFL: Just Passing Through," that he wrote in 1976.

"So give your all and nothing less, today we win, tomorrow we rest.

"You are not just my teammate, but my very best friend. Let's play together until the very end."

Sanders foreshadowed the era of pass-catching tight ends that spawned fellow Canton inductees Kellen Winslow and Dave Casper. As a rookie in 1968, he made 40 receptions for 533 yards, almost unheard-of numbers for his position. He was selected to the NFL's all-decade team of the 1970s.

"Charlie is what you look for today at that position. He was a pioneer," said Lions owner William Clay Ford, his presenter. Sanders, currently an executive with the team, has spent all 40 of his years in pro football with the Lions.

Bob Hickerson remembered his dad, who was too ill to sit on stage or speak, as "still leading the way for" Brown, Kelly and Mitchell. Then those three great runners turned things around by leading Hickerson onstage.

As a 248-pound guard, Hickerson played 15 seasons for the Browns, and Cleveland never had a losing record in that time. He made five straight All-Pro teams (1966-70) and in 1964 won the NFL championship.

"It's a tremendous honor and the crowning achievement of his career," Bob Hickerson said.

Hall of Famer Mike Munchak, who introduced his former on the offensive line-mate, lauded Matthews' "work ethic, competitiveness and passion for the game, which were contagious. He raised the standard for all of us."

Matthews' set an enviable standard for blockers. He played in more games than any positional player in NFL history, starting 292 of 296, and 15 playoff games. He had 99 starts at left guard, 67 on the right, 87 at center, 22 at right tackle, 17 at left tackle.

"Having your name mentioned with the all-time greats in the game is very humbling," he said.

Matthews also asked hall voters to consider electing his brother, former linebacker Clay Matthews.

Wehrli was a shutdown cornerback from 1969-82 who also excelled as a punt returner. He recovered a franchise record-tying 19 fumbles during his career and made the NFL's all-1970s team.

Wehrli was elected in his final year of eligibility with the regular selection committee.

"The Hall of Fame is never a given. I never for once took it for granted that I would be or should be here," Wehrli said. "I believe I was elected at this time of my life so my children ... and three grandchildren could be here and enjoy this, and remember something special about their grand dad."

Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

ABC Iowa Debates - ABC Commits Video Fraud

Calling for a "Vloggercot"

I just finished watching the ABC Iowa Republican Presidential Debate. You know the one. The one that claimed to be based around video submissions by people like you and me. The one that got everyone thinking that the top rated videos would be used? The one where it was reported that ABC News George Stephanopoulos would use the questions.

Well, they didn't do that.

ABC committed the most brazen act of video content fraud I've ever seen. They promoted this debate as driven by video questions submitted, then had people upload videos, set up a system to rank videos, then showed those videos in some order that in itself was questionable.

I submitted a video, but it was a recycled one from the YouTube debate that wasn't asked. But other video-bloggers like Newbievids made new videos for the ABC effort, then had to sit and watch as their great work was ignored.

ABC only picked two videos -- none were top-ranked. The first one was the typical, predictable, stereotypical blonde white female that a TV producer would select. Not even in the running at all, yet picked out of a hat.

ABC owes American an appology for this outrage in getting the vlogging community all worked up over nothing. ABC even sent an email stating this:

Thanks for submitting your video question for the candidates!

As you know, the deadline for submitting videos for the Republican
candidates is now closed.

ABC's George Stephanopoulos & his editorial staff are still reviewing
your insightful & articulate questions for Sunday's program.

Tune in to see if your question is picked! Check your local listings for
the scheduled airtime for the Special edition of "This Week with George
Stephanopoulos" this Sunday, August 5th.

Don't worry- you're role in ABC News' political coverage is *NOT* over:

We want to know your opinion of the forum. Did the candidates tackle the
issues? Specifically your issue? Are you satisfied with their answers to
the questions asked?

What is your reaction to the Republican debates?

Send in your video following Sunday's discussion and your new
contribution will have the opportunity to air in post-debate review &
analysis.

HOW TO SUBMIT VIDEOS:

1) Via cell phone
Record a 15-45 second clip and email it to: icaught@abcnews.go.com

2) Via the web:
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/BeSeenBeHeard/story?id=3446667

We hope you'll accept this new challenge!
~The ABC News 'Talk Back' Team

Oh. But that pales in comparison to this email from ABC:

"'TALK BACK' Team @ ABCNews"

More options Aug 3 (2 days ago)
Greetings from ABC News!

Thank you so much for taking the time to send ABC News your video
questions for the Republican Candidates!

Your videos have made the first-cut and are featured in our online
voting section of the 'iCaught- VOTE 2008" section of the website.

http://ugv.abcnews.go.com

We encourage you, your family, colleagues & friends to vote/rate
favorite questions & the highest rated videos will be a factor in George
Stephanopoulos' decision and also have the opportunity to be featured in
ABC News NOW's post-debate Spin room!

The deadline for voting is Saturday, August 4th @ midnight EDT.

Thanks again for your efforts & Good luck!

~The ABC News 'TalkBack' Team

ABC's next covering the Dems. Maybe we should send ABC a message and not submit any videos at all.

Hmm...

Commissioner Roger Goodell Visits Titans Training Camp

To the rave reviews of players like Al Haynesworth, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell visited Tennessee Titans training camp according to Sports Illustrated .

"He grabbed me right after the meeting and said he wanted to talk about the help he was getting," Goodell said during a ride to the airport with an Associated Press reporter. "He wanted me to know he was getting help for his problems. It was good to hear. You like to think that players who get in trouble can work on turning around their lives."

YearlyKos - Hillary Clinton Says She Takes Lobbyists' Money - Barack Obama Fires Back

Senator Hillary Clinton came to the Yearly Kos convention to be around some friends -- including the Daily Kos which has taken $5,000 in weekly ad revenues from her -- and annouced controversially that she takes money from lobbyists, saying they represent "real Americans."

