The Jontay Thing

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Just as Monday’s entry was being written came news of the tragedy of Jontay Porter, the Columbia kid, ex-MU Tiger, fringe NBA player who is the first person permanently banned from the NBA since Jack Molinas was banned 71 years ago for betting on games he played with the Fort Wayne (now Detroit) Pistons.

The Porter case is of special interest not only because of his Missouri roots but also because Missourians might be deciding whether sports betting should be legalized in our state—and what that might mean to the confidence we have in our big-time sports teams and their games.

Alex Kirschner, writing for Slate.com says Porter “did things worse than anything Pete Rose ever got up to.”

Jeff Zilgitt of USA TODAY was equally unforgiving when he wrote, “In all of Jontay Porter’s idiocy, he provided a service to other professional athletes who might consider placing bets on games in which they are direct participants or in which they have insider knowledge to provide to gamblers. It’s almost impossible to pull it off in a world of legal, regulated and monitored gambling. It’s even more impossible when you’re as blatant as the NBA says Porter was.”

Kirschner  notes that sports leagues “make a lot of money off of people betting on their games…It’s a cash grab, yes.  But from the leagues’ perspective, it’s also a payment in exchange for tolerating certain risks. Sports leagues profit from betting but they are also terrified of it.” 

 Porter, he says, committed two sins and flirted with a third.  He disclosed privileged information to bettors and manipulated in-game outcomes. In Porter’s case, he took himself out of a game early so he would not meet projected performance levels.  The third circumstance that terrifies leagues, says Kirschner is outright throwing of games. “The single easiest way to threaten a league’s multibillion-dollar business is for people to doubt that they’re watching a game left to chance…If that goes, everything could go.

Porter is only 24 years old. Kirschner says his career is in the dumpster because he has been involved in the biggest betting scandal involving a player since sports wagering was legalized in this country in 2018. “If the Black Sox were a 10 on the scandal scale,” he writes, “Porter probably is a 6 or 7.”

Zilgitt darkly predicts this will happen again. “Someone always thinks they can beat the system, and maybe someone can but not Jontay Porter and his simple attempt at trying to make extra money. It’s inevitable, just as it was inevitable it happened in the first place.” Porter, who has spent most of his pro career in the NBA’s minor league, was being paid $410,000 this year to play for the NBA’s Toronto Raptors. The league investigation says he made $22,000 on the bets he placed on the game from which he removed himself, claiming illness.

The “idiocy” that Ziglitt attributes to Porter is explained by Kirschner who writes that the kid used the gambling companies that partner with the pro leagues to place his bets—-and those bets are monitored by the leagues. “If Porter were collaborating with underground bettors and bookies, his activity would have gone undetected,” he wrote.

In Kirschner’s view, pro sports teams are just asking for this kind of problem.  Sports wagering companies are aggressively advertising their “services,” leading to greatly expanding participation in betting. He bluntly observes, “A bigger pool of bettors means a bigger pool of potential crooks. In a subtle but real way, the NBA courted the Porter scandal.”

Pro sports leagues fought against sports wagering until the U. S. Supreme Court legalized it nationwide in 2018.  Once it was legalized, the leagues had no choice but to get in bed with the betting industry.  Pessimists might be forgiven for wondering if they’ll stay on their separate sides of the bed.

And whose reputation is damaged by this scandal?  Not the gaming industry.  It’s sports and those who play them.  A player has been banished for life. Pro sports worries whether its fans think its product is genuine and honest.

Zilgitt quotes NBA Commissioner Adam Silver saying the Porter case “raises important questions about the sufficiency of the regulatory framework currently in place, including the types of bets offered on our games and players.” Zilgitt notes Silver has advocated federal regulation of sports wagering and suggests outlawing or limiting certain kinds of bets.

Not considered by either columnist is what role state regulatory agencies can play or should play in terms of disciplinary actions against casinos that handle such bets or wagering companies that process them. In this case, the hammer has fallen on the player, deservedly so, but those who took, paid, and processed his bets appear to be facing no penalties.

