Dave in Green

I don't even want to think about it so soon after a loss to another low-end MAC team. I'm more of a basketball fan than a football fan. But I do enjoy watching good performances in any sport. I'm actually starting to develop an interest in soccer, which I never believed possible. But Caleb Porter and the Zips soccer team are so unbelievably excellent that I can't help but want to watch them perform even though I don't fully understand the game. I do have a fair amount of patience if I can see even a flicker of a light at the end of the tunnel. But my patience is being strained by Zips football. I won't give up on them this season, because I believe they are trying hard, and effort deserves support. A few of the players show tantalizing promise, but the overall team performance just can't get it done. I'll make my decision on a season ticket for next year when they go on sale, no sooner.

@Zipmeister, at this point I can no longer tell if you're being serious or playing one of your typical jokes. I've tried my best to clearly acknowledge points here that you will not acknowledge that I've acknowledged. But I can't control how you interpret my words. So we appear to be locked in an endless loop. If you're serious, please show me a direct quote from any of my last few posts that suggests I believe that tax-exempt organizations are required to report paid attendance on a tax return. If you're joking, then "I quit" would make a good ending to this discussion.

@Zipmeister, we have some common ground here based on your response to Doug Snyder. I don't disagree with anything you said concerning schools following NCAA rules about reporting paid attendance. I agree that some of these practices may appear deceptive to those who consider legitimate paid attendance to only include single ticket sales and not blocks of tickets. Of course, block ticket sales have always been a part of sporting events without a lot of people being aware of it. But it becomes more obvious to more people when large blocks of tickets are included in sponsorship packages, and few fans show up at games due to lack of interest in a losing team. Then there's a big and obvious gap between official paid attendance and actual butts in seats. There would be no IRS problems for any non-tax-exempt organization reporting this on their tax return. It would only present a tax problem if the amount of money earned from paid ticket sales was underreported.

Live scoring on Game Tracker shows the Maryland-Creighton match over, with Maryland winning 1-0. Final stats here: http://gocreighton.cstv.com/gametracker/la...artschool=&

Got it. I'm still learning.

@Hilltopper & @RowdyZip, right, there's really not much difference in the strength of the teams the Zips are facing in this tournament vs. the last few years. I suppose that winning a tournament really doesn't do any more for you than just going out and beating all the teams you face. The main difference may be the nationally televised game with Mississippi State. I don't recall the Zips playing on national cable TV in any of the previous tournaments. Then again, my memory fluctuates. So maybe someone remembers differently.

9-0 shots on goal? I really like it when teams make it easy for a newbie soccer fan to recognize domination.

@Zipmeister, I'm quite aware of the fact that the IRS is not the correct institution to address this issue under current law. Nothing in my last few posts suggests that it is. I'm also very clear on how the IRS would come into play should paid admissions to athletic events become classified as subject to unrelated business income tax for otherwise tax-exempt colleges and universities. It would be similar to the way the IRS currently deals with non-tax-exempt sporting event promoters. Colleges and universities would submit their tax forms with a clear accounting of expenditures and income related to athletic events. If the IRS believed everything was on the up and up, that would be the end of it. If the IRS suspected hanky panky, they'd begin taking a closer look at the school's detailed financial records as well as such public information as NCAA rules for reporting paid attendance, publicly announced paid attendance, etc. Schools would have an easier time proving their case to the IRS if there were not conflicting numbers. Hence, my original and continuing contention that any benefits of fudging publicly announced paid attendance numbers would be outweighed by the complications they might cause with audited tax returns.