Wow.

Tell that to the millions of Americans who can't afford health care because of the health care lobby that gives money to Senator Clinton. How is she supposed to reform the American health care system with this track record? Fortunately, Senator Barack Obama didn't let her brazen comments go without an excellent rebutal, one that sent the crowd into a frenzy. Think I'm kidding? Look at this video:



Since then, her comments are the talk of the Blogsphere and Vlogsphere, too. And the vast majority of them are not favorable, as can be seen by this Huffington Post article . I think we've reached a turning point here, and it may be that Senator Clinton's biggest campaign wound was self-inflicted. We're in an American where people seem to want a fair and level playing field for all, and the presence of lobbying money rings fowl to many today, as lobbyists are seen more as the reason problems persist, rather than the agents of change.

Finally, Senator Clinton said that her presence at the convention brought a dose of reality. Really? As if Bloggers are off in a fantasy world, I guess.

Will Yahoo! Buy Facebook? TechCrunch Report Points To This Possibility

Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch has posted a great article on Bear Stearns "suggestion" (I take it as a demand) that Yahoo establish a social networking function. His article seems to point to aquistion of Facebook. It seems Yahoo!'s playing catch up in two major areas: social networking and videos. And given the emergence of "plug-in" applications like the one SBS uses for its social network, the hole Yahoo! has to dig itself out of is getting deeper still.

I personally think Yahoo! needs to come up with the a next-generation web portal format. I know what they should do, but they'd have to pay me to tell them.

Oakland Journalist Chauncey Bailey In Memorial

I-35 Minneapolis Bridge Collapsing | America Ignored A $1 Billion Problem

This is the terrible result of an infrastructure problem that's been known for decades and has yet went unadressed and ignored -- perhaps until now.

Way back in 1999, we were warned :

"The American Society of Civil Engineers has released a Report Card for America's Infrastructure, assigning letter grades for the nation's public infrastructure and environment. The ASCE gave the U.S. an average grade of "D," and said it will require more than one trillion dollars and a new national public-private partnership to fix it."

The same one trillion that we're now spending on a needless war in Iraq.

2008 Presidential Election: ABC Debate Mistakes; Call Amanda Congdon!

ABC should enlist Amanda Congdon's help with videos and the debates

On August 5th, ABC will host it's 2008 Republican Debate called "The Iowa Debates." For the first time for ABC, it's allowing uploaded video questions, just as the CNN / YouTube Partnership has done.

Now you would think ABC -- in copying CNN -- would have a ton of videos by now, but not at all. So the obvious question is "Why?" The answer is basically simple, but the explaination behind it can become technical for those not in the web industry. Still, we can break it down like this: the website where videos are to be uploaded is terrible.

The first problem is that ABC failed to establish a relationship with a video distribution firm, if it ever tried to create on at all. In other words, leave the video distribution work to the specialists. Second, the website established to upload videos and respond to those already posted is faulty. One has to login to use it, which is no big deal, except the login itself doesn't work properly. Third, the upload system itself is tempermental and seems to struggle to capture your video. Now, when it does do so, it works like a charm.

The other problem is in responding to a comment on a video with a comment. When I try to do this, the system kicks me out, so I have to login again, and then get kicked out again. This has happened so much it's silly.

The other problem is that one could press the wrong link button and wind up at the ABC home page, which has no obvious link about the debate, but you can learn a lot about Grey's Anatomy!

All of this adds up to failure. ABC should have asked Amanda Congdon to help here, after all, she's on the ABC payroll and knows a thing or three about video distribution.

And the matter of Amanda brings up another grip I've got about ABC; they don't understand how to mate their online effort with their television activities. They're two separate worlds, and that's a serious mistake. Amanda should be ABC's bridge, between TV and Internet, but it's not happening, and my sense is that it's not her fault.

Who's minding the store over there at ABC? Well, here's my video on the matter...

ABC GOP 2008 Presidential Candidates Debate: ABC Has Just 27 Videos!

The CNN / YouTube Democratic Debate was a rousing success, with nearly 3,000 video submissions. None of this could have happened without a partnership with YouTube and the marketing of the event by CNN.

Supposedly not to be outdone, ABC's trying a simular effort and it's not going well. ABC to date and by my count on their website called i-CAUGHT, has just 27 videos uploaded in their system, and some of them are videos from the YouTube contest.

Americans Believe Other Americans Are Racist; Gay President OK, Muslims Terrorists, Republicans Warmongers - Zogby Poll

This is from the Zogby website, which you can visit with a click on the title of this post. It's their report card on prejudice and it's eye-opening. If racism's a mental illness, then it's the number one mental illness problem in America.

Report Card on Prejudice in America

New Zogby/GSN Survey Reveals That:

A Racist Lives Next Door - Most Americans believe they don’t make decisions based on race…but think their neighbors do
A gay President is OK, but most Americans wouldn’t sanction his or her marriage
They also think most Americans believe:

Republicans are most responsible for many of the world’s ills
Muslims are most likely to engage in terrorism
People least want to work with the morbidly obese

Most Americans believe their fellow citizens hold strong biases against minorities, according to a landmark poll by Zogby International commissioned by GSN. The survey of 10,387 American adults, one of the most comprehensive ever conducted on prejudice, according to Zogby, explores attitudes about race, religion, age, sexual orientation, gender, physical appearance, and politics. The poll’s margin of error is +/– 1 percentage point.

The “Report Card on American Prejudice” is part of a wide-ranging effort by GSN to spur a national dialogue on intolerance and bigotry. The survey’s release provides a powerful follow-up to the July 17th premiere of the groundbreaking new television series, “Without Prejudice?” – which airs Tuesdays at 9 pm (EST) on GSN.