Missouri’s pro sports teams are gathering signatures to get a statewide vote on a constitutional amendment legalizing sports wagering.

The proposal mirrors bills introduced in this year’s legislative session that grievously disadvantage the state and the programs that rely on gambling income for their budgets.  The Missouri Gaming Commission has warned that the legislation pushed at the Capitol by gaming interests does not raise enough revenue for the commission to adequately regulate sports wagering. Nor does it do anything to punish the betting industry that produced the measley $22,000 that Porter won.

“Measley,” as in how little he gained compared to how much he has thrown away.

The Porter scandal is a tragedy for him and for sports in general.  How will Missouri voters see the issue now that one of our own has become a self-induced victim of a system we are being asked to approve?  He might be the first but nobody expects he will be the last.

If Missourians approve the proposition, will they also undermine trust in the games that they love?  How many Porters are needed before we wonder about every missed free throw, every error, every missed tackle, every overthrown pass, every wide shot on goal?

(If you want to read the full articles on which we’ve based two entries):

Jontay Porter NBA betting scheme is a lesson in stupidity (usatoday.com)

Athletes beware: Jontay Porter NBA betting scheme is a lesson in stupidity (msn.com)

Sports: Norm’s In; Going Opposite Directions; New AD on the Horizon? And a Few More

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(NORM)—Former Missouri Tiger basketball coach Norm Stewart finally is getting his place in the Hall of Famous Missourians at the State Capitol.  The bust will be unveiled at 1 p.m., May 1 in the House Chamber. It later will be moved to the rotunda, joining more than three dozen other busts of famous Missourians.

Stewart turned 89 in January.

His teams rang up a record of 731-375 in 38 seasons as a head coach, 634 of them at his alma mater.

(BASEBALL)—One of our teams finished last week at 13-9.  The other one finished at 9-13, with some folks remembering last year when the team started 10-24.

(KANSAS CITY)—The 13-9 record isn’t the only statistic that shows how much the Royals’ season is a turnaround from last year. Here’s another one:

The Royals were held without a run by Baltimore on Sunday, their first shutout of the year. Last year they failed to score fifteen times.  Seth Lugo took his first loss and gave up his first home runs of the year after winning three straight to start his season and not giving up a homer in 41.1 innings.

Kansas City is led this year by catcher/first-baseman Salvador Perez, who starts this week hitting .333 with six homers and Bobby Witt, Jr., at .300. The pitching is among the best in baseball with a 3.18 ERA, which normally would be an outstanding year for an individual, let alone a team.  The pitching continues to carry the team, which is batting a cumulative .237, Perez and Witt notwithstanding.

(CARDINALS)—The Cardinals on theother hand are 9-13.   Wilson Contrares has the longest hitting streak in Major League Baseball, 14 games, at the end of the playing week.  Shortstop Masyn Win and Contreras are above .300 at the plate but the ‘Birds as a team are hitting only .219. But with an offense like that, the pitching staff’s 3.95 ERA, solid thought it be in today’s game, isn’t good enough.

The Optimist Award for 2024 goes to Sonny Gray, the pitching ace who says the Cardinals are going to turn things around big-time soon. Gray is doing his part, going 2-0 without an ERA and an 11-0 strikeout to walk ratio in his first two starts. Sunday, a dozen of the 19 outs he got were strikeouts. He did give up his first walk of the year and his first home run and that was enough for the Brewers in a 2-0 shutout.

(FOOTBALL)—As we were going to press (as they used to say in the journalism biz), reports were coming out that the new Athletic Director at the University was going to be Laird Veatch, the AD at Memphis for the last five years.

It’s a return for Veatch, who supervised fund raising for the athletic deaatment, 2000=2002. He later was the general manager of Mizzou Sports Properties in 2003, coordinating external media operators for Learfield Sports, which has multimedia rights with Tiger sports teams.  His first big job, other than lining up all of the NIL deals, will be raise half of the money for the $250 million dollar make over of the north end of Memorial Stadium.

