bullets13

He got out while the getting was good. Only had 2 years left to win a state championship before he was labeled a failure forever. Quick question: if he took a team that was 0-10 the year before he arrived and went 1-8 his first year, and then 21-13 the next four years, was he a success without a state championship? He also took a program with only 11 kids coming out his first year and had 50 come out to play last season.

It is absolutely this, and nothing more. It's a shame.

This infuriates me. I worked for BISD for 15 years, including when all of this happened. It's absolutely jaw-dropping how many people were stealing from BISD during the time of the bond, and many of them were under the direct supervision of Thomas. There were dozens of examples of fraud, theft, cronyism, etc (Report details misuse of Beaumont ISD bond funds as Thomas avoided scrutiny (beaumontenterprise.com)). Thomas also benefited from a poorly negotiated contract that saw his base salary nearly triple over the course of 10 years, making him the highest paid superintendent in the state, even though he was doing a poor job leading a fairly poor, fairly small district. The problem is that the people of color in charge weren't concerned about students and the community, only about sticking it to the white man that had held them down for so long. Calvin Walker bilked BISD for millions of dollars. The majority African American schoolboard under Butch Thomas actually voted to renew his yearly contract AFTER he'd been charged with stealing millions from the district, and had taken a plea deal where he forfeited millions of dollars that he'd stolen from BISD (BISD Board of Trustees react to Calvin Walker's mistrial | 12newsnow.com). The school board voted NOT TO SEEK TO HAVE THE MONEY HE STOLE REPAID, even though more than $2M he stole was available to them!!! (BISD renews Walker's contract, votes against more restitution information (ctinsider.com)) The district and school board chose to let the feds keep the money Walker had stolen from them rather than admitting that he had stolen from them. Here is a list of thefts and scams that the district knew about Walker committing at the time that they renewed his contract ( Calvin Walker jury selection to start in Beaumont | 12newsnow.com). My personal favorite is the $600,000 he charged BISD to cover the cost of renting bucket trucks to complete work he'd been hired to do. He did this even though he already owned bucket trucks, and did not need to rent any Under Thomas the district spent tens of thousands of dollars on copies of (low quality) books full of misinformation written by communication director Jessie Haynes (Problem with BISD book is source, not contents (beaumontenterprise.com) During Thomas' reign, the BISD Comptroller and Director of Finance were both arrested and convicted for stealing more than $4M (Former Beaumont ISD Employees Sentenced for Stealing over $4 Million | USAO-EDTX | Department of Justice). Patricia Lambert, an assistant superintendent under Thomas was convicted of theft and falsifying test scores. BISD also spent hundreds of thousands of dollars for her son to print items for BISD, even though he did not have a printing business. He simply paid a real printing business to print these items and then charged BISD a marked up price (Former Beaumont ISD Assistant Superintendent Guilty of Federal Charges — FBI). As everyone knows, his leadership was so poor that the district was eventually taken over by the state (TEA announces takeover of BISD, New superintendent to be appointed | 12newsnow.com). Thomas took off before anything could stick to him. He still to this day claims that he didn't know anything about the crimes being committed under him. In my opinion if he had no idea all of this was going on, it reflects worse on him than if he was actually involved in the corruption. After all of this, thousands of BISD employees had to go through the stress of seeing if their position ended up on the RIF list, as hundreds of employees were let go in an effort to save money after BISD's finances had been run into the ground. That was one of the most terrifying times of my life, as there was considerable talk about my entire school being shut down in an effort to reduce costs for the district. I literally could go on and on, and on and on and on and on with examples of theft and mismanagement under Thomas. The naming of a stadium after him was entirely racially motivated. the sad part was that it wasn't named after him because he was African American, but instead because naming it after him made white people mad. And now here we go again. There are a dozen plus people of color who could rightfully be honored with BISD's stadium being named after them. There is also the option of finding a sponsor who'll pay for the name. Instead the board is once again putting "sticking it to the man" ahead of responsible spending and putting it's students, staff, and community first.