On Race: While 67% of respondents claimed to have no preference themselves between a white, black or Arab clerk in a convenience store, 71% said, “most Americans” would seek out the white clerk. Just 1% said Americans’ first choice would be to approach a black clerk, while less than 0.5% said the same for an Arab clerk. And yet, ironically, 55% of respondents said race relations have improved over the past 10 years. Other results on race (where respondents picked from among several races):
73% said in the event of a shooting, most Americans would expect African Americans to be involved
55% said in the event of a drug bust, most Americans would expect African Americans to be involved
53% said in the event of identity theft; most Americans would expect whites to be involved
70% said in the event of insurance fraud, most Americans would expect whites to be involved
On Political Affiliation: When asked which political party most Americans believe to be responsible for many of the gravest problems facing the world:
War: 62% blamed Republicans vs. 14% Democrats
Global Warming: 56% blamed Republicans vs. 10% Democrats
Prejudice: 52% blamed Republicans vs. 22% for Democrats
Poverty: 49% held Republicans accountable; 29% Democrats
Corruption: 47% blamed Republicans vs. 31% Democrats
Crime: On this issue, respondents reversed the trend, with 42% blaming Democrats vs. 23% Republicans
On Religion: By a wide margin, respondents believe Americans think Muslims are the most likely to engage in terrorism (83%). Moreover, 42% believe Americans would be most concerned about their child dating a Muslim; followed by an atheist (17%), and a Mormon (14%).In addition:
37% believe Americans think Catholics are most likely to be involved in sexual abuse – far more than any other religious group
The poll turned up relatively few instances of Americans believing their neighbors have negative views toward Jews
On Sexual Orientation & Gender: 62% said they believe Americans oppose same-sex marriages. Yet 58% would elect a gay person for President – about the same as for an Arab-American (57%), and more than for a person over age 70 (51%), or for an atheist (51%). On gender, 93% think Americans believe men are most responsible for crime, extra-marital affairs (82%), and sexually transmitted diseases (72%).
On Disability: When asked to choose whom they believe most Americans would least want to work with, 26% of respondents said someone who is morbidly obese. Twenty-two percent said someone with a facial disfigurement. Respondents thought Americans would object much less to deaf (3%) and blind (1%) co-workers.
Pollster John Zogby said, “Over my years of polling, I’ve learned that Americans tend to offer socially acceptable responses when questioned on their own views about race and prejudice. That’s why in this poll we predominantly asked people about “most Americans’” views on race and prejudice. We believe this provides a far more accurate window into how people really think about these issues. Americans are more forthcoming when discussing the problem in the context of their neighbors’ lives than in the context of their own lives.”

Dena Kaplan, GSN’s Sr. Vice President for Marketing, said, “Our network is proud to sponsor the Without Prejudice Project. This pioneering effort – which includes the poll, partnering with leading advocacy groups, and the broadcast of our new game show, ’Without Prejudice?’ – will help provoke a constructive national conversation about our inner-most feelings toward race, religion and other issues that define the way we, as Americans, treat one another.”

Rupert Murdoch Wins His Bid for Dow Jones-WSJ - Wall Street Journal Now His

WSJ staff should thank Murdoch for saving what was becoming a stale publication.

Murdoch Wins His Bid for Dow Jones
Bancroft Family Agrees
To $5 Billion Offer
After Deal on Fees

By SARAH ELLISON and MATTHEW KARNITSCHNIG - WSJ

August 1, 2007 12:13 p.m.
A century of Bancroft-family ownership at Dow Jones & Co. is over.

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. sealed a $5 billion agreement to purchase the publisher of The Wall Street Journal after three months of drama in the controlling family and public debate about journalistic values.

One of the oldest and best-known franchises in the newspaper industry, beset in recent years by business pressures, now enters a new era as part of a world-wide media conglomerate. The 76-year-old Mr. Murdoch, whose properties range from the Fox television network to the Times of London, negotiated hard to win the paper he long coveted. He has promised to invest more in Dow Jones journalism.

The Bancrofts worried about protecting the reputation of the Journal, the nation's second-largest newspaper. They feared Mr. Murdoch would meddle in the paper's editorial affairs and import the brand of sensationalist journalism found in some of his properties such as the New York Post. Some Bancrofts sought other buyers.

But ultimately, Mr. Murdoch's $60-a-share bid -- a 67% premium above Dow Jones's share price when it became public -- was the only serious offer on the table. Key family members, spurred by Dow Jones's board and advisers, decided they had no choice.

"On the one hand it is quite sad, but on the other it was the only reasonable thing to do," said Elisabeth Goth Chelberg, a Bancroft family member who unsuccessfully tried a decade ago to get the family more involved in management. "Now I look forward to a better Dow Jones. It's going to have more money and a world presence and all of the things that it could have and should have had but didn't."


Opponents of the deal called it a dark day for journalism. Leslie Hill, a family member who opposed the deal, resigned as a Dow Jones director late Tuesday afternoon. In a letter to the board, she conceded the deal was a good one in financial terms, but said it failed to outweigh "the loss of an independent global news organization with unmatched credibility and integrity."

In an increasingly pinched landscape for newspaper companies, the alternative to selling was a future fraught with risk -- in particular, that deep cost cuts would be needed to prop up the stock price and make up for dwindling advertising.

For every person who argued that the News Corp. takeover threatens Dow Jones's reputation for quality, someone else insisted that Mr. Murdoch's deep pockets and strategic know-how could turn around its prospects. Mr. Murdoch said Tuesday in an interview that he might add four pages of news a day to the Journal.

Family's Attention

"The money got [the family's] attention and enforced their consideration of reality," said Peter Kreisky, a media consultant. "It focused the minds of the family and the board on how difficult it would be to maintain the newspaper in the long term as an independent entity."

