Well, my opinion has changed.
Two things changed it.
One, I covered two gold medal games at the Olympics. Watching the U.S. women win gold in both Athens and Beijing was one of the real highlights of my career.
Good stuff.

But what really changed my mind about soccer was watching my grandson play in the GWFSA the last four seasons.
About the only thing I know to say is "Kick it," but I still enjoyed watching the kids play.

I'm not to the point that I would go watch the Hirschi girls play Decatur.
Nor will I watch Uruguay play France in the World Cup.
But I plan to watch the U.S. play every chance I get, and I will also watch the big games in South Africa.

I will even buy my own beer.

P.S.: I will be on vacation next week. See you later.

But for some strange reason -- maybe it was the stupid choice system, I don't know -- Scott Ponder was never appreciated in Wichita Falls like he should have been.
It is understandable that Coyote fans didn't like him.
Their team was No. 2 in town for most of the time he was at Rider.
But even Rider fans were on his case a lot in the last seven years.

The people of Iowa Park need to rally behind this coach.
So I've got an idea.
I know most of you don't like me right now, but put all that aside for a few minutes and hear what I'm saying.

In the first home game of the year, all IP fans should come to the game wearing caps backwards.
Ponder and his assistant coaches all did that on the sidelines here, and for some stupid reason, some people got their panties in a wad over it.

Maybe even let the booster club sell green caps as a fund-raiser.
Whatever, if everyone in the stands is wearing their caps backwards, it will go a long way in showing Ponder you are firmly on his side.

Peace!

Rick proves my point.
Today I got an e-mail from this Rick guy saying:
"I'm sure you're disappointed, Nick, on a couple of levels: (1) IPHS hired a good head coach away from a WFISD school; and (2) IPHS didn't fall for your liberal taunt and 'hire the black guy' out of guilt."

The only part he got right was the one about Iowa Park hiring a good head coach away from a WFISD school.
The rest is pure BS.

After mentioning last week that a guy with three Super Bowl rings and four big-name references had applied for a coaching job at a Class 3A high school and then questioning if Iowa Park was now open-minded enough to hire a black head coach, I ended my blog with these two sentences.

"If Iowa Park wants a head coach who will bring enthusiasm, stability and championships back to town -- call me.
I know just the right guy."

That "right guy" I was talking about was Scott Ponder.

I knew at the time that Ponder was interested in going to Iowa Park. And I knew Iowa Park was interested in hiring him.

The intent of that blog was not to label IP as a racist and it was certainly not to promote the hiring of Robert Ford.
Scott Ponder was the coach needed to hire to "bring enthusiasm, stability and championships" back to Iowa Park.

So, IP, pat that superintendent of yours on the back.
He's a smart guy who hired the right coach.

Now hopefully, the WFISD will be smart enough to promote Jim Garfield at Rider.

Well, now it looks like Ponder is going to once again be an AD and head coach.
He is expected to take that job at Iowa Park High School on Tuesday.
Losing a head coach to a Class 3A school in the same county doesn't say much for the WFISD.
Why is Ponder doing this?

The AD/head coach dual role gives him full authority to run his own program.
There are other reasons, but I think that is the big one.

Hopefully, Rider will just promote defensive coordinator Jim Garfield to the head coaching job. The kids love Coach Gar and he deserves this opportunity.
If the WFISD drags its tail -- and it might -- then Rider could lose both Ponder and Garfield. That would be a shame.

My intent in yesterday's blog was not to call the people of Iowa Park a bunch of racists.
Yet when so many people get mad enough to call me "racist prick"; threaten to cancel their newspaper subscription and demand I be fired -- well, it certainly gets my attention.
So I had to go back and read and re-read what I had written to see how so many out there could have read it and come to the conclusion that they did.

Finally, I think I figured it out.
One sentence was really worded poorly.
It read: "But does he know the history of the town?"
I should have written "But does he know the reputation of the town?"

There is a big difference in history and reputation.
A history is something you did in the past.
A reputation is something other people just say you did.

Personally, I have never seen or heard about any acts of racism in Iowa Park's history.
In fact, I have a friend here at work who has a black son enrolled and playing football at Iowa Park High School. My friend told me that his son had never experienced any racial problems.

But the town still has a "reputation" for being racist.
If you don't know that, then get your head out of the sand or out of your you-know-what.
I have had black sports writers who work for me ask not to be sent to either Iowa Park or Bowie to cover games. And it wasn't because anyone in either of those towns had ever done anything to them, it was because of the racist reputations of those two places.

It's hard to change a reputation, once you get it.
And having "Dixie" as your high school fight song won't help things.
This song doesn't bother me at all. In fact, it's a catchy tune. But there are others out there who hear it and unfairly label your whole town. It fuels your reputation.

