Author Archives: Travis Normand

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About Travis Normand

Attorney, Husband, and Father. - Interests: College Football, Rugby, Cigars, Freemasonry, History, Research, Writing, LOAC / IHL, Law, and much more.

Baylor . . .

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by Travis Normand
May 22, 2017

Well, it appears that after months of scandal, everything at Baylor is going to be alright and that things are really looking up for the Bears … wait … wait … no, never mind, everything is on fire!

“Lawsuit: Baylor football players recorded gang rapes
ABCnews.com
by Jim Vertuno, AP Sports Writer
Austin, Texas – May 17, 2017

A new federal lawsuit against Baylor University alleges football players routinely recorded gang rapes and staged dog fights during hazing parties in a program that fostered sexual violence.” (Link)

I really hope that Jane Doe (lawsuit petitioner that was allegedly gang raped by members of the Baylor football team) doesn’t run into Kim Mulkey, Women’s Head Basketball Coach at Baylor. Remember what Mulkey said you should do to those who are skeptical of their daughter’s safety at Baylor? Lets review her comments from February 2017 when she addressed a home crowd in Waco after a game (emphasis added):

“If somebody around you and they ever say, ‘I will never send my daughter to Baylor,’ you knock them right in the face,” Mulkey told fans to applause and cheers. “Because these kids are on this campus. I work here. My daughter went to school here, and it’s the damn best school in America.” (LINK)

I don’t know if the Jane Does of Baylor University should be more scared of the Baylor football team, the women’s basketball coach, the home crowd of Baylor fans that cheered Mulkey’s comments, or the fans who started the #CAB movement during the 2016 football season in support of Art Briles.

Regardless, with a University culture this toxic, I would imagine it would be best for all potential Jane Does to get out of Waco/Baylor while they still can!

Here are a few other links to stories regarding the newly filed lawsuit:

  1. New Lawsuit Alleges Baylor Players Gang-Raped Women As ‘Bonding Experience’ (NPR.org)
  2. New Baylor Lawsuit Alleges Football Players Held Gang-Rape Initiations, Dog Fights (DallasObserver.com)
  3. Baylor volleyball player files civil lawsuit: ‘It’s still a pretty traumatic event for her’ (WFAA.com)

The following are links to the petition that was filed on May 16, 2017 in the US District Court, Western District of Texas, Waco Division, styled Jane Doe vs. Baylor University, Case 6:17-cv-00125-RP (each link is to the same document).

  1. https://apps.npr.org/documents/document.html?id=3726009-Doe-v-Baylor
  2. http://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/BaylorRape2.pdf

Again, is anyone surprised by all of this? This is, after all, the same school that had the Dave Bliss scandal about fourteen years ago. While these actions may be considered unimaginable to the rest of the world, it is not a foreign concept to Baylor University.

As a side note, in case you are curious what Dave Bliss is up to these days, he apparently resigned his position as head basketball coach at Southwestern Christian University back in April 2017. I know what you are thinking, “there is a school that hired Bliss to coach their basketball team?”

Chicago vs. Michigan Rivalry

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by Travis Normand
May 15, 2017

I recently stumbled upon an amazing Wikipedia page that is dedicated to the history of the football rivalry between the University of Chicago (Maroons) and the University of Michigan (Wolverines). If you enjoy the history of college football, I would highly recommend this abbreviated historical overview. You can visit the page by clicking HERE.

In the early 1900s, the rivalry between Chicago and Michigan was fierce and included legendary coaches Amos Alonzo Stagg and Fielding H. Yost. The rivalry was so important that Michigan’s 1898 victory over Chicago served as the spark for Michigan’s fight song (this victory inspired Michigan student Louis Elbel to write “The Victors“).

However, the 1905 game, and the tragic events that followed, remind me of the quote by UCLA’s head football coach, Henry Russell Sanders, who said “[I]t’s not a matter of life and death, it’s more important than that!”

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12th Man Copyright Lawsuit against Texas A&M

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by Travis Normand
January 23, 2017

I first saw this reported by the SETexasRecord.com, but I have since seen it reported by several other media outlets as well.

A book publisher and author, Michael Bynum, (Plaintiffs) have sued the Texas A&M Athletic Department, the 12th Man Foundation, and others, (Defendants) in federal court for what appears to be a claim of copyright infringement. The lawsuit was filed on January 19, 2017.

The Plaintiffs claim that Defendants stole the author’s unpublished biography of E. King Gill, and “copied and distributed it as if it was their own” (see lawsuit paragraph 1). For those who may not be aware, E. King Gill was the student behind Texas A&M’s famous 12th Man tradition.

Texas A&M has been involved in several lawsuits over the years in order to protect their federal 12th Man trademark. The most prominent of these lawsuits involved the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks and Indianapolis Colts.