The company's offer received support from Bancroft family members holding about 37% of Dow Jones's voting power, more than half of the family's total voting stake of 64.2%. When added to the 29% of Dow Jones's voting stock held by public shareholders -- most of which is expected to go in News Corp.'s favor -- that support gives Mr. Murdoch enough to win a full shareholder vote comfortably. The vote is likely to be held later this year.

News Corp.'s board signed off on the deal at a brief late-afternoon meeting. After the approval, top executives and advisers broke out glasses for a toast. They were served an Australian Shiraz.

The Bancroft family has controlled Dow Jones since 1902. While Dow Jones accounts for less than half the family's fortune of roughly $2.5 billion, the company had long been the Bancrofts' source of pride and prestige. Dow Jones was also the main glue holding together the family, which today consists of nearly three dozen adult members scattered across the globe. Some deliberated on the offer from vacation destinations around the world, including China, Spain, the Austrian Alps and waters off the coast of Corsica.

Their bonds were tested during the debate over the deal. Cousins and siblings were pitted against one another. Parents fought their children.

In the days leading up to the deal, the stress was severe. Just hours before a Monday deadline for the family to vote on the transaction, William Cox Jr., the only living Bancroft who spent his entire career at the company, went into a diabetic shock. He was briefly admitted to a hospital in Massachusetts, where he summers on Nantucket, before returning home, according to relatives.


The final vote tally followed a last-minute scramble by Dow Jones's board and the family's advisers to win over holdouts. Most of the family's shares are held in a series of trusts. News Corp. had won support from shareholders owning only about 25% of voting power by Monday afternoon, shortly before a deadline for votes set by the family's adviser. That crept up to 28% by Monday evening and then topped 30% Tuesday morning, as a collection of small trusts threw their support behind the deal.

M. Peter McPherson, Dow Jones's nonexecutive chairman, personally called resistant family trustees in Boston and Denver to remind them of the risks they were taking in opposing the deal, according a person who was briefed on the calls.

The shareholder making a decisive swing was a group of Bancroft family trusts overseen by a Denver law firm holding 9.1% of Dow Jones's voting shares. The firm, Holme Roberts & Owen, had been holding out for a higher offer from News Corp. -- a request repeatedly rejected by Mr. Murdoch. The Denver trusts pushed other Bancroft family trusts to hold out for more money, at least for the holders of Class B supervoting shares. These shares, which have 10 times the voting power of Class A shares, are mostly held by the Bancrofts. But when some Boston-based trusts consented to a News Corp. deal late Monday, the Denver trustees lost much of their bargaining power.

Dow Jones's board had rejected the request for a higher price for Class B shareholders. Instead, what emerged from the talks was a deal under which Dow Jones agreed to pay the family's legal and banking bills. News Corp. will assume these liabilities when it buys Dow Jones. The family's fees, to be paid to firms including Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and the law firms Hemenway & Barnes and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, could total at least $30 million, according to people familiar with the situation. That figure doesn't include fees incurred by the Dow Jones board, which had its own advisers.


The payment serves as a modest sweetener for the Bancrofts. When spread out over the family's 16.5 million Class B shares, the $30 million equals an additional $1.81 a share, a roughly 3% increase for the family. Family members would otherwise have had to bear these fees out of their own pockets, effectively bringing their take below $60 a share.

James H. Ottaway, whose family controls 7% of Dow Jones's voting power, called the fees "outrageous." In a statement, the outspoken opponent of a News Corp. deal said: "It is ironic indeed for the Bancroft family to have to pay 30 shekels of silver to their investment bankers, and 30 shekels of gold to their corporate lawyers, for scaring some of them into betraying their 105-year family loyalty to Dow Jones independence." (See full statement.)

Division of the spoils among the advisers promises to create another fight. Merrill Lynch is expecting to receive an $18.5 million fee, according to a person familiar with its plans. Wachtell Lipton's hoped-for fee is expected to be somewhere near $10 million, said one family member, with a host of other fees for a group of lawyers and bankers advising various Bancroft branches.

Christopher Bancroft, one of the most outspoken family opponents of a deal, said that his fiduciary responsibilities required him to vote against any deal not in the best interests of the family and the company. He has called the offer a bad deal for Dow Jones, arguing it undervalues the company's potential. "As a trustee, I could not roll over," he said. Mr. Bancroft, a Dow Jones board member, didn't attend the board meeting to approve the deal.

In an effort to sweeten his victory, Mr. Murdoch telephoned Mr. Bancroft, according to people familiar with the matter. During the call, Mr. Bancroft agreed to abstain from voting on the family's biggest trust -- the so-called Article 3 trust with 13.2% voting power -- in return for written assurance that News Corp. would pay for all family expenses, including personal attorney fees for Mr. Bancroft and other family members. But Dow Jones's board later refused to endorse the proposal, and it appeared that trust rules wouldn't allow him to abstain.

Delicate Situation

Mr. Bancroft's cousin, Jane Cox MacElree, who also opposed the deal, faced a delicate situation because she was a trustee of some trusts whose beneficiaries favored the deal. Ms. MacElree ended up resigning from some trusts -- deferring to her relatives and shielding herself against potential liability -- while voting the Class B shares she owned against the deal.

Some on Wall Street were surprised that the family wasn't able to squeeze out a higher bid from Mr. Murdoch. By the rituals of Wall Street deal making, a buyer's first offer is almost never the final price agreed to in a transaction -- although Mr. Murdoch's first offer in this case represented an unusually generous premium.

Mr. Murdoch was able to hold his ground because he faced no serious rival -- although some of the nation's largest corporations and wealthiest men took a look over the past three months. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett and Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates were approached by a family representative to gauge their interest. Both declined to bid.

Several big companies tried to join together to meet the $60 bid, including General Electric Co., which at various points attempted to form a group with Microsoft, IAC/InterActiveCorp's Barry Diller, and Pearson PLC, owner of the Financial Times. Pearson weighed a separate plan, under which it would have contributed the Financial Times to Dow Jones in exchange for stock, according to a person familiar with the situation. But none of these arrangements got off the ground.