When talking about why a guy like Robert Ford -- who owns three Super Bowl rings -- would apply for a coaching job in Iowa Park says more about the whole state rather than singling out one town.
If a Texas man with a resume' like his has to apply at a Class 3A school, it tells me there aren't many opportunities in Texas for a black head football coach.
I can count on one hand the number of black head football coaches in our readership area and have three or four fingers left.
Heck, it took 35 years after integration for Wichita Falls to finally hire one.

So when I asked the question: "Is there really any chance the town would hire a black head football coach?" and got the response I did, maybe the people of Iowa Park are more open-minded than other Texas towns.

Before closing, I want to address one other issue raised in the massive reaction yesterday.
Some people out there wrote that I didn't like Iowa Park and was always writing bad stuff about the town and its teams.
I went back in the archives to see what I had written about IP and found this:
A tribute to my friend Bob Hamilton on June 12, 2008.
A tribute to the 1969 state championship football team on Sept. 6, 2009.
Go back and read them if you haven't already.

Peace!

Robert Ford was tight ends coach for the Dallas Cowboys from 1991-1997.
Not a hard job when your tight end is Novacek.
The last two years trying to coach Eric Bjornson into being the "next Jay Novacek" was a real challenge.
Ford went from the Cowboys to the Dolphins and coached wide receivers for head coaches Jimmy Johnson and Dave Wannstedt from 1998-2003.

I have been told that he is now a high school coach somewhere in Louisiana but don't know for sure.

Ford played high school football back during the days when Iowa Park was a powerhouse in Class 2A.
He was a star running back for Belton as a senior in 1968. That season the Hawks made it to the state semifinals.
His final high school game was against Refugio, a team that Iowa Park tied 7-7 in the state championship game of 1970.

So Robert Ford may know something about the history of Iowa Park football.
But does he know the history of the town?
If so, would a black man apply for a head coaching job in Iowa Park?
And is there really any chance the town would hire a black head football coach?
What do you think?

But forget the race thing for just a minute and think about this.
The Iowa Park program needs stability, and I doubt you get that with a guy who has all those rings and impressive credentials.
He would be looking to leave for a better job before two-a-days begin.

If Iowa Park wants a head coach who will bring enthusiasm, stability and championships back to town -- call me.
I know just the right guy.

Golding, however, turned down the offer. He told the superintendent that he didn't think people should have stadiums or buildings named after them while they were still alive.
Joe knew he was human and might do something during his life that would embarrass the school district and the city.

Think about it for a minute.
What if USC had hnored O.J. Simpson by putting his name on a building or a stadium?

My friend Susan Knowles-Martin likes to joke about how she is a graduate of Nathan Bedford Forrest High School in Jacksonville, Fla.
Nathan Bedford Forrest was the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

The University of Texas now has a suimilar problem.
Back in 1954, UT named a dormitory building after a man who taught law at the school for parts of three decades.
Simkins Residence Hall was named for William Stewart Simkins.

For the last 56 years, nobody has had a problem with that.
But now we find out that Simkins was a leader of the KKK.

There are now black students living in a dormitory named for a man who legal historian Tom Russell says " was a mask-wearing coward, a night-riding Klansman who admitted committing violence against freed slaves."

UT, a school where 4 percent of its faculty and 4.5 percent of its students are black, has a problem.
Simkins Residence Hall should soon have a new name.
How about Earl Campbell Residence Hall?

Coleman was a child actor who became famous in the TV sitcom "Diff'rent Strokes."
This show was on the air for eight years, but I never watched one episode.
He was best known for his line "What 'choo talkin 'bout Willis?"
That and only that made Gary Coleman's death big news.

But Dennis Hopper was a real actor who had one heck of a career.
James Dean made three movies. Hopper was in two of them, "Rebel without a Cause" and "Giant."
He also made two movies with John Wayne, "The Sons of Katie Elder" and "True Grit."
He had roles in all the great TV westerns, like "Gunsmoke," "Bonanza," "Cheyene" and "The Rifleman."
He was in my favorite movie of all time -- "Cool Hand Luke."
He was also in my favorite sports movie -- "Hoosiers."

My first memory of Dennis Hopper goes way back when he played a Nazi in an old black-and-white Twilight Zone.

But what Hopper was best known for was "Easy Rider."
He and buddy Peter Fonda rode into our lives back in 1969 and brought a young Jack Nicholson with them.
They smoked weed. They dropped acid. They rode motorcycles.
They had a freedom all of us wanted.

But like many great artists, Dennis Hopper's real life was a rough one.
He had five marriages and five divorces. One of those, to Michelle Phillips of the Mamas and Papas, lasted just eight days.
He also abused alcohol and drugs to the extent that he reportedly had a daily intake of three grams of cocaine, 30 beers, several joints and a lot of rum and coke.
"I should have died 10 times over," he once said.

