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| http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKS0yISz6xQ
The above link is from Bill Maher on France. I love it.
France is not perfect, this I have learned. However, we are futher from it than they are...
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| Man, I tell ya what, having your heart broken sucks. I am confused as to what I want with somethings. For once, I am being careful, trying not to make mistakes. Weird. I hate it. I miss it...
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| Updated: April 4, 2007, 9:06 PM ET Ex-Grambling coach Robinson dead at 88
To his very last day, Eddie Robinson was always battling something.  AP Photo Grambling State coach Eddie Robinson, right, seen in a 1971 game against Mississippi Valley State. There was the institutional racism that surrounded him, the piddling football budget he and his coaching staff subsisted on at predominantly black Grambling State and, ultimately, the Alzheimer's disease that took his life at age 88. "He'd been fighting that battle for a long time," said former Grambling quarterback and Super Bowl MVP Doug Williams. "It was one of the many he fought in his lifetime." Robinson died Tuesday night, not long after being admitted to Lincoln General Hospital in Ruston, La., Williams said. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease shortly after he retired in 1997 and had been in and out of a nursing home during the past year. And so ended the life of a beloved football coach who put a small school in remote northern Louisiana on the map and turned it into a virtual farm team for the NFL during a career that spanned 57 years. Robinson built a football powerhouse with a worldwide reputation, all the while struggling to get past years of segregation and discrimination against blacks. His success at Grambling no doubt made him the first easily recognizable black coach in any sport. | Winningest NCAA coaches |
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| Coach | W | L | T | | John Gagliardi (1949-present) | 443 | 120 | 11 | | Eddie Robinson (1941-1997) | 408 | 165 | 15 | | Bobby Bowden (1959-present) | 366 | 113 | 4 | | Joe Paterno (1966-present) | 363 | 121 | 3 | | Bear Bryant (1945-1982) | 323 | 85 | 17 |
"Today, we mourn the loss of a great Louisianan and a true American hero," Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said. "Coach Eddie Robinson became the most successful college coach of all time and one of the greatest civil rights pioneers in our history. ... Coach Robinson elevated a small town program to national prominence and tore down barriers to achieve an equal playing field for athletes of all races." Robinson won 408 games, the most ever for any football coach at the time of his retirement in 1997. He sent hundreds of players to the NFL and other leagues, and the majority of them were clutching college degrees when they left Grambling. "We will be forever grateful for the more than 200 young men he developed at Grambling who starred in the NFL and those who later coached the next generation of NFL players," NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said. "He always focused on coaching his players to be better men as well as better football players." Playing at Grambling became a goal of young black men as Robinson's fame grew. "Everybody wanted to play at Grambling," Jackson State coach Rick Comegy said. He'd done such a fantastic job. He was on national TV, you know, and that was the first time I'd ever seen a black college football team on TV growing up." Robinson's career spanned 11 presidents, several wars and the civil rights movement. Though his teams struggled during his final years, his overall record of excellence is what will be remembered: 408-165-15.  Stephen Dunn/Getty Images Eddie Robinson retired in 1997 having seen Grambling State rise to national prominence. Until John Gagliardi of St. John's, Minn., topped the victory mark four years ago, Robinson was the winningest coach in all of college football. In 1995, Robinson oversaw a rare losing season -- 5-6. That was followed by a 3-8 year, and there was an NCAA investigation into recruiting violations and four players were arrested for rape. Suddenly, there were calls for Robinson to go. Fans said he had lost touch with the modern game and the young players. "I don't think Coach lost touch with the players, I think the players lost touch with him," former NFL and Grambling cornerback Everson Walls said. "I think the young guys lost touch with Coach Rob's vision. They didn't appreciate that they were living history with him." As pressure mounted for him to step aside, even then-Gov. Mike Foster campaigned to give him one last season so he could try to go out a winner. But that final season again produced a 3-8 record. Robinson's teams had only eight losing seasons and won 17 Southwestern Athletic Conference titles and nine national black college championships. He was inducted into every hall of fame for which he was eligible, and he