Nor did efforts by the union that represents some of Dow Jones's employees to join forces with a California supermarket magnate get much traction. Internet entrepreneur Brad Greenspan tried to put together investors, but fell short of making an offer for the whole company.


WSJ's Dennis Berman comments on whether the Journal's credibility can be maintained, and how the Bancroft family got caught up in the Wall Street deal machine.
Even some who had initially declared firm opposition to the bid softened over time. On the weekend of July 21-22, Bancroft family member Martha Robes hosted former Dow Jones chairman and CEO Peter R. Kann and his family at her house in Maine to celebrate Mr. Kann's retirement. At the gathering, Ms. Robes and her family gave Mr. Kann a handmade green wooden rowboat named "Joy" and a puzzle that depicts various aspects of his life, including a newspaper, a typewriter and a golf cart, according to people familiar with the matter. (Mr. Kann famously crashed a golf cart at a Dow Jones retreat years ago.)

At the gathering, these people say, Mr. Kann, who had been a long-time champion of Dow Jones's independence, told attendees that given the family's divisions, he could see the arguments for a deal with Mr. Murdoch. Some family members saw his comments as permission to vote for the deal, these people said.

Other family members exchanged impassioned views by email and phone about missed opportunities and the family's shortcomings. One supporter of a deal, Crawford Hill, told his relatives in a nearly 4,000-word email that it was time for "reality check."

In a statement early Wednesday, Dow Jones said it expects the deal to close in the fourth quarter, but didn't give a date for the shareholder vote. Mr. Murdoch's advisers suggest shareholder approval is a fait accompli. With family members contributing about 37% voting power to support the deal, News Corp. must still win over the remaining shareholders, who control 29% of Dow Jones's voting power.

News Corp. anticipates that about 80% of these shareholders will vote for the deal, meaning another 23% in support of the transaction -- or about 60% approval overall.

That leaves a slim opportunity for the remaining shareholders to threaten to withhold support with hopes of getting a higher price, as happened in recent takeover fights at Clear Channel Communications Inc. That could be why the company sought a greater margin of support from the family as the process entered its last days.

News Corp. will need to get regulatory approval for the deal, although Mr. Murdoch has said he doesn't expect that to be an issue. Assuming the deal is approved, closing could take place by the end of the year.

The deal raises questions about the future of some senior Dow Jones executives, including Chief Executive Richard Zannino. Once Dow Jones becomes a subsidiary of News Corp., Mr. Zannino may eventually move on.

Severance Packages

Some top executives may be eligible for big severance packages once the sale is completed. Dow Jones implemented change-in-control provisions for more than 100 top managers in early June, a month after the bid was made. Mr. Zannino stands to receive some $19 million if he loses his job or has his duties cut after a change in control.

Mr. Murdoch has argued that The Wall Street Journal will be able to take advantage of News Corp. synergies to gain ground in Europe and Asia, take on national rivals in political coverage.

While he has been vilified for years in the media over issues ranging from union-busting to sensationalist journalism, he has always showed a thick skin, secure in his belief that his critics are antibusiness elitists. Still, the drama preceding the sale of Dow Jones exposed him to unprecedented scrutiny and often harsh criticism.

Now Mr. Murdoch must persuade some factions of Dow Jones's newsrooms, and outside critics, that he will act responsibly as he weighs changes to the Journal and other Dow Jones publications.

In letter to readers, Journal Publisher L. Gordon Crovitz wrote, "The same standards of accuracy, fairness and authority will apply to this publication, regardless of ownership."

News Corp. agreed as part of the deal to invite one Bancroft family representative onto its board of directors and to create a committee to protect Dow Jones's journalistic independence. The committee members are slated to be Louis D. Boccardi, retired CEO of the Associated Press; Nicholas Negroponte, co-founder of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab; Jack Fuller, former president of Tribune Publishing; Jennifer Blackburn Dunn, a former congresswoman from Washington state; and Thomas Bray, the former editorial-page editor of the Detroit News and a writer for OpinionJournal.com. Mr. Bray will be chairman.

--Dennis K. Berman, Susan Warren and Susan Pulliam contributed to this article.

Taliban Kill Second Korean Hostage Shim Sung Min

I placed this as a reminder that other countries face the same problems as the US with respect to terrorism. In this case, it's Korea. Regardless of the country, the story of innocent lives being impacted is the same.

Taliban Kill Second Korean Hostage

Taliban killed another Korean hostage in Afghanistan after the latest deadline for negotiations expired on Monday. Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, a purported spokesman for the Taliban, told the Chosun Ilbo, AFP and AP by phone, “'Finally tonight at 8:30, we killed one of the Koreans named Sung Sim with AK-47 gunshots.” He claimed the armed group also killed one German hostage.

The victim is presumed to be Shim Sung-min. The body of the hostage had been dumped in the Qarabagh district of the southern province of Ghazni, Ahmadi said. Shim is the second Korean killed by the militants after the Rev. Bae Hyung-kyu, who died last Wednesday. Shim recently quit his job and was preparing to go to an agricultural graduate school. He had told Japanese broadcaster NHK by phone on Sunday that he was with three hostages but did not know where.



Prior to the killing, the militants extended the deadline by four hours, saying that the Taliban leadership council, the group’s supreme decision-making body, would then decide on the fate of the hostages unless the Afghan government free Taliban prisoners in exchange for the Korean captives.

Fifty minutes after the initial deadline passed, a man who claimed to be a Taliban commander told the Afghan Islamic Express by phone that negotiations had failed completely and they would shortly kill Korean hostages. Ahmadi had earlier told AP, “It might be a man or a woman...We may kill one, we may kill two, we may kill one of each (gender), two of each, four of each,” unless Taliban prisoners were released.