(BATTLEHAWKS)—A big offensive day for the St. Louis Battlehawks coupled with a solid offensive day gave them a 32-17 win over the Memphis Showboats and a 3-1 record. St. Louis again led the UFL in attendance with 31,575 people in the Dome.

‘Hawks quarterback A. J. McCarron threw the ball an all-time high of 45 times, completed 35 of them for 222 yards and three touchdowns. Running back Jacob Saylors rushed for 103 yards. The defense gave up only 127 yards and let Memphis convert only one of ten third and fourth down attempts.

(Playing with Engines)

(INDYCAR)—Nobody INDYCAR “makes fuel” as Scott Dixon does.  He proved it again with his win at the Grand Prix of Long Beach.

Dixon went about 50 of the race’s 85 laps without refueling and had to hold off Josef Newgarden, who was closing the gap with ten laps left before   Newgarden was hit from behind by Colton Herta’s car.Herta went on to finish second, about one second behind Dixon.

The win extends Dixon’s record of having at leat one victory to twenty consecutive years.

(NASCAR)—The “big one” didn’t happen until the field was roaring toward the checkered flag at Talladega Superspeedway. With cars crashing ahead of him, and more crashing behind him, Tyler Reddick kept his foot on the floor and steered out of harms way to the win.

The crash was triggered when pole sitter Michael McDowell tried to block Brad Keselowski but touched Keselowski’s car at 200 mph and turned into the wall.  Reddick let the wrecking cars move out of his way while he slipped Keselowski for the win.

(FORMULA 1)—Max Verstappen adds the trophy for the Chinese Grand Prix to his shelf, posting a 13 second victory over runnerup Lando Norris.

(Photo Credit: Bob Priddy)

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Stadium Thing

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Here’s a sand-in-the-underwear situation for you.

Owners of our big-time sports teams—the Royals, the Chiefs, the Blues and the Cardinals (and our two pro soccer teams)—want you and me to reach into our pockets to pay major parts of the costs of building new stadia or upgrading old ones for them.

The Royals and the Chiefs overlooked a critical issue as their effort to extend the Jackson County sports tax was trounced by voters recently. The Cardinals are overlooking the same issue with reports that they will be seeking state support for the updating of Busch Stadium III (although team president Bill DeWitt III says such a report is “premature.” :

None of them has mentioned how many millions of dollars they will make from sports wagering. None of them has given any indication that they could use that money instead of taxpayer funds for their new projects.

It is a failing that might not bode well for the teams and the casinos that want to put a sports wagering proposition on the ballot later this year, a proposal that hugely disadvantages the state and the programs that years ago the casinos promised could be funded with taxes and fees from legalized gambling.

Would it not make sense to ease voter worries about city and state subsidies for stadium construction and improvements if the teams committed to using the first few years of the giant profits they expect from sports betting for their stadium projects instead of expecting a tax handout from the citizens?  

 Why should the legislature give any team that will profit from sports betting any funds from state taxpayer pockets?  Why should the legislature lessen financial support for, say, mental health services, veterans homes, education, senior services programs, and nursing home support so sports teams that soon will be divvying up hundreds of millions of dollars a year from people thinking they can consistently beat game-day odds don’t have to use those funds?

Opponents of sports wagering might be able to make a lot of hay out of this oversight by the teams and the casinos.  It’s an election year. If you are a voter, you should ask your candidates if they favor taking money away from state programs to build or maintain playing fields while the team owners and the casinos rake hundreds of millions of dollars in lost consumer bets into their pockets instead of investing them in stadium projects in their home cities?

You should ask those questions.  And if your candidate says the sports teams should be allowed to pick your pocket with a tax while lining their pockets with gambling revenues, you should look for another square on the ballot to fill in.

These two issues are joined at the hip and voters, especially those in the home areas of our major league teams, should hold their legislators and their sports teams accountable.

 

One Man’s Vision—8   

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We’ve shared with you in the last four weeks one man’s vision for a greater Jefferson City (well, actually two men, as we wrote about Mayor C. W. Thomas—who inspired this series—in our first entry).  Our list is far from inclusive of all good ideas nor is having a vision my exclusive domain. You have been invited to share your visions and I hope you will do that now that we are wrapping up this series.

