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Tag: Crimson Tide

  • Vince Vaughn Buys Lane Kiffin’s House for $6.5 Million

    According to the Los Angeles Times, Vince Vaughn has purchased former University of Southern California football coach Lane Kiffin’s Manhattan Beach home.

    Vaughn reportedly paid $6.5 million for the sprawling 7,308-square-foot mansion. The six-bedroom, seven-bath home sits on a 1/2-acre lot and features a three-car garage, swimming pool, spa, guest house, and outdoor kitchen.

    Just last year, Vaughn purchased what has been called “Southern California’s least offensive, unobtrusive, and numbingly traditional house:” a five-bedroom 5,563-square-foot colonial in the Los Angeles suburb of La Cañada Flintridge. Vaughn paid $3.925 million for the home.

    Kiffin, 38, recently relocated from Los Angeles to the Tuscaloosa, AL area. He was fired from his position as head coach for the USC Trojans in September 2013. In January, he signed on as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for the University of Alabama Crimson Tide.

    Vaughn may be making real estate acquisitions based upon the advice of his wife. In 2010 he married Canadian real estate agent Kyla Weber. Daughter Locklyn Kyla Vaughn was born in December 2010 and son Vernon Lindsay Vaughn was born in August 2013.

    Vaughn is well-known for his roles in Wedding Crashers, The Dilemma, and The Internship. He will star in Business or Pleasure with Sienna Miller and Tom Wilkinson this fall.

    When he’s not acting and acquiring real estate, Vaughn has been known to get involved in politics.

    When asked in late 2013 if he considered himself a conservative, Vaughn answered without hesitation:

    “I do, yeah…I mean I’m very supportive of Ron Paul, but I’ve always been more conservative than not.”

    Vaughn supported Paul in the 2008 and 2012 elections and is active in the Libertarian movement.

    “I think that when you get older, you just get less trust in the government running anything. And you start to realize…when you go back and start to look at the Constitution and the principles of liberty, the real purpose of government is to protect the individual’s right to, you know, sort of think and pursue what they have interest in.”

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Alabama Fan Shot Dead After Crimson Tide Loss

    An Alabama woman has been charged with murder after she shot to death a fellow Alabama fan. The shooting happened at a football party shortly after the end of Iron Bowl college football match in which Crimson Tide lost to Auburn Tigers. The woman, identified as 28-year-old Adrian Briskey pulled the trigger on Michelle Shepherd after she said she didn’t care that much that Tide had lost.

    Nekesa Shepherd, the sister to the victim, was present when the shooting happened. “She (Briskey) said we weren’t real Alabama fans because it didn’t bother us that they lost. And then she started shooting.” she said.

    Adrian Laroze Briskey was charged on Monday morning with killing 36-year -old Michelle Shepherd. Briskey was released on $75,000 bond pending a hearing of the case.

    The authorities confirmed that both women were Alabama fans and had both attended the football game played between the rival college teams. The victim’s sister insists that the murder was as a result of the match outcome even though it is still unclear to investigators whether the murder was as a result of the game. Alcohol is also being investigated as a possible motivator for the murder. “That’s one of the things we are investigating,” Hoover police Captain Jim Coker said Monday.

    Shepherd was shot dead in the parking lot of an apartment building in Birmingham. Nekesa says both her and her sister were invited to the party by a third person who also invited Briskey. The two women did not know each other prior to that day.

    Source ESPN  (Image via YouTube)

  • Johnny Manziel Shines Against Alabama, Despite Loss

    Johnny Manziel has become quite the elite player in college football and is one of the best according to some people. Yesterday, the ultimate showdown took place between SEC offenses when the Texas A&M Aggies took on the Alabama Crimson Tide. Manziel, Texas A&M’s quarterback is able to get it done in the air and on the ground, and in yesterday’s game, he threw for 464 yards and ran for 98 yards. The Aggies ultimately lost the game in the end, but put up an incredible fight from start to finish. The final score was 49-42 in favor of Alabama.

    Alabama seemed to have no answer for Manziel throughout the game, and the only thing that they could do was retaliate with touchdowns of their own. The defense of both teams was almost not present, while both quarterbacks are also very elite players and like to rack up as many touchdowns as possible. This game was a rematch of the game that they played last year in which A&M pulled off the victory. In last year’s match A&M jumped ahead 20-0, and delivered Alabama their only loss of the season. This year was much of the same, although Alabama was able to hang on and win this one. They were finally safe from the unstoppable play of Manziel when Alabama’s quarterback AJ McCarron took a knee to end the game, leaving Manziel with nothing more to do, according to ABC News.