Arabic news channel Al Jazeera reported that Afghan and U.S. forces were gathering near a highway where the Koreans were kidnapped.

Meanwhile, Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai is to meet U.S. President George W. Bush at the presidential retreat Camp David on Aug. 5 and 6.

(englishnews@chosun.com )

Wall Street Journal Agreement Expected This Evening

According to CNBC , the Bancrofts and News Corp are expected to reach an agreement for News Corp to own the Wall Street Journal.

S.I.'s Michael Silver On Bill Walsh's Genius - The Passing Of Bill Walsh

Early in his coaching tenure with the San Francisco 49ers, before he turned a long-suffering franchise into the greatest organization in professional sports, Bill Walsh once cut a player on the practice field.

Enraged by a cheap shot, Walsh fired the player -- who, to be fair, was not one of the team's major contributors -- right there on the spot, ordering a member of the security staff to escort him out of the building. To underscore his point, Walsh trailed behind as the two men trudged toward the locker room, screaming, "Don't even let him f----- shower!"

This was Walsh, who died today at 75 after a long bout with leukemia, at his most ruthless. Yet there was a calculated brilliance behind his brashness: After he took over in 1979, no Niner dared cross the new man in charge.

Nearly a decade later, as he was losing his grip after having completed the most impressive NFL coaching run since Vince Lombardi's in Green Bay, Walsh sometimes directed his enmity toward members of the local media. He was equal parts paranoid and condescending, and when he stepped down following his third Super Bowl title in January 1989, there wasn't a whole lot of sentimental sadness in either the press room or the locker room.

A few months later, I began covering the team as a beat writer for a Northern California paper, and the horror stories about Walsh's final days circulated with abandon. But he and I hit it off from the start, and over the next 17-plus years, whether I sought his opinion as a television analyst, as the progenitor of an offensive philosophy and unmatched tree of executive and coaching excellence, as a reinstalled Stanford mentor who'd just toyed with Joe Paterno, or a personnel guru who temporarily brought the 49ers back to prominence, he was invariably wise, witty and kind.

When people would ask about my relationship with the white-haired legend, I used to respond jokingly -- well, maybe half-jokingly -- that he and I bonded based on our shared belief of an unassailable tenet: Bill Walsh was a genius.

It wasn't that far from the truth. Growing up in L.A. as an oft-humiliated fan of the hometown Rams' chief rivals, I spent my high-school years watching in awe as Walsh transformed a 49ers team that went 2-14 his first year and 6-10 his second into a first-time champion in his third.

Because of Walsh, the franchise of a thousand choke jobs was now led by a cool, magical quarterback named Joe Montana, whose passes were as picturesque as the Golden Gate Bridge in heavy fog.

Because of Walsh, a group of young hellions led by Ronnie Lott took over a malleable defense that suddenly played with dash and defiance.

Because of Walsh and his innovative offensive schemes, receivers were five yards open, a 10th-round draft pick named Dwight Clark would become an All-Pro and Bay Area legend, and a washed-up running back named Lenvil Elliott would gain many of the key yards on the dramatic drive that produced The Catch.

On a more personal level, because of Walsh, I could wear my ratty, way-too-small 49ers jersey to school on Jan. 11, 1982, and for the first time in my life no one would dare laugh.

So, yes, after I started covering the Niners and thus stopped loving them like a gushy teenager, I was predisposed to think pretty highly of Walsh. But the more I learned of him -- and from him -- the greater my appreciation became.

In an era in which many head coaches callously prohibit their assistants from talking to the media (and, by extension, hurt their profiles and potential for attracting the interests of other employers), Walsh did the opposite, vigorously promoting the virtues of the coaches who worked under him through the press and back-channel diplomacy. This was especially true when it came to minority coaching candidates. Indeed, undoing racial injustices when it came to such hires remained one of Walsh's primary causes long after he stepped away.

Remember that in early January 1989, shortly before Walsh resigned as the Niners' coach, his receivers coach, Denny Green, got the Stanford job -- largely on the strength of his boss's recommendation. Walsh's reaction in the midst of a tense playoff drive? He essentially allowed Green to become the Cardinal's fulltime coach while filling in with the Niners whenever time allowed.

It's not surprising that, unlike Jimmy Johnson and other successful NFL head coaches whose assistants turned out to be substandard bosses, Walsh saw his legacy carried on directly (George Seifert, Mike Holmgren, Ray Rhodes, Green) and indirectly (Mike Shanahan, Jeff Fisher, Jon Gruden). It was Walsh, after all, who not only revolutionized football strategy with the West Coast Offense, but who also created the organizational blueprint for the modern franchise, from the down-to-the-precise-minute daily schedule to the filming of practices and play-installation meetings.

Give me an hour, and I can go on and on about the other areas in which Walsh made a lasting impact, including his insistence on cutting prominent players a year before their decline, rather than after it, all things being equal. Critics might call this another example of his ruthlessness, and some victims of the policy, such as Clark, would hold a longtime grudge.

But if you paid attention to the 49ers, you eventually understood that Walsh knew best, for he -- more than even Lott or Montana or Jerry Rice or owner Eddie DeBartolo -- was the man most responsible for the franchise's unprecedented run of excellence that included five Super Bowl championships in 14 years.

Manipulative as he might have been -- like all great coaches, really -- Walsh boldly strove for excellence and wasn't averse to risking everything while doing so. Every move he made was meant to create or sustain a dynasty, from the 1987 trade for Steve Young, that triggered a years-long quarterback controversy, to his persuading of Montana, Clark and other veterans not to cross the picket line during the '87 players' strike for fear of the damage to team chemistry it might cause (they nonetheless returned the following week).

As that strike reminded us, Walsh was a tactician whose brilliance shone behind-the-scenes and, most glaringly, on Sundays in front of a rapt, football-watching nation.