I hope they get Brunson back. He's perfect alongside Luka because he's willing to take a secondary role when on the floor with Luka, but capable of running the offense when Luka is on the bench.

[Hidden Content]

I currently work for one that does. Coincidentally (or not), our behavior is excellent. Also, due to our male principal being promoted, it appears I will be our school's dispenser of justice next school year.

would be a perfect fit in Dallas. doesn't need the ball a lot, and shoots a high percentage. Imagine the easy baskets he'd get with Luka feeding him.

InMAGAweTrust has been permanently banned. The continual insults and derailing of threads got to be too much. I bring this up because several of you guys have engaged in similar behaviors recently. The one saving grace for y'all is that it almost always involves him, and more times than not is in response to his initial insult. we're going to have a friendly board, even if we disagree sometimes. There are plenty of ways to debate without being downright insulting and talking about people's personal lives. There's plenty of you on here that I've gotten into it with at times, but there's a certain amount of respect involved. Let's keep it that way. Thanks in advance. Comments are locked to avoid this from becoming a bashing thread. Don't want anyone to have to join him.

Yup. If he's THAT good I kind of expect him to start a year at Hardin, generate some interest, and then him and his dad go to a much bigger job as a package deal.

The more I watch Luka the more I think he’s probably the best player in the league. He’s absolutely the most valuable. He’s got Dallas in the western conference finals with one other guy who’s pretty good and 8 role players. He’s got the best average ppg in elimination games in nba history, and he was so good tonight he didn’t even get to play in the 4th quarter and hurt his average a little.

To a degree we’re in agreement. Lorena lost to 4A world beaters China Spring last year by 8 and won the 3A D1 championship. Franklin won the 3A D2 championship, and actually beat Lorena. If you go 9-1 and lose to one of those teams in the second round, or LRA or Columbus for that matter, I don’t know that I’d call that “melting like a sno-cone.” So we’re in agreement that it isn’t a great district, but I feel you’re seriously downplaying how difficult the competition they’ve been running into is

High end bottom quartile maybe. I think there are several places in the state you could move this district and they’d have a team or two getting 3 rounds deep most years. It just absolutely won’t happen with the teams they have to face in the first and second rounds currently. EC lost a close one to Little River Academy this year in the second round. Woodville had to face Lorena second round. Anahuac ran into Columbus. This district is unfortunate to have to play top-10 schools in the second round of the playoffs, and now you can add Franklin to the mix, who was the 3A d-2 champ last year.

I really don't have time to deal with some of the stupidity in this thread today. Please remember that multiple accounts are not allowed, and both can be banned. Insults will get a warning, and can lead to a ban. Settle it down.

I'm not saying they're great, but there are 32 3A districts in the state, and this is not "one of the worst". bottom half probably, but there are several districts who are weaker. This district also has the great misfortune of having to face teams out of what is by far the best district in the state in the early rounds of the playoffs every year. There won't be many deep runs out of this district when you're running into Lorena, LRA, and next season Franklin in the first 2 rounds.

there's a whole thread to talk about this. hijacking topics is against forum rules. When it's at least semi-related, no big deal, and we allow a lot of leeway in the political forum for obvious reasons, but this is way out of line. No need for a response.

Bingo. I don't know this coach, don't know unwoke, don't know the relationship they have. But one guy telling another guy something and then that guy putting it online doesn't necessarily have anything to do with facts. The coach could've been 100% truthful, could've been mostly truthful but shaded things to support his own narrative or viewpoint, could be a little butthurt and is misrepresenting things to make himself out to be a victim, or any other number of scenarios.

she wasn't really my jug of tea.