    The tough play of Johnny Manziel has even earned himself the nickname of Johnny Football. He has been known to get a bit too cocky at times too though, and received a penalty for excessive celebration earlier this season against Rice. He was also one of the leading candidates for the Heisman Trophy last year.

    Alabama soon found that the only solution to stopping Manziel was to keep him off the field and keep their offense on the field for as long as possible. They were executing the strategy of “best defense is a good offense” in this case, hoping to see the aggressive play of Manziel as little as possible. AJ McCarron was quoted saying that “With the type of offense A&M has, you have to eat up some clock and pound the ball.” This seemed to be the only thing that Alabama could do in order to stop him, and it eventually worked. McCarron passed for 334 yards in Alabama’s win.

    Manziel was virtually unstoppable for much of the game, setting records for passing yards and total offensive yards. He set the single-game school record for passing yards and put up the second-most total offensive yards in a game (562), second only to his own total (576) against Louisiana Tech last year, states ESPN.

    Image via Youtube

  • D.J. Fluker and 4 Other SEC Players Paid in College

    Could NCAA football come under anymore scrutiny? It has only been a few days since the scandal at OSU was brought to light by Sports Illustrated, and now an official Yahoo! Sports investigation has revealed that 5 players from the SEC received monetary benefits while playing in college. The suspected players are D.J Fluker – offensive tackle for the University of Alabama, Tyler Bray – quarterback for the University of Tennessee, Maurice Crouch – defensive end for the University of Tennessee, Fletcher Cox – defensive tackle for Mississippi State University, and Chad Bumphis – wide receiver for Mississippi State.

    While the charges against the players from Tennessee and Mississippi State are serious (especially considering the two programs are currently under probation), the charges against D.J. Fluker perhaps carry the most weight. Fluker was a member of Alabama’s previous 2 National Championship teams. After last year’s championship victory, Fluker decided to forego his senior season and enter his name into the NFL draft, where he was chosen 11th by the San Diego Chargers. Past money allegations have shown us just how serious the offense is considered by the NCAA; After it was discovered that Reggie Bush had taken money while at USC, the NCAA stripped USC of its 2004 National Title, banned them from bowl games for 2 years, and stripped 30 scholarships and 14 victories from the team.

    Based on previous actions, one can properly assume that Alabama is in grave danger of losing claims to its last 2 national championships. However, it may come down to an issue of how much Alabama actually knew about the situation. If anyone at Alabama had knowledge of the events either as they occurred or after the fact, and did not step forward with the allegations, then Alabama most likely will lose their national championships and face many other sanctions (Prime examples – USC and coach Jim Tressel at Ohio State). However, if this was an isolated action by Fluker and his contact points, Alabama may be able to weasel their way around the situation and retain their successes.

    Unlike the accusations against OSU, this case will probably be fairly cut and dry. The report issued by Yahoo! Sports outlines a huge paper trail left behind by Fluker, his mother, and his contact – former Alabama defensive end Luther Davis. Whenever one can create a chronological listing of all of the money transactions which occurred to Fluker from Davis, it’s safe to say the evidence is fairly damning. Perhaps the most damning evidence of all, however, was divulged by Fluker himself. In April, Fluker posted a tweet in which he admitted that he received money while in college:

    (image)

    The allegations against these 5 players and the allegations against OSU once again bring us to the age-old question: Should college athletes be paid for their services rendered during college? This USA Today Sports article by Chris Strauss makes the argument that Alabama should have played Fluker for his performance for the Crimson Tide, based on the amount of revenue the football team pulled-in for the university and Fluker’s past of growing up poor. While the latter case is hard to argue against (those pathos appeals always carry so much weight), one cannot overlook the fact that Fluker has his entire college expense paid for and received a HUGE contract upon signing with the San Diego Chargers ($6.6 million in a signing bonus, to be exact). Personally, I believe paying college students to play sports completely eliminates the division between amateur and professional and also eliminates the need for college athletics. But perhaps that is just the internal jealousy stemming from a vertically-challenged, private-liberal-arts educated academic.

    What do you think? Should college athletes be paid? Respond in the Comment Section below.

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