Playing his first game with replacement players against the Bill Parcells-coached Giants on Monday Night Football, Walsh, during interviews with the New York media, made a big deal about the presence on the roster of backup quarterback Mark Stevens, who'd run the option in college. Stevens, Walsh suggested, might be inserted in specific situations in which the Phony Niners could utilize his speed and running ability.

Sure enough, before a short-yardage play near midfield, Stevens came sprinting into the huddle, and everyone waited to see Walsh unveil his new toy. The bait successfully lowered, Stevens took the snap, faked a handoff, dropped back in the pocket and calmly delivered a touchdown pass to a wide-open receiver.

On one level, the whole thing was kind of coldblooded. It was also funny and sublime and, yes, genius. That was Bill Walsh, and those of us who got to observe him up close will remember him that way until we, too, are told to disappear without showering.

Something To Share About Coach Bill Walsh - Zennie Abraham

I only met Coach Walsh three times, and on every occasion he always referred to me as "Lenny" rather than "Zennie" but he never refused to take time to talk to me about his system, and I was into the details of it, like the "hitch step" for example, which is simply the extra step a QB takes just before throwing, and the concept of throwing without a hitch step, which is hard as hell to do -- try it yourself.

The point is that he would always share.

But what really rankled me -- and still does today -- is how many people, reporters, incorrectly describe "The Walsh System." It's always "short, ball control" and left at that.

That's so wrong.

Yes, that was a part of it. But man, that wasn't even the difference. It was the way of thinking.

To illustrate how different Coach Walsh's system was, let me compare it to the Dallas Cowboys passing game concept under Coach Tom Landry.

The Cowboys were known for passing plays that essentially "pulled" a defense into a particular direction and then took advantage of how the defense deployed itself as a result.

For example, one of the most successful plays the Cowboys ran in the 70s -- when Walsh was developing his ideas -- came out of split backs or "Red or Green Formation." The Flanker went in half motion toward the tight-end, and then
released at the snap of the ball.

The play started as a "sweep" running play, with both guards pulling, the fullback lead blocking and the halfback running. Then the QB would fake a handoff to the halfback, and then look down field.

The Flanker who went in motion toward the tight end then ran a crossing pattern 15 - 20 yards. Meanwhile the Split End ran a kind of "mirror" crossing pattern. The offensive play caused both safeties in a standard Cover Two -- which is what the Pittsburgh Steelers played at the time -- to essentially go deep and move wider apart, leaving the Flanker all alone on the crossing route.

That play worked in Super Bowl X, where Drew Pearson caught a 47-yard touchdown pass. But it failed to work later in the same game because Steelers safety Mike Wagner didn't move deep. When Split End Doug Donley ran his crossing pattern, Wagner stayed home rather than move deep or follow him.

The result was an interception, which surprised Dallas QB Roger Staubach -- "It was the first time it didn't work" Staubach remarked later.

Well, let's think about it. That play was designed to throw to one -- and only one -- receiver, the Flanker. The Split End was a decoy and the tight end wasn't even a factor in the play -- the running backs were strictly used for run fakes and then forgotten about.

Coach Walsh's offense didn't have so many decoys. And in his offense, there was always another receiver to go to. It was flexible, which was new at the time. It was so new that Paul Hackett, who was Coach Walsh's QB coach and passing game student, was hired as Offensive Coordinator by the Cowboys under Landry in '83 I believe. It didn't work out because Hackett's learned idea of flexibility conflicted with the "fixed" philosophy Landry held. So Landry was an example of many
coaches who didn't "get" what Bill was doing at the time.

How would Coach Walsh have changed that play? Ha. The fullback that is the lead blocker would have ran an "up" pattern off the run block fake. The Halfback would have ran a swing pattern after the sweep fake.

The Flanker's crossing pattern would remain. The Split End would have ran a fly pattern. So the order of recever progression would have been 1) Split End, 2) Flanker, 3) Fullback, 4) Halfback (hot receiver). The key read would have been the weak (free) safety. The Split End was essentially clearing out for the Flanker, who was clearing out for the fullback.

See?

That's not just an example of how Coach Walsh would have done it, it's an example of how his way is so basic and logical that it can be shown to a guy like me, and I can repeat it with confidence.

That's a pure tribute to the man.

But what I will most miss, Ray, is Coach Walsh as a member of the Bay Area sports community -- don't forget the impact he had on the Big Game rivalry.

You know, we're blessed to be around so many great people in one area of America. What a sad day. I was at JFK Airport in New York when I got the news Monday. The plane ride home -- from CNN -- was hard, so very hard. Reading Coach Dungy's book "Quiet Strength" helped some -- a good book by a great man who -- as one might expect -- was touched
by Coach Walsh.

49ers and Stanford Coach Bill Walsh Passes Away - NFL.com

Hall of Fame coach Bill Walsh dies
NFL.com wire reports

SAN FRANCISCO (July 30, 2007) -- Bill Walsh, the groundbreaking football coach who won three Super Bowls and perfected the ingenious schemes that became known as the West Coast offense during a Hall of Fame career with the San Francisco 49ers, has died. He was 75.

Walsh died at his Woodside home following a long battle with leukemia, according to Stanford University, where he served as coach and athletic director.

"This is just a tremendous loss for all of us, especially to the Bay Area because of what he meant to the 49ers," said Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Montana, the player most closely linked to Walsh's tenure with the team. "For me personally, outside of my dad he was probably the most influential person in my life. I am going to miss him."

Walsh didn't become an NFL head coach until 47, and he spent just 10 seasons on the San Francisco sideline. But he left an indelible mark on the United States' most popular sport, building the once-woebegone 49ers into the most successful team of the 1980s with his innovative offensive strategies and teaching techniques.

The soft-spoken native Californian also produced a legion of coaching disciples that's still growing today. Many of his former assistants went on to lead their own teams, handing down Walsh's methods and schemes to dozens more coaches in a tree with innumerable branches.