All of this ambitious talk about places to meet, places to visit, and places to live has overlooked a lot of our people who have few or none of the opportunities to participate.  If we are to be a great city, we cannot overlook them.

At the library, we sometimes hear about our “homeless problem” and there are those who tell us they won’t visit the library or bring their children there because of “them.”  Those patrons and other critics demand we “do something” about them.  “They” make people uncomfortable.

The library does not have a homeless problem. The CITY has a homeless problem and the public library is an uncomfortable participant in it—because we have to be.

We are a public institution and whether a person owns a mansion or sleeps in a box, that person is part of “the public.”  There is no place for them to go during the day after their overnight accommodations shut down.  We are their warm place on frigid days. We are their cool place on oppressively hot days.  We are their bathrooms.

I’m sorry that some people are offended because “they” don’t dress as well as most of us…or smell as good as most of us and they hang around our building.

We do not often have any problems with these folks although there have been times when we have called police and some have been banished from our premises.  We have signs throughout our building reminding our homeless visitors not to sleep there. Our staff can’t be a dozer police, though, because of their regular duties.

But most of them are okay. We do not judge them on various criteria any more than we judge any of you. You are the public, constituents using a public place in a personal way, too.

I have not had a chance to ask our critics what their solution is.  But ignoring the issue or saying it is someone else’s problem to solve is something for the Old Jefferson City—-at a time when a BOLD Jefferson City should be our goal.

Celebrations of things such as bicentennials of becoming the state capital can work in more ways than one. We should make sure our bicentennial observance doesn’t leave “them” out.  They are people, the public, fellow citizens.  And they deserve—by their presence among us—respect.

Great cities do not become great by only catering to people who smell good.

To do any of the things I have discussed in this series to move a good city toward greatness without facing the problems of those to whom greatness is just a word is irresponsible.  As citizens of this community we are responsible to and for one another. That’s what the word “community” implies.

I can’t tell you how to make these things discussed in these entries happen. Many of you have the expertise I lack.

Leonardo daVinci made drawings of flying machines. The Wright Brothers made the machine that flew.  Humphry Davy, Warren de la Rue, and Joseph Swan made electric lights but Thomas Edison created the incandescent bulb. Carl Benz created a gasoline-powered automobile but Henry Ford showed how to manufacture them.  John Fleming invented the vacuum tube but Guglielmo Marconi created radio.

Some have ideas. Others have the expertise to realize them.

So I’m going to leave you with three statements that have motivated me most of my life and I hope they encourage you to become active in this quest.

The English playwright George Bernard Shaw wrote a lengthy play called Back to Methuselah, retelling some of the earliest stories of the Bible. He creates a conversation in which the snake convinces Eve she should want to learn, that she should eat from the tree of knowledge instead of just living mindlessly in the Garden of Eden.  The snake appeals to her curiosity by saying, “You see things, and you say ‘Why?’   I dream dreams that never were, and I say, ‘Why not?’”

I am asking today, “Why not?”

The German philosopher Johan Wolfgang von Goethe continued that thought when he advised, “Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.”

I am asking you to dream bigger dreams than we have dreamed, bigger even than a new convention center.

Goethe’s  tragic masterwork, Faust, includes this observation:

Lose this day loitering—’twill be the same story
To-morrow–and the next more dilatory;
Then indecision brings its own delays,
And days are lost lamenting o’er lost days.
Are you in earnest? seize this very minute–
What you can do, or dream you can, begin it,
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it,
Only engage, and then the mind grows heated—
Begin it, and the work will be completed!

I am asking our city to be bold.

A bicentennial’s greatest value lies not in dwelling on the past, but in building a foundation for the TRIcentennial. It still will not be good enough to be the Capital City.  What more can we be….if we lay the foundation for it now?

I want our bicentennial to be characterized by a sense of boldness that turns a “good enough” city into a great one, that discovers the genius, power, and magic in boldness.