In this current lawsuit, Plaintiffs allege that Defendants had received a PDF copy of Bynum’s unpublished book for the limited purpose of fact-checking, locating additional photos, and an option to purchase copies for former students. The lawsuit goes on to allege that one particular Defendant retyped the biography, changed its title, and deleted Bynum’s name before republishing the material (see lawsuit paragraph 4, etc.).

Plaintiffs claim that by “unlawfully copying and publishing the heart of Bynum’s work . . . Defendants destroyed Plaintiffs’ prospects for a successful print run, and the . . . book remains unpublished to this day” (see lawsuit paragraph 5).

The lawsuit was filed in the Southern District of Texas, Federal Court, Houston Texas as Case No. 4:17-CV-0181.  Plaintiffs’ original complaint can been seen below.

Bynum v. Texas A&M Univ. Athletic Dept., 17-cv-00181 (S.D. Tex.)

 

Other information regarding this case:

Plaintiff’s Attorney: Natalie L. Arbaugh (is now apparently with a different law firm from when the case was filed).

1934 Rose Bowl Trophy

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by Travis Normand
January 17, 2017

This is my first re-posting of an old “College Football Independent” post. It was originally posted on that blog on December 29, 2008.

1934 Rose Bowl Trophy (on eBay)
December 29, 2008

1934 Stanford Rose Bowl Trophy

1934 Stanford Rose Bowl Trophy

While looking on ebay.com I came across the 1934 Rose Bowl Trophy! The seller is asking $9,999 for it and it will be interesting to see if anyone actually buys it. This is a great item for any private collection, but $10K is a big price tag.

I have no idea if this trophy sold or not, but the auction’s description said that the trophy belonged to Stanford. Stanford lost the 1934 Rose Bowl game to Columbia and so I imagine this is some kind of participation trophy for having been invited to play in the Rose Bowl (which is an honor, in and of itself).

The College Football Independent (Old blog/Old posts)

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by Travis Normand
January 17, 2017

I think I have mentioned this before, but the OnePointSafety.com is not my first attempt at running a college football blog. I have had a couple of blogs prior to this one, however, none of them were as successful. I had a blog at TexAgs.com titled “Campusology” (hence the name of the tabbed section on this blog), a blog on Google’s Blogger titled “The College Football Independent,” a WordPress.com blog titled “The Crystal Football,” and maybe one more that I can’t remember. I also did some guest blogging at places like PhilSteele.com and HeismanPundit.com; and I had an account at BleacherReport.com (all of which I would like to transfer here if possible).

For the longest time I had thought that everything I posted at those sites was gone, lost to the internet forever. However, the other day I found that my old Blogger and WordPress accounts were still “alive” and I could retrieve some of my old posts. I figured that some of them might be worth saving and so I have decided to start transferring them over here to OnePointSafety.com.

Keep in mind, these old posts are not timely anymore and they are probably worthless to anyone now (in fact, come to think of it, they were probably worthless at the time I originally posted them). However, for preservation sake, I am going to start re-posting them here. I will include the header/banner from the original blog into these posts in order to make these older posts more identifiable and easier for readers to skip or ignore if you are not interested. I hope you enjoy the walk down memory lane as much as I do.

Note: I am going to create a category for these old blog posts and title it “CFBIndependent-CrystalFootball.”  Oh, and I am not going to edit or update these old posts, so you can see them in their original format (and see exactly how terrible they were when I originally posted them).

Yale’s 2004 Prank on Harvard – One of the Greatest! (via ESPN.com)

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by Travis Normand
November 25, 2016

The following feature aired on ESPN’s College Gameday in 2014. I could have sworn I had posted it here soon after it originally aired. However, I came across the video again today and after a quick search, it appears I did not post it. So, in case you have never seen this, I highly recommend taking a few minutes to watch it.  This is why I love this game.

From ESPN.com:

Revisiting Yale’s 2004 Prank On Harvard

A decade after two Yale students pulled off an elaborate prank on Harvard during the 2004 edition of “The Game,” they revisit the plan and execution that has turned them into legends.

Click HERE to watch the video:  http://www.espn.com/video/clip?id=11917734

Great Quotes from College Football History

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by Travis Normand
November 7, 2016

This post is a little random but will serve as a collection of some of the greatest quotes (in my opinion) from college football coaches and personalities. In no particular order:

[1] In 1968, Woody Hayes’ Ohio State team won its rivalry game against Michigan by a score of 50–14. Late in the game, Ohio State held a 44–14 lead and yet still scored one final touchdown. Instead of kicking an extra point, Hayes opted for a two-point conversion (which was unsuccessful). When asked later why he went for two points, Hayes replied, “Because I couldn’t go for three!“

[2] In 1981, after the Commissioner of Major League Baseball, Bowie Kuhn, offered lifetime MLB passes to the returning hostages from the Iran hostage crisis, Carroll Hoff “Beano” Cook asked/said, “Haven’t they suffered enough?“

