Bird’s Eye View of the Texas Horse Park

This would be Glenn snapping some pictures of the soon to be built Texas Horse Park. We were given a tour in a helicopter. The group is close to reaching its million dollar goal, which would put it on track for breaking ground in fall 2011. I’ll have a more comprehensive recap later.

Isn’t It Pretty What a Town Without Football Can Do?

Meet Brock, Texas. Nestled in Parker County, it should worship at the foot of football (if footballs had feet. Which they don’t. That would be weird. But roll with me, k?), but it does not have a football program.

Not only does it not have one, it doesn’t want it. As the Star-Telegram’s Bud Kennedy tells it, they’ve voted. Twice. Both times it was about 60% against, 40% for. And the town is apparently not the only one in Texas to not field a football team.

Now, me? I love me some football. I cannot wait until Fall, when the air gets cooler (sometimes) and you take your place on the bleachers and yell yourself hoarse on a Friday night, only to repeat the yelling (with obscenities, this time) on Saturday when you watch your favorite NCAA team play.

But the schools mentioned in Kennedy’s piece say not having the football program has allowed the students and teachers to focus on academics. But I do have to wonder – does this make some of the other schools with both powerhouse football teams and academic excellence (say, Highland Park for example), the exception to the rule, or just proof that it depends on the community, the school and the students?

Leading Off (5/12/10)

1. In 1983, a man named Billy Allen killed two people in University Park. Largely based on the dying words of one of the victims, Billy Frederick Allen went to prison for the crime. But a different Billy Allen, a Billy Wayne Allen, might actually have done the deed. And now the DA intends to retry the case. I think this one’s pretty obvious, though. History has shown us that Wayne is the middle name of evildoers, has it not?

2. This story drives me nuts for the details it omits. Three people were shot in Pleasant Grove when a huge fight broke out during the filming of a video for which 1,000 people had gathered. A VIDEO OF WHAT? And did the cameras catch the fight? Cause that could be one krunk video. (And, no, I’m not making any assumptions here about the race of the people involved with the making of this video just because there was gunplay and also because it went down in the Grove. White people say “krunk,” too. For instance, I’m white.)

3. This one’s a bit farther afield than we normally go on FrontBurner, but a story out of Odessa is too good to overlook. A homeless kid shows up at famed Permian “Friday Night Lights” High. He’s 6-foot-5. The basketball coach takes him in. The team goes on to win state. Someone call Michael Lewis! The movie writes itself! It’s The Blind Side on the hardwoods! Except it turns out the kid is a 22-year-old man who, in a former life, was a high school basketball star in Florida. (I’d still watch the movie. Skip Hollandsworth, are you reading this?)