@Zipmeister, no problem on the harshness. By the way, your previous words were not in "emails," which are private communications, but in open posts on an internet forum. Harsh-sounding posts are pretty common on internet forums. Even the most civil posters can occasionally lapse into incivility if they get too wound up. Considering your interest in seeing that folks on here are not misled by arguments that don't make sense, I'm sure you'll appreciate a clarification to your last post. It's not necessary to get into a time machine to see the effects of colleges and universities not being considered tax exempt for certain areas of their business. Consider the following from the IRS: Tax-exempt private and public universities and colleges are subject to unrelated business income tax (UBIT) and generally must pay tax on income from an activity, trade, or business that is not substantially related to their educational tax-exempt purposes. That's the area where college athletics are vulnerable. In fact, the NCAA, which is nothing more than an athletic association created by and consisting of tax-exempt colleges and universities, has already run into this legal issue: At issue in a dispute from Kansas was the meaning of an exemption for property that is for “educational use.” Litigation ensued when the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) created a corporation to manage the property where it located its headquarters. On further review of the reversal of the tax appeals board’s denial of the NCAA’s property tax-exempt status on the basis that the headquarters did not qualify as an “educational use,” the state’s highest court affirmed in favor of the NCAA (National Collegiate Realty v. Board of County Commissioners, 1984). The court applied a broad interpretation of the words “educational use” in upholding the exemption insofar as it acknowledged the NCAA’s role in assuring amateurism in intercollegiate sports. They won that one under a "broad interpretation." But these days there is a lot of support to take a narrower interpretation. Thus, colleges and universities could easily maintain their general tax-exempt status while having their cash-rich athletic programs reclassified as not substantially related to their educational tax-exempt purposes, and thus ruled non-tax-exempt. I would not dispute the possibility of your contention that taxpayer-supported educational institutions "could (continue to) lie their ass off" about paid sports event attendance. It could be done and it may be that it is being done, though I think it's not as likely as you seem to think it is. It would mean that these taxpayer-supported educational institutions are deliberately providing misleading information to their shareholders, i.e. taxpayers. In that case, some taxpayers may wish for the IRS to go after their lying butts.

That guy appears to be going strictly by stats, which even I don't do. Zips have faced three tough FBS opponents and one weaker FCS team. EMU has faced two tough FBS opponents and two weaker FCS teams. That will skew the stats every time. By the way, EMU beat one of those FCS teams by only 7 points.

On the positive side, the Zips get a game with Mississippi State televised nationally on ESPNU. Even if we could independently schedule a date with a major program like Mississippi State, odds are it would not be televised. So while participation in the overall tournament may not be great for the Zips, it's not all bad. But it would be even better if the Zips could get invited to a "real" tournament where the team that wins all of its games is crowned undisputed champion.

@Doug Snyder, I'm sure that was just part of Zipmeister's Rickles routine. Humor can be deceiving.

@Zipmeister, if it takes a big man to admit he was wrong, I must be a true giant, as I freely admit that I make lots of mistakes. Heck, I'll admit I was mistaken in thinking that Zipmeister only did slapstick comedy when it's obvious now that you've also mastered the Don Rickles style. Kudos. Here's where I believe I'm not mistaken: Colleges and universities have been under scrutiny for many years for how they take in money and how they use it, including the highly visible and lucrative business of college sports. The IRS has been actively involved in this scrutiny for more than three years now, and the Colleges and Universities Compliance Project is the shot across the bow warning schools to get their books in order. While you are correct that there is no question in the compliance questionnaire singling out official football paid attendance (ticket sales), that would be included in broader revenue questions, to include athletics. As we all know, the IRS always reserves the right to request itemized details at a later date, and they'd better add up. If I was the executive in charge of responding to this type of request, I would make darn sure that all the numbers were accurate and could be backed up by itemized details before I sent it back to the IRS under my name. There's a generally grumpy mood in the air about universities spending and generating lots of potentially taxable cash in areas not directly related to education, such as athletics. As I said earlier, it's not a good time to be reporting false paid attendance numbers. But maybe you can help lighten that grumpy mood with some good IRS humor.

My point is that AJ Fox has been punting for the Zips since the second half of the Cincinnati game. Our offense has been so offensive, I'm sure Zach's numbers would also be near the top if he were still punting for the Zips. I think he's injured. Anyone? Thanks for pointing out that Campbell is injured and Fox has also punted for the Zips. Fox has six punts for 238 yards. Adding that to Campbell's 822 gives a total of 1,060 yards on 26 punts for the Zips compared to 1,441 yards on 34 punts for Rinehart and Can't. As weak as the Zips offense has been, and even counting both Zips punters, Can't still has about 30% more punts.

@Zipmeister, you're right. I jumped the gun on tax exempt universities being audited by the IRS on sports revenue. It hasn't happened yet. It's only a proposal under study. Maybe it won't happen. Maybe universities can say anything they want about paid attendance without worrying about the IRS. How would you play it if you were the UA executive in charge of responding to the IRS on their request for data pertaining to the Colleges and Universities Compliance Project?