[3] In July 2015, at SEC media days, Arkansas head coach Brett Bielema was asked how it had felt ending the previous season by defeating the Texas Longhorns 31-7 in the 2014 Texas Bowl. On their final possession, Arkansas had taken three kneel-downs after a first and goal in order to run out the clock and end the game. “It was a proud moment,” said Bielema. “Borderline erotic.“

[4] As far as John Heisman  was concerned, fumbling the football was a cardinal sin. Among his many different preparation rituals, Heisman would recite the following speech to his team at the beginning of each season.  While holding up a football for all his players to see, Heisman would ask rhetorically, “What is this? It is a prolate spheroid, an elongated sphere-in which the outer leather casing is drawn tightly over a somewhat smaller rubber tubing. Better to have died as a small boy than to fumble this football.”

[5] Henry Russell Sanders was the head football coach at UCLA from 1949-1957. During his tenure at UCLA he was asked about the importance of winning the UCLA-USC rivalry game. Sanders responded by saying “[I]t’s not a matter of life and death, it’s more important than that!”

Hopefully more to come….soon.

Happy Birthday College Football – 147 years old! (Nov. 6, 2016)

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by Travis Normand
November. 6, 2016

Happy 147th Birthday College Football!

It was 147 years ago today (November 6, 1869) that the Rutgers College Queensmen defeated the College of New Jersey (now Princeton) 6-4 in what is considered by many as the first American football game (college or otherwise).

If you start by counting the 1869 season as the first college football season, then 2016 is the 148th season. In 2018, college football will be 149 years old and it will be the 150th season; while 2019 will see college football turn 150 years old.

2016 Texas A&M vs. Alabama: The history and connections between the schools

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by Travis Normand
October 19, 2016

[If this post reads like a Facebook fan posting, that is because it is.  I originally posted this on Facebook as a fun informational type of fan post.  However, due to the response I got, I figured I would share it here as well.  I have modified it slightly from the original Facebook post.]

In honor of this weekend’s game between No. 6 Texas A&M and No. 1 Alabama, I am posting some random facts that connect the two schools together. Plus, I made a similar post before the A&M vs. Tennessee game, and we saw how that ended up.

One of the most obvious connections between Texas A&M and Alabama is that of famed Alabama coach Paul “Bear” Bryant who was the head football coach at Texas A&M from 1954 to 1957.  Bryant attended Alabama where he played football from 1933 to 1935.

Bryant’s 1954 season was his first at A&M. He started the ’54 season with a training camp in Junction, Texas. The camp was extremely tough and the players from that camp were given the nickname of the “Junction Boys.” Bryant’s first A&M squad finished 1-9 in 1954, while his 1956 squad won the Southwest Conference (SWC) Championship.

In 1957, Texas A&M running back John David Crow won the Heisman Trophy and became the first and only player to win the award while playing for coach Bryant. John David Crow would end up coaching at Alabama from 1969 to 1971 under Bear Bryant before returning to A&M as an athletic director.

At the end of the 1957 season, Bryant left A&M to become the head coach at Alabama. Bryant’s final game at A&M was a loss in the 1957 Gator Bowl to Tennessee.

A&M and Alabama first met on the gridiron at the end of the 1941 season. The Aggies were SWC champions but lost to Alabama, 29-21 in the Cotton Bowl.

The Aggies and Crimson Tide would not play again until the January 1968 Cotton Bowl (at the end of the 1967 season). The Aggies were SWC champions again and were able to even the series with Alabama at 1-1.

The 1968 Cotton Bowl featured a significant connection between the schools, other than the Aggie victory.  Bear Bryant was the head coach of Alabama, while Gene Stallings was the head coach of A&M. Stallings had been a player at A&M under coach Bryant and was one of the “Junction Boys.” After playing football at A&M, Stallings had been a defensive assistant under Bryant at Alabama from 1958-1964. However, in 1965 Stallings returned to A&M as head coach of the Aggies, where he eventually defeated his mentor in the 1968 Cotton Bowl.

Gene Stallings and Bear Bryant, 1968 Cotton Bowl

Gene Stallings and Bear Bryant, 1968 Cotton Bowl

At the conclusion of the game, Stallings’ Aggies had defeated Bryant’s Crimson Tide 20-16. The coaches met at mid-field, and in what can be described as a truly proud moment, Bryant hoisted Stallings onto his shoulder and carried him off the field.

Stallings later returned to Alabama as head coach in 1990 and won the first SEC championship game (and thus an SEC championship), as well as a National Championship, in 1992.  In doing so, Stallings became the second member of Texas A&M’s Association of Former Students to win a conference and national title at a school that is currently a member of the Southeastern Conference (SEC) (Robert Neyland was the first at Tennessee).

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