Former Canes Hoops Star Now ATL Firefighter

((HT: WSB-TV))

For those of you who really remember your college hoops, you remember Tim James and his physical presence at the University of Miami (FL). He had a cup of coffee with the Knicks in the NBA before enlisting in the army.

Now, he's taking on his next life challenge- being a rookie firefighter with the city of Atlanta...

Wendy Corona did the story and looked up a lot...

OSG High: How Not To Recruit... Allegedly...

((HT: AJC.com/Niesse))

Grady (Atlanta, GA) High School has had its ups and downs when it comes to the football program...

There have been playoff berths, but there have also been growing pains in between... as a matter of fact, Erk Russell coached the Grey Knights to their only state title in 1953...

Yes, THAT Erk Russell...
Anyway, the HQ digresses...

The 2013 season finished up with an 8-3 record under Ronnie Millen- who had been the coach since 2001...

Here's Grady's final game of the 2012 season- a playoff loss to Monroe Area...
((HT: NFHS Network))


But the City of Atlanta is now investigating the allegation (made anonymously, of course) that as many as 20 players falsified their addresses to play for Millen...

Millen has been transferred out of the school because of the investigation...

“We depend on the integrity of parents who have an ethical obligation to the district to provide accurate addresses to the district,” School Superintendent Erroll Davis said as he announced the investigation. “However, our commitment to ethics is higher than any individual program.”

The biggest issue of the whole investigation is: Why and how did the parents/guardians/coaches/administrators/anyone involved in the process (allegedly) think that filing duplicate addresses wouldn't get past the city gatekeepers and send up red flags in their investigation in the first place...???

Students found to have violated the geography rules could be transferred back to their native school districts and any athlete with a scholarship to a college could have that in jeopardy as well...

The Georgia High School Association has been notified of the City investigation and may hand down separate penalties of their own once the initial investigation is complete...

OSG sources familiar with the situation at Grady say this has been a fairly common occurrence in the past with athletes using either the addresses of relatives or outright fake addresses to take advantage of what has been characterized as the best school in the Atlanta Public School system- even when it was just a base for the magnet program...

Falcons Stadium Design Released: Looks Like Logan's Run Carousel

Renderings/atlantafalcons.newstadium.com

((ht: atlantafalcons.com))

Give the Atlanta Falcons credit, they managed to get the city of Atlanta to partner with them on a new football stadium and they are trying to think "Outside the Box".

Sort of.

Check out the rendering on your right. It's the design that's been approved by the team and the architect, 360 Architecture.

Looks sort of familar, at least to those of us old enough to remember this:

 

But maybe that's just us. (No, it's not gonna be that dark in the new place)


Either way, the $1 billion project is still early in the planning stages and part of the design includes such amenities as a giant video screen embedded into the retractable part of the roof, 70,000 seats including tons more club seating and uh...PSL's.

Yeah, surprisingly, your ticket prices are going up.

The Falcons promise that not all seats will have PSL's attached, but you can bet if they can get enough season ticket holders to fill the place up, they'll do exactly that.

Because OSG Global HQ is located in the Atlanta area, we do look forward to seeing this with our own eyes. And yes, despite our cynicism/narcissism regarding the whole thing, we'll go see a game or two there. (The Lovely Bride would never forgive me if we miss a Saints/Falcons game there)

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