@Zipmeister, don't kid yourself that the tax exempt status of college athletics isn't under close scrutiny right now. It's not a good time to be reporting false paid attendance numbers. Should America tax university sports? IRS Colleges and Universities Compliance Project

So that excuses getting down in the gutter with them? A great tactic of inferior teams is to try to get their superior opponents to lose their composure and play out of character. They cause us to lose our composure and drag us down to their level, they win. We maintain our composure and stay above their level, we win. Never let the enemy dictate your tactics.

On the tournament website, the only one-game subregional is the Akron Subregional with the Zips against Hiram. Just guessing here, but maybe the Gazelle Group messed up on scheduling and couldn't come up with enough teams to create a fourth tournament game for UA, so they allowed UA to make the already scheduled Hiram game part of the tournament. If you look at the Valparaiso Subregional, the Zips only have two games -- against Valparaiso and Duquesne, who each play three games in that subregional. This tournament always seems to have odd scheduling. On the good side, the Zips-Mississippi State game is one of only four tournament games scheduled to be on ESPNU. 2011 2K Sports Classic Schedule

Wow. Select the 200-mile circle on the Hotspot Statistics Map, click in the center of Ohio, and be prepared for a shock. While it's true that UA has less than 10% of the fans of tOSU, UA is second in the state, ahead of Cincinnati and every other college football team. Can't is dead last among Ohio teams. Imagine how much growth there could be if we only had a consistent winner. Note that if you click off center that the fan breakdown stats change, and Cincinnati comes out ahead of UA if you bias the 200-mile circle to the south and west

The way I see it, UA has the classiest college soccer program in the country. Caleb Porter is the classiest coach in college soccer and the Zips players are the classiest in college soccer. They deserve the classiest fans in college soccer. The use of profanity is not only not classy, it's not productive. It does nothing to help the team win games. It only hurts the team's image. It gives others an excuse to look down on Zips fans as "classless" in the same way that we look down on tOSU's coach, players and fans as classless. Zips soccer fans should cheer the same way that Zips soccer players play -- with all their hearts, but cleanly and with class.

Congratulations to the Rowdies for getting into John Bluem's head and causing him to pull a Woody Hayes. The guy has to be under an immense amount of pressure at tOSU to prove he's better than Caleb Porter and overcome the horror of UA outperforming tOSU in any sport. Keep pouring on the pressure and his head will eventually explode. Thinking back 45 years when I was part of the noisy student section at another university, we didn't really pay any attention to the quiet ones because we were too busy making non-stop noise. If someone looked at us like we were idiots, we never noticed because we were too busy making non-stop noise. So I wouldn't spend any time worrying about the quiet fans at UA soccer games, as you'll never convert every quiet fan into a noisy one. Maybe some of the quiet ones are conservative religious types who are put off by cheer language that crosses the line. Maybe some of the ones who are texting are texting to their friends that they're at a Zips soccer game, and it's the coolest place in the world to be. But, heck, you should welcome cold cadavers to the games if it runs up attendance numbers. There are still a couple of schools that turn out more soccer fans than UA, and the goal should be that America's best college soccer team deserves America's highest average attendance. Just keep doing what you're doing, and also try to recruit more students with loud voices.

@UADavid, I wasn't trying to compare the average yardage per kick of the two punters. I was just pointing out that the Can't offense is so bad that their punter has racked up a huge number of yards. As weak as the Zips' offense has appeared to us, Zack Campbell has had it pretty easy compared with all the punting Matt Rinehart has been forced to do.

You don't even need to know much about soccer to see that Holmes has amazing one-on-one skills.

Rival: A person or thing competing with another for the same objective or for superiority in the same field of activity. Rivalry: Competition for the same objective or for superiority in the same field. Now, who thinks that UA and tOSU are not rivals, and that there is no rivalry between the two schools, especially in soccer where they are much closer to the same competitive level?

What a waste. The only positive in his life was football. Who knows how far he could have gone if he had gotten away from his old hood and off to a school somewhere with the right conditions to encourage his growth, though Fork Union didn't work out. Even under the best of conditions, he still might not have made it. Some kids just get dug into a deep hole from an early age that no one can ever help them climb out of.