A century ago, a mayor who had seen this city become a modern city that in his lifetime fought off two efforts to take the seat of government elsewhere—Sedalia’s 1896 statewide vote on capital removal and efforts after the 1911 fire to build a new capitol somewhere else—and who modernized our town died dreaming of a convention center.

His spirit of progress is worth recalling and becoming a motivator for becoming a greater city.

You’ve read one man’s vision for accomplishing that.  What is yours?

How can we do it?

Sports: A Soccer Record; Blues Play Out the String; Battlehawks in the Fight; Daniel in the Booth?; and a Little Baseball and a Little Racing.

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by Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(SOCCER)—-It’s “football” everywhere but here where it’s “soccer.”  But an American-football-sized crowd packed Arrowhead Stadium last weeend to watch a soccer game.

The crowd of 72,610 is the largest soccer crowd in Missouri history and the third-biggest crowd for a stand alone match in Major League Soccer history.

Unfortunately, the match, on the 28th anniversary of the first MLS soccer match at Arrowhead Stadium, ended poorly for Sporting Kansas City. Inter Miami beat SKC 3-2.

Soccer fans are likely to see some comparable crowds in a couple of years when Arrowhead plays host to four group stage games during the FIFA World Cup competition. It also will host a round of 32 matchup and a quarterfinal match.

(SPEAKING OF “FOOTBALL”)—Chiefs coach Andy Reid has emphasized he’s in a “wait and see “ mode when it comes to wide receiver Rashee Rice, who is in a heap of trouble in Dallas after he crashed his Lamborghini in a 120-mph freeway race with another guy. The other guy was Teddy Knox, a football player now suspended from the SMU team. Both left the scene before seeing if anyone was hurt in four other cars that got caught in the crash. Rice faces eight charges.

Reid says the Chiefs are waiting for “the law enforcement part of it to take place.”  He has talked to Rice but won’t say what was said.

The Chiefs are starting their voluntary offseason program but Rice will there only by Zoom.

Will Rice take part during in-person drills? Reid sayd the team is “just going to take it day-by-day here as we go.”

On Rice’s future involvement: “We’ll just see how it goes. I want to keep gathering the information from law enforcement people…”

Does the organization trust Rice’s decision making? “As long as he’s learning from it, that’s the important part of it. We’ll take it from there and see what takes place.”

(A FORMER CHIEF)—Chase Daniel, former Missouri Tiger Quarterback who had a 12-year NFL career in backup roles with several teams, including the Chiefs and the Saints, who won Super Bowls with him on the sidelines, is one of 24 people who took part in the NFL’s annual Broadcasting and Media Workshop, a three-day bootcamp for aspiring NFL broadcasters, last week.  He has been hosting a YouTube shw in which he analyzes NFL plays and players. Participants were given a chance to “call” a game on radio or television and to do a simulated in-studio analysis.

Before we move away from football:

(KA-KAW)—-That is the sound of a Battlehawk, or at least the sound a St. Louis Battlehawk fan makes during a UFL game, especially if the ‘Hawks’ take a lead or get a win, which they did last weekend against the San Antonio Brahmas, in San Antonio.

The Battlehawks are 2-1, one of four teams with that record in the eight-team spring football league. The Birmingham Stallions are the only undefeated team.

‘Hawks running back Jcob Saylors, ran for 62 yards and a TD. Hakeem Butler had a half-dozen catches for 87 yards and a TD. Quarterback A. J. McCarron was 19 for 27, throwing to eight targets.  He ran for one of the touchdowns in the 31-24 win.

The Battlehawks had fewer total yards, fewer first downs, and were far behind in possession time but they made up for those shortcomings with efficiency: converting five of nine third downs and and their only fourth-down attempt. And placekicker Andre Szmyt was good on field goals of 44, 43, and 46 yards.

(BASEBALL)—A look at stats for the first two weeks might tell us a little big why the Kansas City Royals are off to one of their best starts ever and why the St. Louis Cardinals are kind of wandering.

