Dome Pondering

After the lights were shut off for the last time on September 21st, 2008 in Yankee Stadium, many have reported and reminisced on the history of the historic stadium. It's been written and talked about everywhere. The perfect games. The legendary players. The Papal visits. The football games. The big fights. The world series games. Yankee stadium was the stadium. And like many, yours truly will be sad to see the stadium at 161st and River Avenue go. It was a place that I too grew up with. There were many, many games in the early nineties watching a putrid Yankee team, yet rooting for my favorites in Mike Stanley, Jimmy Key and my main man, Don Mattingly. There were many arguments of how much the Yankees were going to miss Roberto Kelly (Only to be replaced by some guy named Paul O'neil). Getting excited about Kevin Maas. Experiencing Derek Jeter replacing Tony Fernandez...and watching him grow over the years. Accepting that Kevin Maas was not the guy. The surprise of the 1995 s...

With all the problems that face this great nation moving forward into a new presidency, Monday, September 15th, 2008, added yet another to the growing list. Lehman Brothers. Meryll Lynch. Never before have financial and investment banks become as popular as they have in the last 48 hours with the United States market and fiscal atmosphere continuing to crumble. An atmosphere that includes a wacked housing market, a shattered credit market, an unemployment rate nearing six percent, a Meryll Lynch buyout, AIG borrowing over forty billion, and The Lehman Brothers becoming another paragraph in Chapter 11, the next presidential regime has as big of a financial problem since President Roosevelt on the heels of the depression. Oh yeah, lest we not forget Hurricane Ike, the damage that it has done, the cost of relief, and the impact on the American oil and energy refineries. However, in this race for the White House, we continue to see the typical political "strategies" played out b...

Don Haskins. 38 Seasons with the University of Texas-El Paso. 719-353 record. Seven Western Athletic Conference Titles. 1 National Title. With all those accolades, many still know him as the coach from the Disney movie and his biography, Glory Road as well as his famous decision to start five blacks against Kentucky University in the 1966 NCAA Championship game. The title, very fitting for the biography and movie, as Don Haskins led a life of glory: One of simplicity and truth. Haskins was a man of respect, honor, and integrity as he represented and expected the same qualities in and from others that he held for himself. He did so without discrimination of gender, color, race, creed, nationality or anything else society attempts to divide itself with. In a time when discrimination and segregation was as thick as the Texas heat he enjoyed, Haskins turned a small school in south Texas into an NCAA powerhouse through hard work, sacrifice, and what was then considered, controversial recru...