received honorary degrees from several universities, including Yale. Robinson began his storied career at Grambling with no paid assistants, no groundskeepers, no trainers and little in the way of equipment. He lined the field himself and fixed lunchmeat sandwiches for road trips because the players could not eat in the "white only" restaurants of the South. Somehow, he never seemed bitter when recalling these experiences. "The best way to enjoy life in America is to first be an American, and I don't think you have to be white to do so," Robinson said. "Blacks have had a hard time, but not many Americans haven't." In 1968, refusing to be tied to a tiny home stadium on a hard-to-reach campus, Robinson took Grambling's football show on the road, playing at some very famous addresses, including Yankee Stadium. Jerry Izenberg, the sports columnist emeritus at the Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., and a close friend of Robinson since 1963, said the coach was an inspiration in the deep South. "People look at black pride in America and sports' impact on it," Izenberg said. "In the major cities it took off the first time Jackie Robinson stole home. In the deep South, it started with Eddie Robinson, who took a small college in northern Louisiana with little or no funds and sent the first black to the pros and made everyone look at him and Grambling." Running back Paul "Tank" Younger signed with the Los Angeles Rams and became the first player from an all-black college to enter the NFL. Suddenly, pro scouts learned how to find the little school 65 miles east of Shreveport near the Arkansas border. Robinson sent over 200 players to the NFL, including seven first-round draft choices and Williams, who succeeded Robinson as Grambling's coach in 1998. Others went to the Canadian Football League and the now-defunct USFL. Robinson's pro stars included Willie Davis, James Harris, Ernie Ladd, Buck Buchanan, Sammy White, Cliff McNeil, Willie Brown, Roosevelt Taylor, Charlie Joiner and Willie Williams. The same year Robinson took his team on the road, 1968, Howard Cosell and Izenberg produced the documentary, "Grambling College: 100 Yards to Glory;" Robinson became vice president of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics; and all three major television networks carried special programming on Grambling football. A year later, Grambling played before 277,209 paying customers in 11 games, despite a home field that seated just 13,000. The National Football Foundation honored Robinson in 1992 with its Outstanding Contribution to Amateur Football Award. When he retired, the organization inducted him into the College Football Hall of Fame. Also in 1997, foundation board member and New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner endowed one of the foundation's national scholar-athlete awards in Robinson's name with a $300,000 gift. Robinson is survived by his wife, Doris; son, Eddie Robinson Jr.; daughter, Lillian Rose Robinson; five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. His body will lie in state in the rotunda of the state Capitol on Monday in Baton Rouge. The funeral will be at the new assembly center at Grambling on Wednesday. Burial will be at Memorial Cemetery in Grambling. Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press |
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| I have never held back until now. I see why. It took 14 hours into the
start of the new semester and I find myself heartbroken. I know it is a
heartbreak, I just, I don't know. </3
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| This is my first entry for 2007 and I think it might be my last, for
good. Or, possibly, until I have something new to write. I have had
this on my heart and on my mind for 3 years now: me. I had an epiphany
earlier this week, something similar to the one I had 3 years ago that
brought me here today. I figured I would share my hero's journey thus
far. It is not over, rather, it has only just begun. For nearly 18
years I had lived, and in 1 day I died. This one day is minute to
almost everyone in the world, paradoxically, so paramount in mine. It
took me 1 day to forget who I am, to give it up, to let go,
to be free, to lose my innocense, and so on. I am now bound by no chains;
I had left the cave and ascended and saw the sun. Now, I am going back
into the cave to tell my story, my truth, my incomplete novel.
I don't care much for grammar, so ignore any mistakes, because I am not going to re-read this. This is my rough draft.
On October 24, 2003, I died. I guess that is a good way to start.
Heading into senior year of high school, I was supposed to be figuring
out what I wanted to do with my life. In doing so, I ran into a
problem... what do I want? This is a complex question that took one
book and two novella's to help me get started. I was taking AP English
senior year with Mr. Sabatini. There were fools in the class who took
it because they thought it would be easy, be fun, because, well, for a
lack of a better phrase, "it was Sab."