The Royals ended the week Sunday night with a 10-6 record, a half game behind Cleveland in their division. They’re getting solid pitching with a staff ERA of 3.04 and a team batting average of .250.

The Cardinals are struggling to get their offense going at the same time they’re pitching is going.  The staff ERA is 3.,92. But the team batting average is only .230.  Paul Goldschmidt, who struggled all spring, still struggles at the plate: .193, one homer, seven RBIs.  Rookies or near-rookies Victor Scott (.098) and sophomore outfielder Jordan Walker (.178) aren’t much help.  Together they are 25 for 153.  The Redbirds are last, again, in their division, 7-9 but already four games behind the Brewers.

(INJURIES)—A key player for the Kansas City Royals, catcher/first baseman Salvador Perez is out indefinitely with a groin and hip injury suffered in Sunday’s game against the Mets. The team says he’s day-to-day. He was held out of last night’s game against the White Sox.

The Cardinals say Tommy Edmund and Dylan Carlson have resumed “baseball activities.”

(HOCKEY)—The St. Louis Blues played their last home game of the year last weekend. They’ll put away the skates and the pucks for the 2-23-24 season after their finale Wednesday night against Dallas. A late-season comeback ended up seven points short of Las Vegas for the last wildcard slot.  A winning season at 43-33-5, pending the outcome Wednesday night but short for the second straight year.

(AROUND AND AROUND: RACING—Chase Elliott ended his 42-race winless NASCAR streak during the weekend, coming from a 24th-place start and outrunning the field for eight extra laps, two overtime sessions because of late-race cautions.  Brad Keselowski, who started 22nd, was right behind Elliott with William Byron, Tyler Reddick, and Daniel Suarez rounding out the top five.

INDYCAR resumes its points chase next weekend in downtown Long Beach, then goes to the Indianapolis road course two weeks later to kick off the Month of May activities leading up to the 108th running of the Indianapolis 500.

FORMULA ONE will see if it continues to be Max Verstappen’s playground next weekend with the Grand Prix of China in Shanghai.

One Man’s Vision—7 

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We recognize that not everyone wants change.  The status quo is comfortable, predictable, and requires little effort or participation. Life is good as-is.

And it’s cheaper than trying to be better.  Better equals more taxes. More taxes advocated by those who want their city to BE more are a burden to those who think they cannot afford to live in a greater city.

It’s hard for some to see the benefits that come with a desire to be better.  But the business world shows us that people want better things, will buy them, and the commerce generated with those purchases lifts both ends of economic boats.

But still, there are those who will say “no.”

Decades ago, while working at The Arcola Record-Herald, a small-town Illinois newspaper that provided my first journalism paycheck, I came across “The Knocker’s Prayer,” published in 1918.  Some of the language is dated but the sentiment is contemporary for some people.

Lord, please don’t let this town grow.  I’ve been here for thirty years, and during that time I’ve fought every public improvement.  I’ve knocked everything and everybody, no firm or individual has established a business here without my doing all I can to put them out of business.  I’ve lied about them, and would have stolen from them I had the courage.

I have done all I could to keep the town from growing and never have spoken a good word for it. I’ve knocked hard and often. I have put ashes on the children’s slide and I’ve made the Marshall stop the boys from playing ball on my vacant lot.  Whenever I saw anyone prospering or enjoying themselves, I’ve started a reform to kill the business or spoil the fun.

I don’t wany the young folks to stay in this town and I will do all I can by law, rule and ordinance to drive them away. It pains me, O Lord, to see that in spite of my knocking, it is beginning to grow, Someday, I fear I will be called upon to put down sidewalks in front of my property and who knows but what I may have to help keep up the streets that run by my premises.  This, Lord, would be more than I could bear. It would cost me money, though all I have was made right here in this town. 

Then, too, more people might come if the town begins to grow, which would cause me to lose some of my pull.  I ask, therefore, to keep this town at a standstill, that I may continue be the chief calamity howler. Amen.

But great, or even good, futures are not made by those who choose to stand pat, who argue against daring to be better.

