Has Mark Cuban Finally Lost It?

Before i get to my topic i just wanted to let everyone know that my Gain or Lose entry will be posted tomorrow.

Yesterday Mavericks Owner Mark Cuban announced that he was going to try to make a new football league to compete with the NFL. Full Story-

Yahoo.com wrote:

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is part of a group considering formation of a football league that would compete with the NFL for players drafted lower than the second round.

The league, still very much in the preliminary stage, would play its games on Friday nights. The NFL does not play then because of the potential conflict with high school football.

“It’s a pretty simple concept,” Cuban said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. “We think there is more demand for pro football than supply.”

The proposal was first disclosed by The New York Times on its Web site, which said it was the idea of Bill Hambrecht, a Wall Street investor who was a minority partner in the Oakland Invaders of the USFL, which played in the spring from 1983-85. Sharon Smith, a spokeswoman for Hambrecht and Company, had no comment and said Hambrecht was traveling and unavailable to talk about the idea.

NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said he was aware of the proposed league, but had no further comment.

There have been numerous leagues that have tried to compete with the NFL and a few that actually played games, starting with the AFL, which began in 1960 and fully merged with the NFL a decade later. It included such current franchises as New England, Oakland, Kansas City, San Diego, Buffalo, the New York Jets and Denver.

More recently came the World Football League in the early 1970s, which raided the NFL for such stars as Larry Csonka. Then came the USFL, which played in the spring before folding after receiving only $3 in an antitrust “victory” over the NFL.

The USFL featured such future Hall of Famers as Jim Kelly, Reggie White and Steve Young, but lost millions of dollars trying to compete for players. It also had internal struggles among a majority of owners who wanted to stay in the spring, and the best known among them, Donald Trump, who wanted to move to the fall and try to force a merger with the NFL.

The most recent pro football league was the XFL, founded by the World Wrestling Federation and televised by NBC. The XFL lasted just three months in the spring of 2001 and was best known for a player named Rod Smart, called “He Hate Me,” who later played as a return man and backup running back in the NFL.

So far, the proposed new league is in its infancy and Cuban is the only potential owner for what the founders hope will be an eight-team league.

Cuban said in his e-mail he believes the salary cap makes it easier to compete financially with the NFL because of the salary imbalance that leaves lower-level players with lower salaries. That would allow the new league to fill its rosters with players taken lower than the second round, as well as late NFL cuts and free agents who escape the NFL draft.

Many such players, including Tom Brady, a sixth-round pick of New England, have become NFL stars.

“That’s not to say it will be easy. It won’t,” Cuban wrote. “We still have to cover quite a bit of ground and have a lot of milestones to hit. That said, if we can get the right owners I obviously think we can make this work.”

Do you think that a new football league would work out and do you think it could compete with the NFL?

R.I.P Marquise Hill

Yesterday Patriots DE Marquise Hill was found in Lake Pontchartrain after being missing for a whole day. after he was found he was pronounced dead. Whole story-

ESPN.com wrote:

NEW ORLEANS — The death of New England Patriots defensive end Marquise Hill, who fell off a personal watercraft Sunday in Lake Pontchartrain, was ruled an accidental drowning Tuesday.

An autopsy found no signs of drug or alcohol in Hill’s body, although more tests are planned and will take two weeks to complete, said Orleans Parish coroner Dr. Frank Minyard.

Minyard said Hill might have suffered a mild concussion when he fell off the watercraft.

Hill spent much of his free time and his NFL paycheck helping loved ones rebuild in the hurricane-damaged city where he grew up.

Aiding others came naturally to him, and distraught relatives on Monday said Hill died a hero after the former LSU star helped save the life of a former high school classmate who could not swim.

On his latest visit home for Memorial Day weekend, Hill and a female friend ventured out on Lake Pontchartrain on a personal watercraft without life vests Sunday night. The two ended up falling off the watercraft in an area of swirling currents near where a major shipping canal runs into the lake.

While the woman survived by grabbing a piling and holding onto it until she was rescued, the 24-year-old Hill, who friends described as a good swimmer, drifted away and disappeared until searchers pulled his body from the water on Monday afternoon, about 17 hours after the accident.