I realize now looking back at those people a disconnect in our little
society: taking a class for the teacher because of this reputation I
know he is not fond of. Tax-payers dollars are wasted in this effort
because there was no effort on their part to learn, even if they
disagreed with an authors premise. I took the class not because of the
possibility to earn AP credit, or because it was Sab, but because it
was Sab - I knew I was going to learn something. During the summer
months leading up to the beginning of senior year, I was expected to
read Erich Fromm's Escape From Freedom and Stephen King's three novella's Apt Pupil, The Shawshank Redemption, and The Body.
I read all three. I understood what Fromm was saying, but I began to
notice a disconnect in my own life; How the fuck can I make a decision
on my future when I did not know who I was now? I was pissed for a
while. At the time, I was a very reserved person, so I held it in. I
was constantly pondering my life but could not get anywhere. All that I
kept thinking about in class was how I knew nothing of myself and how
Gordy in The Body needed to see the dead body - the worst there is. Then I saw it myself.
I wanted to be in the military, for one reason or another. I kept
saying because I felt obligated, I wanted to help I wanted to do good.
Remember that word. So I earned a congressional nomination for the
United States Merchant Marine Academy and was a finalist for the US
Coast Guard Academy. I did not get into either because of my SAT
scores... it was the only reason that I was told. I will revisit this
later. I wanted to major in engineering because I wanted to help
people. All of this was so vague. I thought it was what I knew of
myself, I was so sure of it. I was also sure of what, at the time,
imprisioned me: God and the Church. I don't have a beef with God.
Church is a different story. At the time, I considered myself a Roman
Catholic and I accepted its premises without question. This is similar
to the supporters of George Bush: without questioning. This is who I
am. This is my mothers side of the family. This is what I thought I
knew. I thought it was all good, not bad, but good. Still, all I would
continually think about is how Gordy needed to see the worst there is.
Why the fuck did he need too? It makes sense now. I died on October 24,
2003.
This is where I have fumbled around trying to tell the few people who
have heard my journey. My grandmother, my mom's mother, was a devout
Catholic. Prayed all of the fucking time. Wonderful person. Peaceful,
all of that. She, as well as my mother, went through hell. My mothers
story of her childhood is one I will not share, but admire, in my
grandmother, for how she was and how much love she had, even through
everything. She never went to church regularly. This was because of an
incident that occured when she moved out of Northeast Philly to
Bensalem. I believe the story goes as such: they were rejected from
joining a parish there because they were fairly poor. I think, I forget
what my mother said. Regardless. My grandmother was good. She is what I
considered good. I believed in the Kingdom of Heaven, I believed all
that.
The Friday prior to October 24, my grandmother collapsed at a
restaurant. I think it was a stroke, I don't know those details, for
me, they are not important. She hit her head on the floor when she
fell. She needed to be rushed to the hospital. October 24 was a friday.
I never visited my grandmother in the hospital. Something I used to
regret immensely, but I don't now. I couldn't go then, I wasn't ready,
I have accepted that. I believe that Wednesday prior to the 24th, my
grandmother ended up forming a blood clot in her brain, she needed
surgury. Needless to say, she never because conscious again. Friday,
October 24th, I was at work, on Co-op. I had told my parents that if
something bad were to happen to come get me, so I can say goodbye. Sure
enough, my dad showed up at work to pick me up. I had just received my
2nd round of SAT scores and they were worse than the previous. I was
already bent out of shape because of that. Then when I say my dad I
knew the worst was coming.
So I arrived at Abington Memorial Hospital and then to my grandmoms
room with my immediate family there. She slipped unconscious.
Basically, if we kept her on life support, she would be somewhat of a
vegetable. Nobody wanted that. So I was there. Looking at this,
listening to everyone praying, looking at the tears, feeling my own.
All I noticed then was what I finally understood. Gordy needed to see
the worst there is. I was starting to see the worst there is. This
body, the life that occupied it, was slipping away. All I could see was
the medical shit attached to her. It hit me: this is what I will end up
like, this is what everything I do in life will get me to, in the end.