But he kept making movies.
And he kept making babies -- Hopper was 66 and his last wife 35 when his fourth and final child was born.

Prostate cancer finally got him at age 74.
Peace!

"24" had its final episode this week -- and left us with that dead parole officer still stuffed in a storage bin at CTU.
Hopefully, they will find his smelly carcas before the premier of "24 The Movie."

But all good things must come to an end, and "24" has now joined "The Fugitive" and "Gunsmoke" and other great TV shows in re-run land.

In eight seasons -- which on "24" is just eight days -- Jack killed 266 people.
Most of them were bad guys but some were just guys unlucky be the in the wrong place at the wrong time.

That's an average of 2.8 kills an hour or 33.25 per day.
That's big-time killing.
It's more than 30 times the rate that the 4,400 Americans have died during eight years in Iraq.

Another interesting part of "24" was the fictional U.S. presidents the show gave us.
In eight days, we had
(1.) President Palmers. Two black brothers. One is assassinated. The other is still in a coma somewhere.
(2.) President Daniels. A Bill Clinton type who couldn't keep his pants zipped.
(3.) President Logan. A paranoid Richard Nixon type.
(4.) Preisent Taylor. A woman so ethical that she sent her own daugher to prison yet so unethical that she covered up an assassination by the Russians.

What can "24 The Movie' do to top this?
How about a cross-dressing gay president and a first lady with a 5 o'clock shadow?

I don't care who the president is.
Just put Jack Bauer and Chloe O'Brien on the big screen in 3D.
I will be the first in line.

Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, said the Mavs would be interested in signing LeBron and got hit with a $100,000 fine.

They broke the rule. It's a stupid rule. But it's still a rule. And they both knew the rule.

Now the President of the United States is tampering.
In a TV interview with sportscaster Marv Albert, President Obama said LeBron would fit in nicely with his hometown team, the Chicago Bulls.

"I will say this: (Derrick) Rose, Joakim Noah it's a pretty good core. You know, you could see LeBron fitting in pretty well there," Obama said in TNT interview scheduled to air tomorrow night.

The president won't be charged with tampering because he has not direct interest in the Bulls franchise. He is just a fan, like me and you.
But he's not like me and you.
He's the president of the USA.
When you and I talk, nobody really pays much attention.
But when Obama talks, the whole world listens..
And that includes the world of LeBron James.

If the president called me tonight and said he would like to see me write a column about roller skating, I would be at the rink when it opened tomorrow.
When the leader of the free world says the NBA's biggest star would look good in a Bulls uniform, I'm sure LeBron at least listens.

That's tampering.
Fine his presidential booty.

Better yet, it's all free.
We working slobs are paying for it all.
So, governor, if all those HD TV screens aren't big enough, please call Best Buy and put it on our tab.

And I have yet to get one "thank you" card from Rick Perry.
How about you?

Oh, I did see the message that all MSU needs to put about $1.7 million back in the state cookie jar. Like other state agencies here in Texas, my alma mater was asked to cut costs by 5 percent.
But please don't anyone tell our governor that he could probably get by with just six bathrooms.
When you gotta go, you gotta go.
And without doubt, Rick Perry has shown us he is full of caca.

But when a reporter questioned the governor about his Barton Creek mansion, his reply was "Bring it on!"
Last time I heard someone say that, Don King was sitting next to him.

Rick Perry, however, is not the only smug SOB politician out there.
It seems these days that all of the people we vote into office think once they get there, they are better that we common folks.
They deserve pay raises while we ours are being cut.
They deserve better health care than me and you.
They deserve to live in mansions while we struggle to pay the rent.
They deserve seven bathrooms while we have to shake the handle just to make our toilet flush.

Hopefully come November, Texans will flush Rick Perry.

The first time I was 13 and did it because I had officially reached that so-called "age of accountability" and all my friends down at the 10th and Broad Church of Christ were doing it.
The second time I was in my 20's and was chasing a a pretty young thing in a short skirt. I went to church with her one Sunday and chased her right down the aisle, "got saved," and was baptized with her that night.
Two weeks later we broke up and I never went back to Fairway Baptist Church.

Then back in 1982, I did it a third time.
This was for real. I got saved in a Baptist revival.
I was dunked into the water as an act of obedience and was a witness of being buried with Christ and being risen to new life with him.

My preacher preached on baptism Sunday morning.
It is not a subject you often hear addressed from the pulpit, mainly because Christians can't agree on what it is all about.

As a kid growing up in the Church of Christ, I was taught that you had to baptized to get into Heaven.
Later on in life, I discovered that was wrong.
The good people at the Church of Christ just can't explain away that thief on the cross.

