It probably seems like I’ve been MIA from the website for the past few days. I’ve had to concentrate on the next step of my religious discrimination lawsuit versus Gray – discovery.
This is the least glamorous but the most important part of the process. Discovery is basically doing your homework, gathering evidence that could be used for the trial, or used as background for developing legal arguments.
It’s as exciting as it sounds. But life gets more exciting if you don’t do it right – exciting in all the wrong ways.
Four days of drudgery completed. Now we wait for the other guys to return the favor and do the reveal of all the things we’ve asked for, which should happen tomorrow.
The winter sports season is almost done in the Columbus area, and what a season is has been for area high schools. There were a whole slew of programs that made deep runs in the playoffs in all of the different state organizations, with plenty of individuals and teams grabbing championships.
Two wrestling programs stood out. Columbus High won the GHSA Class 3A traditional meet title by over 30 points with four individuals winning their weight classes. Pacelli took the GIAA 4A dual meet championship for the second straight year.
The Vikings dominated in GIAA basketball, with both the boys and girls winning 3A titles last weekend at the Lumpkin Center at Columbus State University.
In AISA, the Glenwood girls and Lee-Scott boys took the Class 3A basketball titles.
It’s been a great season for area teams. Congratulations to all the champs, and to all those that made those deep runs to showcase their talents and prove that hard work pays off.
I’m still in shock on this one. The University of Alabama announced on Wednesday that Eli Gold is out as the Crimson Tide football play-by-play announcer after 35 years of calling the games for Bama. And it was not a mutual decision.
The second half of the release listed all of Gold’s accolades and was basically a laundry list of reasons to keep him on board.
We’re talking about a guy whose voice has come to mean Alabama Crimson Tide sports, a talented broadcaster who has a whole trophy case of awards not for just Bama games but for calling NASCAR races and running TV sports departments in major markets.
Chris Stewart is also talented, but it’s not about him. It’s about the callous discarding of a good man who earned the right to go out on his own terms. At least the school is going to pay him through June to fulfill their legal obligations.
Gold is handling things with dignity and class. The key quote from the al.com story is “This is not, with a capital N-O-T, not at all health-related. I am very healthy. Everything is wonderful. I am healthy as a horse.” He’s job hunting, starting immediately.
The firing of someone who is a Capital-I Institution and doing it without legitimate cause and throwing away three-plus decades of dedication to a job does not reflect well on any employer. It’s happened before in Birmingham, and not all that long ago. Rick Karle, anyone?
As you know, I’ve seen this movie before, and playing the starring role in it hurts in ways that are beyond description.