This is it. I watched her die. I was there at the foot of her bed. I
was there when life left her. That spirit, that good spirit, was gone
and all that was left was the body. Whatever happens after that no one
will know. That bothered me. How can I accept that? Why should I work
for an afterlife I will never know until I am dead? Does it even exist?
What is good in this world when all that is left is body? I was dead. I
died too. Everything I had even known was gone. I was stuck in the
absurd.
I don't know where to begin now. I know that from that point until two
weeks into January, the only book that I read that I was required to
read was Ishmael. I didn't even finish it. I couldn't. I was so lost I
just couldn't do anything. You may not have known it. I had a very
strong facade up. But I was dead. Everything I though I knew, goodness,
everything, all gone.
I lied about the only book I read. The other book I read, which was not
required, which I didn't finish but I didn't need to, was The Story of
B. I am reading about an uncivilized life. What the fuck is that?? When
would I have even learned that. Your high school years are the most
important years of your life, I think. You need to learn everything.
Not manufactured and sold so that when you enter Post-Secondary
education you do not have the ability to read something and question it
like you are supposed too. I remember one class where Sab made us make
a timeline of what we thought were the most important events in history.
The 5 most. I remember sitting there and writing the Magna Carta
sometime in the 1200's, but I didn't know jack shit about shit. That
hit me more. That woke me up. I talked with Sab afterwords and he
showed me his 5 things. Four of them were not related to human's. It
hit me. I was so conditioned to not know anything that I knew nothing.
That is when I woke up.
I read 1984. I looked at the television and became sick. I watch
Manufacturing Consent and I wanted to die. I could not go into the
military. I respec the men who honestly believe with their whole heart
in what they are doing. Willing to leave the ones they love the most, a
part of them, for a cause they deem worthy, in my opinion, is
honorable. I could not do it. I had a problem with the people at the
top of the food chain. I used to be such a conservative, I would have
blown Bill O'Reilly for free. Thinking about this now makes me want to
hang myself, but hey, I was that 80% that Chomsky talked about. I
stepped out of the circle, just for a second, but still, I was stuck in
my own absurdity.
Then I read Man's Search For Meaning by
Viktor Frankle. For anyone who reads this that hasn't read that, go and
fucking read it. That is when I became born again. I realized that this
is life. Life has its tragedies. There is good in the world, there is
evil. I realized I need to find them myself. For myself. I cannot
subscribe to George Bush saying that the War on Terror is good, because
innocent men and women, whether they are soldier or poor Iraqi's, dying
is not good. For what? What good is this? When millions of American's
are so desensitized that the only thing they question in life is
dinner, or if the dogs ate, or where is the remote. What they hell!
There is good in this world that I need to find and in order to find
that, I need to find evil, I need to know the worst. I knew then what
Gordy knew after he saw the body... the worst there is. I was able to
move foward with my life.
I wrote for my final paper in high school on whether or not the
dehumanization of man is going on, whether it will happen completely,
all of that. I argued that before the television, way back when, we
were subscribed to the good. What controlled us was the cross. That was
the ultimate representation of good and it was used, and it worked. It
was incorporated into our Pledge of Allegiance, which would say every
fuckin morning. It later moved to the consumerism. I argued that
consumerism is the new God. People say they believe in God without
question, they say they Christian, but never practice it. They have
been programmed to consume. Consumer manufactured goods, consume God,
consume Politics. Never to question. This, ultimately, is
dehumanization. Never will so many billions of people be human because
they will never know what it is like to be human: they are driven away
from even trying to understand it. I said this is what is going on. I
also said that I will never be complete. Took look at myself in the
mirror, knowing what I left behind. Knowing that I had died, that I was
just reborn. Knowing this, I can look at myself in the mirror and say
they can never have me. I knew too much to go back. Everyone in the
world can be bought, but not me. To say the man is completely
dehumanized is a fallacy because I am not dehumanized. I will live my
life. I will find myself. I will find goodness.
From that premise, I realized engineering was the incorrect path.