For most of my life I was taught that sprinkling wasn't baptism.
God did not accept anything except dunking.
Wrong again.
Baptism is about what is in a person's heart, not how or where you do it.

I don't believe in baby baptism because the Bible says baptism is for believers.
That's not a knock on my Catholic friends.
It's just what they call baptism is really just a christening or a dedication of a child to God.
That's a good thing.
I just have a problem with the wording, that's all.

But one thing I think we Christians should all agree on.
Baptism is an important part of our faith.
Jesus himself -- though sin free -- was baptized.
If it's good enough for the Son of God, then It's certainly good enough for the son of Earle and Freda Gholson.
But three baptisms is two too many.
One is enough.

So do we need another King?
Darn right, we do.
I would love to see King James playing for the Mavericks.
That would finally bring an NBA championship to the Dallas.
And it might be our only shot.

Mark Cuban has deep pockets and can certainly afford LeBron James.
And Texas is a whole lot better place to live than New York City.
LeBron says all he really wants to do is win a championship.
Well, he has a much better chance of doing that with the Mavs than he does with the Knicks.
Plus we don't have a state tax. That's a huge plus for a guy who makes more than $40 million a year in salary and endorsement money.

I'm just dreaming here. This King is not coming to Dallas.
He says he all he wants is to win a championship.
His two best chances to do that would be the Lakers and Celtics.
Kobe and LeBron on the same team -- that should be illegal.
But Boston is a real possibility. This is a franchise that knows how to win NBA titles, and the team's superstars are getting up in years.

Today some people are saying and writing that the King's stock fell with the Cavaliers' loss to the Celtics.
He had a triple-double 27 points, 19 rebounds and 10 assists in last night's loss.
That lowers his value?
I don't think so, but the King needs a ring to verify his royalty.

Michael Jordan won six NBA titles in Chicago -- which when he arrived there, was no better than Cleveland.
LeBron will never be in Michael's world -- or even Kobe's world -- until he starts winning championships.
Right now he is headed in the direction of ring-less superstars like Karl Malone and Charles Barkley.

I've got an idea.
How about LeBron signing on with the Charlotte Hornets?
This is an up-and-coming team that made the playoffs this year.
Plus, Michael now owns this team.
Michael and LeBron together -- maybe not on the court, but with the same team -- would certainly be interesting.
But I would rather see him in Dallas.

But poor Guerdwich is now out on bond and facing jail time and a fine.
His crime?
Playing high school basketball.

Calling himself Jerry Joseph, he somehow enrolled at Odessa Permian High School, went out of the basketball team and averaged 20 points a game.
The Permian coach wanted to adopt him.
Only problem was Guerdwich graduated from high school three years ago.
He is 22, not a 16-year-old sophomore like he pretended to be.

I sort or understand the guy.
Back when I was 13, a buddy and I signed up to play a tournament for a 10-year-old team. We played on 8-foot baskets and dominated the little kids.
It was fraud. But it was sure was fun.

The guy is 6-5 and has some game. Would it not have been easier to just try walking on at some junior college or some NAIA school?
If not, how about a city league or the YMCA?

But no, poor Guerdwich -- a naturalized U.S. citizen from Haiti -- went back to school and now may have to to go back to jail.
Can you imagine this guy sitting in some cell with Big Bubba?

"They say I killed six people, but I didn't murder nobody," Bubba growls. "I is innocent."
"What are you in here for, boy?" he says, eyeing the booty.

Guerdwich answers in a very, very soft voice.
"Playing basketball, sir."

Fraud is not always fun.

But my opinion has changed.
I've just read way too many stories about convicts being released from prison after being locked up for sometimes up to 35 years for a crime they didn't commit.
Google "innocent men released from prison" and you will see where I am coming from.

I know you can show me in the Bible where God gives his OK to capital punishment.
"And eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."
But our lawmen and our legal system have just made way too many mistakes for me to support a system that might execute innocent men and women.

There have been 1,203 executions in this country since 1976.
I wonder how many of those were mistakes.
Scary thought.

And the odds are most of the mistakes happened here in Texas.
That is because our state is responsible for roughly 38 percent of all executions in this country.

We're No. 1.
We're No. 1.
Texas has had 454 executions since 1982.
Virginia is a distant No. 2 at only 106.
Heck, when George W. Bush was governor, Texas put 153 in the grave.
Bush beat Virginia in just eight years.
That's almost 20 a year.

Yes sir, Texas does executions better than anybody.
We had 24 last year. No. 2 Alabama had just 6.
Texas 24, Alabama 6 -- don't you wish that had been the score of that national championship football game this year?

We have 7 this year, but by adding two more this week, we will more than double No. 2 Ohio's four.

Once upon a time, I would have said: "That, gives a whole new meaning to Don't Mess With Texas."
Today, however, I just feel ashamed that some innocent men had to die like this..