Orangefield was a 7-4 playoff team in 4A last year, Anahuac went 9-3 last year and is on the rise in pretty much every sport, and East Chambers is always good. Kirbyville was mediocre last year, but seems to be coming up. Buna was bad and Hardin was worse, but half the district will be pretty good. Regardless of what you think of the district, Tarkington was by far the worst team in the district last season, and they were a long way from even stepping over the bar to next to worst. 6 of the 9 teams Tarkington played last season (0-9, 0-6) are on their schedule this year, and only one of their nine losses was by less than 30. The only game that I can look at on this schedule and think they may have some realistic shot at winning is Hardin. I think a great season is 2-8 and the majority of the 8 losses being by less than 30 points.

I'm all for fairness and equal opportunity. Nobody should be held back or intentionally disadvantaged for arbitrary reasons like race or gender. That said, this movement to level the playing field by cutting the legs out from under overachievers to bring them back towards the middle of the pack instead of just making sure everyone has the same opportunities to start with is a movement destined for mediocrity.

2wedge covered it better than I could, but made the point I was going to make. Anytime you have a community that buys into a certain coach or program, or even sport in general, you can see extended success. Little boys in Hardin don't have much to look forward to for football, but little girls who are athletic can start working towards that volleyball goal at an early age, and softball in Liberty is even easier with a great club program locally. One can even look at a school like WOS to see how one sport might be elite while others are average or bad. It's pretty mind blowing that with the athletes WOS has they can hardly put a .500 record together in basketball most years, even though their football team is perpetually in the running for a state championship. Another example, and one I grew up in. HJ has a really good basketball team pretty much every year, but the football team is usually bad. I remember playing little dribblers out there and each age group would have 10 or more teams. The average school class over there was around 125 students, and each little dribblers age group covers two classes. So two classes is around 250 students, and approximately 125 boys. Each little dribblers team would have 8-9 players. So out of 125 possible kids, close to 90 would play. By the time we got to high school most of us had been playing together for nearly 10 years. Out there it was just expected that you would play basketball, and we did. We actually had a special group of athletes while I was there, and our football team was pretty good for 3-4 years, but basketball stayed strong and football faded back into mediocrity until the next special group came along about 15 years later.

literally was getting on here to post this. pretty insane.

[Hidden Content]

Liberty is no-man's land. you lose athletes to the big city in one direction and the nicer rural areas in the other. apart from softball they don't do much in any sports out there on a consistent basis. with a little more talent during a 3-year stretch they had a decent run of seasons, but they're a mediocre (or bad, depending on the year) program that's had to play elite teams in district or early in the playoffs. Taylor didn't do badly at Liberty with what he had. If he can bring stability to Tarkington and create a little interest in the program, there will be some improvement. look at Tarkington's football history, and if Taylor does exactly the same at Tarkington that he did at Liberty I'd call it an overwhelming success. If he stays 10 years, goes 45-50 with a few 8-9 win seasons and a playoff win or two they'll be ready to name the stadium after him, and for good reason.

I gotta quit coming back on here and reading y'all's responses. The pro-life crowd certainly spends a lot of money trying to make sure these babies are born. i'm referring to after they're born. The same folks who are pro-life are typically anti-handout and anti-government support. There's no debating that. It wouldn't take a whole lot to go through old political threads on here and find quotes from the majority of your pro-lifers in this thread disparaging government aid and handout programs, all of which would have to be massively expanded when you start adding a few million mouths a year to the government teat. And let me just add this here because I really don't want to come back onto this thread: I'm all for added support to expectant mothers, counseling (for those who want it), etc. And I especially would like to see adoption not be a big money operation. Make it an easier process and you'll see abortions drop, and you'll find more families for more unwanted kids. Just because I'm pro-choice doesn't mean I celebrate abortion. I'm happy to see the numbers greatly decrease, but there's got to be a plan in place to support these kids. Getting them born is the first, easiest, and cheapest step.

I support this wholeheartedly (and this really is my last post on the thread). A big part of the exception I take with the pro-life crowd is how seldom most of them put their money and time where their mouth is. Even being pro-choice, I want abortions to be cheap, safe, and most importantly, rare. Anything states can do to improve the situations and mindset of pregnant women in bad spots is a win in my book.