Walsh went 102-63-1 with the 49ers, winning 10 of his 14 postseason games along with six division titles. He was named the NFL's coach of the year in 1981 and 1984.

Few men did more to shape the look of football into the 21st century. His cerebral nature and often-brilliant stratagems earned him the nickname "The Genius" well before his election to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1993.

Walsh twice served as the 49ers' general manager, and George Seifert led San Francisco to two more Super Bowl titles after Walsh left the sideline. Walsh also coached Stanford during two terms over five seasons.


Bill Walsh turned the struggling 49ers into the Team of the '80s.
Even a short list of Walsh's adherents is stunning. Seifert, Mike Holmgren, Dennis Green, Sam Wyche, Ray Rhodes and Bruce Coslet all became NFL head coaches after serving on Walsh's San Francisco staffs, and Tony Dungy played for him. Most of his former assistants passed on Walsh's structures and strategies to a new generation of coaches, including Mike Shanahan, Jon Gruden, Brian Billick, Andy Reid, Pete Carroll, Gary Kubiak, Steve Mariucci and Jeff Fisher.

Walsh created the Minority Coaching Fellowship program in 1987, helping minority coaches to get a foothold in a previously lily-white profession. Marvin Lewis and Tyrone Willingham are among the coaches who went through the program, later adopted as a league-wide initiative.

He also helped to establish the World League of American Football -- what was NFL Europe -- in 1994, taking the sport around the globe as a development ground for the NFL.

Walsh was diagnosed with leukemia in 2004 and underwent months of treatment and blood transfusions. He publicly disclosed his illness in November 2006, but appeared at a tribute for retired receiver Jerry Rice two weeks later.

While Walsh recuperated from a round of chemotherapy in late 2006, he received visits from former players and assistant coaches, as well as California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Born William Ernest Walsh on Nov. 30, 1931 in Los Angeles, he was a self-described "average" end and a sometime boxer at San Jose State in 1952-53.

Walsh, whose family moved to the Bay Area when he was a teen-ager, married his college sweetheart, Geri Nardini, in 1954 and started his coaching career at Washington High School in Fremont, leading the football and swim teams.

Walsh was coaching in Fremont when he interviewed for an assistant coaching position with Levy, who had just been hired as the head coach at California.

"I was very impressed, individually, by his knowledge, by his intelligence, by his personality and hired him," Levy said.

After Cal, he did a stint at Stanford before beginning his pro coaching career as an assistant with the AFL's Oakland Raiders in 1966, forging a friendship with Al Davis that endured through decades of rivalry. Walsh joined the Cincinnati Bengals in 1968 to work for legendary coach Paul Brown, who gradually gave complete control of the Bengals' offense to his assistant.

Walsh built a scheme based on the teachings of Davis, Brown and Sid Gillman -- and Walsh's own innovations, which included everything from short dropbacks and novel receiving routes to constant repetition of every play in practice.

Though it originated in Cincinnati, it became known many years later as the West Coast offense -- a name Walsh never liked or repeated, but which eventually grew to encompass his offensive philosophy and the many tweaks added by Holmgren, Shanahan and other coaches.

Much of the NFL eventually ran a version of the West Coast in the 1990s, with its fundamental belief that the passing game can set up an effective running attack, rather than the opposite conventional wisdom.

Walsh also is widely credited with inventing or popularizing many of the modern basics of coaching, from the laminated sheets of plays held by coaches on almost every sideline, to the practice of scripting the first 15 offensive plays of a game.

After a bitter falling-out with Brown in 1976, Walsh left for stints with the San Diego Chargers and Stanford before the 49ers chose him to rebuild the franchise in 1979.

The long-suffering 49ers went 2-14 before Walsh's arrival. They repeated the record in his first season. Walsh doubted his abilities to turn around such a miserable situation -- but earlier in 1979, the 49ers drafted quarterback Joe Montana from Notre Dame.

Walsh turned over the starting job to Montana in 1980, when the 49ers improved to 6-10 -- and improbably, San Francisco won its first championship in 1981, only two years after winning two games.

Championships followed in the postseasons of 1984 and 1988 as Walsh built a consistent winner and became an icon with his inventive offense and thinking-man's approach to the game. He also showed considerable acumen in personnel, adding Ronnie Lott, Charles Haley, Roger Craig and Rice to his rosters after he was named the 49ers' general manager in 1982 and the president in 1985.

Walsh left the 49ers with a profound case of burnout after his third Super Bowl victory in January 1989, though he later regretted not coaching longer.

He spent three years as a broadcaster with NBC before returning to Stanford for three seasons. He then took charge of the 49ers' front office in 1999, helping to rebuild the roster over three seasons. But Walsh gradually cut ties with the 49ers after his hand-picked successor as GM, Terry Donahue, took over in 2001.

He is survived by his wife, Geri, and two children, Craig and Elizabeth.

Walsh's son, Steve, an ABC News reporter, died of leukemia at age 46 in 2002.

1-18-08 - Monster Movie Not Godzilla: J.J. Abrams' Cloverfield

In this video taken at the San Diego Comic-Con, J.J. Abrams, the producer of the upcoming " Cloverfield " movie does say that the movie is not a Godzilla remake. He explains that he was in Japan with his son and in buying toys considered that America really doens't have its own terrible giant monster, with the exception of King Kong.

This movie's going to change that.

He also gives some updates -- real good updates -- about Star Trek XI

New York Jets Training Camp Video - Jets Confidential

It's the start of training camp and the first football games of preseason are not far away. While in New York for my CNN appearance, I went to New York Jets Training Camp with my good friend and business buddy Bill Chachkes. In this video we get a glimpse of the Jets passing offense, Chad Pennington, and an interview with Dan Leberfeld of Jets Confidential