Politics is what I have always loved because it is a human element. I
want to do more than just political things, but that is what I wanted
to study. I am now living an interesting life filled with girls,
alcohol, being a leader. I am doing a lot of things because I want to
know everything. I am still in touch with who I am. I need to get back
to it more, but I will never lose myself. I am a new man. Technically,
yeah, I am now 21, but I should be 3 years old.
I went to church on christmas day for the first time in 3 years. Just
listening to everything I used to recite made me thing. I went back
into the forest when I had come out a new man. I realized that that is
what I needed to do. I learned that it is silly to work towards and
enternal life when you never know what it will be like. In a way, I
don't think that is what God really wants, if there exists such a
being. I believe that God is a man of free-will. I hope there is a God
anyway. I believe that to be the case because of all the shit going on
in the world. All of the famine murders, genocide, all of the evils
that exist. Assuming there is a God, he is letting man choose his
course. By the church saying that we need to work towards eternal life
limits free-will. It limits my life now. I want to find God, I want to
know goodness. I want to know everything there is to know if life but
by working towards eternal life, I feel like I can't do that. That is
the main reason why I left a part of my remains at the church. There
are more reasons why I left them there, but I do not want to get into
that.
I haven't been to the cemetary where my grandmother is since the
funeral. I haven't been able to go back, at least not yet. There is the
other part of my remains with her that I need to just look at one more
time. I don't know how to explain it, but I need to go there again. I
guess to accept it? I don't know.
The epiphany that I had the other day was similar to what I had when
writing my last paper for Sabatini. I had watched Lord of War, I had
watch The Corporation, I have read the books that I have read, I have
had the discussions that I have had, but I still had another epiphany.
I was on Human Rights Watch's website, just browsing, and it made me
abolutely sick, sick to my stomach. I have been on the site numerous
times before, but I was so pissed off then. It was because there were
articles about so many countries on there. From Birkino Faso, to the
US, to Vietnam. Everywhere. All of the evil, everywhere. I believe in
democracy. I like that system of government. The problem with it is
people. The hell with that, the problem with every fucking institution
is the people. People kill people, not governments. People create the
governments. Governments kill people, people kill people. Like, all of
the problems that are currently going on in the world are caused and
continued by people. I thought to myself something Sabatini had once
told me, I think it was him anyway: Maybe all we need are just good
people. But how do we get that? I think what needs to happen, to get
that, is for people to question. For people to be put in a corner where
they will then realize that they have been suppressed for so long.
Civilization is dying and they only thing that can save it are people.
I was wondering then if I could really do it. If I wanted too. Because
it is me vs. the world. What the hell can I do? Then, it hit me: giving
up is giving in. I cannot give in, I cannot give up. This is who I am.
I want to win. I will work for it. I will find goodness and do good.
I think love is the answer, honestly. I see it everywhere, even myself.
Love undefinable. I wish the mind controllers at Websters Headquarters
would erase its definition. It is inexplainable because love is
different for everyone. I am convinced that love is the ultimate
goodness. I can feel it. I don't know how to describe it. But it
exists. I think it is the one great thing about being human, that we
can understand love for ourselves. I can't explain it other than with a
smile.
I think that is all I have. I don't know what else to tell you. I am
trying to understand everything, but it will take my entire life to do
so. I want to know all 360 degrees of my circle. I don't know where I
am on it, but I know that I am further ahead than so many people.
This may very well be my last entry. I have been wanting to write this
for so long. I needed a spark. I think the fact that I am almost done
college is a factor. I will miss college, the innocence of being an
adult but not in the working world. However, I am looking forward to
leaving college. I need to become and be who I am. This real world
shit, the hell with that. Everything I have experienced is as real as
it get. Yeah, maybe sometimes it fucking hurts, but it is all that we
have (Garden State).
The song that I am going to tell you all to listen to is one by Thrice. It is called "Stare at the Sun."
...Till I understand or go blind.
For those of you whole will actually read this, thank you. This is my story. My rebirn, my Renaissance. It is Me.
Sincerely,
Jeremy M. Koenig
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