“He was a hero until the end,” his cousin, Elaine Hill Blackshire of Alabama, told the Boston Herald for Tuesday’s editions. “He made sure he got her to safety. I’m just so sad that he lost his life, but he wouldn’t have had it any other way. If he had saved himself, and knowing she couldn’t swim, he couldn’t have lived with himself.

“He thought of others first. He was just that kind of person.”

Loved ones including Hill’s fiancee, Inell Benn, and friends, including Patriots teammate Randall Gay, had waited anxiously along the shoreline during the search and consoled one another when authorities told them the 6-foot-6, 300-pound Hill was found dead.

“Right now’s a terrible time,” Benn said. “I don’t know what to feel right now.”

Gay, who also played with Hill at LSU, had planned to spend the holiday weekend in Baton Rouge, but drove to New Orleans on Monday to monitor the search. Rough sea conditions and the current caused Hill’s watercraft to overturn.

“Knowing that I have to go back to work and go look at his locker this week, it’s tough,” Gay said.

Hill’s body was discovered by searchers about a quarter of a mile from where he fell into the water, Capt. Brian Clark of the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Department said. The name of Hill’s companion has not been released.

Hill also leaves a 2-year-old son.

“He was just such a fine young man. I’m just so deeply, deeply, sorry,” his stepgrandmother, Virginia Hill of Alabama, told the Herald. Before his body was found, his mother, Sherry Hill, told the newspaper she was hoping for a miracle.

“I lost a brother, man,” said Patriots defensive lineman Jarvis Green, a fellow Louisiana native and former LSU player. “He was a funny guy. … He’d just sit there and talk to you, say some funny things off his head that’d make you laugh. He was good to be around.”

The Coast Guard was called Sunday night, Petty Officer Tom Atkeson said. The search began immediately, using boats and helicopters. By the time the body was found, the Coast Guard, Wildlife and Fisheries, the New Orleans Police Department and Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Department were involved, Clark said.

“We have suffered a stunning and tragic loss,” Patriots coach Bill Belichick said in a written statement Monday evening. “Marquise will be remembered as a thoughtful and caring young man who established himself as one of the year-round daily fixtures of our team. I send my deepest condolences to the Hill family.”

Hill’s agent, Albert Elias, said he spoke with Hill’s friend and said she either couldn’t swim or was having difficulty doing so.

“Marquise knew this, and being a strong swimmer, he was instructing her as he drifted away in a different direction to stay calm and don’t fight the water. He found a buoy or piling behind her and told her to let the current take her to that. She listened to him and it pretty much saved her life,” Elias said.

The woman was sent to Tulane Medical Center, where she told authorities that Hill had tried to keep her calm as the two were drifting away from each other.

“It’s so important to have a life jacket and a signaling device,” Atkeson said. “One keeps you afloat and the other helps us find you.”

Elias said the player spent much of his time since Hurricane Katrina helping rebuild the homes of family members including his mother and the mother of his son.

“From what I hear, he’s done a lot to help with things after Katrina and I know he had a great passion for the city of New Orleans,” said former LSU quarterback Matt Mauck, who was Hill’s teammate at LSU. “Off the field he was a really kind person, kind of like a gentle giant. And not only for LSU, but for New England and everyone who got a chance to meet him throughout his life, everyone has to be extremely saddened and disappointed to hear the news.”

After going to the NFL, Hill continued to do much of his offseason training at LSU’s Baton Rouge campus, about 80 miles up the Mississippi River from New Orleans, and was known and admired by current Tigers players, university athletics spokesman Michael Bonnette said.

“His presence meant a lot for some of the younger guys. He gave them someone to look up to and he was always there for them,” Bonnette said. “Here’s a 6-foot-6, 300-pound guy, as intimidating as can be, and yet every time you approached him he always welcomed you with a big old smile.

“In between the lines, he had his game-face on, but outside the lines, in the community or in the weight room, he was always smiling and having a good time.”

What is your reaction to this?

R.I.P Marquise Hill
1982-2007

“A sad day for New England fans everywhere.”