The American Revolution was led by a bunch of rabble-rousers who found British subservience intolerable.  The frontier was expanded by those who dared to cross the Alleghenies. The Civil War was fought because the status quo that allowed one people to own other people was no longer acceptable. The Santa Fe, Oregon, and California Trails were populated by the minority who left comfort behind for greater opportunities (and, we have to admit, destroyed the status quo of the Native Americans in their way) west of Missouri.  Everything of modern society comes from those who saw beyond what-is to what can-be.

The status quo and its costs are not static. The expenses of maintaining the status quo, usable streets for example for example, increases.

The future IS expensive but so is maintaining the present. For a little more, we can reach for a little greatness. And history shows leaders always drag the “knockers” along with them.  And the “knockers” enjoy the benefits of progress, too.

There are always going to be “knockers,” the people who say, “We can’t do this” or “Why do this?”

The pioneers, the leaders, the people who still embody the American spirit of making life better for themselves and those they know and will never know, are the ones who ask, “How can we do this?” and then find the answer to their own question.

The first gubernatorial inauguration I covered as a reporter was that of Warren Hearnes, who was sworn in, in 1969 for his historic second term, and said in his inaugural speech:

To do and be better is a goal few achieve. To do it, we are required to make sacrifices—not in the sense of shedding our blood or giving of our lives or the lives of those we love, but sacrifice in the sense of giving of a part of those material things which we enjoy in abundance. A great people will sacrifice part of that with which they have been blessed in order that their children will be better educated; their less fortunate more fortunate; their health better health; their state a better state.

We must never fear as a city to ask better of ourselves, for ourselves, and for those we drag along with us.

There’s another group that risks staying behind when others reach for something better.

In our concluding post in this series, we’ll talk about those we should not overlook in our search for greatness.

One Man’s Vision—6 

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The day that the announcement of the downtown convention center was made might have been the day that Mayor Fitzwater got a letter from me congratulating him for abandoning the old prison.  MY suggestion, written in that letter, was that the city buy the Capitol Plaza Hotel, eliminating a competitor for convention business, and to overhaul the hotel as a convention center, working with the state on building a big exhibition hall and a big parking garage on the vacant state land behind the hotel.

(In truth, I have no idea whether the present owners would sell the hotel or sell it at a reasonable price.  But some time ago, I checked the owners’ webpage and it seemed to be one of the smaller and least attractive hotels in the portfolio. I also am told it needs a good freshening-up.)

I am comfortable with the city exploring the site it is exploring and I am likewise comfortable with the questions that have been asked about the long-term adequacy of the current plan. I am confident they will be answered during the long process ahead. And we should not be surprised if the final design is substantially different from the preliminary drawings we have seen. The process of completing a project this ambitious involves a lof of adjustments and evaluations.

I was the president of the State Historical Society of Missouri when we built our $37-million Center for Missouri Studies in Columbia and I know that what we built is far different from what we first thought we would build—-and it’s not on the site we originally hoped to use. But we kept asking, “How can we do this?” We were unafraid to adjust and to evolve and our finished product is still breathtaking to me five years after I helped cut the ribbon at the front door.

I imagine the city officials behind the convention center understand the finished product might be different from the early drawings we have seen.  The important thing is that the city has started moving on this project and I am confident the final result will not be hastily-drawn or carelessly-built.

As mentioned earlier—from my various viewpoints, I see this as the beginning of a series of bold moves that can make us a greater city today and be an example to the people of the next hundred years that being “good enough” is a mindset of the past.

But what happens if the planned convention center location doesn’t work out?

It’s ways good to have a Plan B. In this case, my Plan B focuses on the Capitol and Madison site.  I will leave a new convention center location to others if one is deemed more practical and advisable. The ultimate decision will be up to the mayor, the city council, and the citizens who will be asked to finance it.

But how will the city recover its Capital Avenue investment if that site ultimately proves to be less feasible than originally thought?

Here’s one man’s vision:

Downtown condominiums for middle-to-upper-middle income residents that will contribute to a broader renewal of downtown beyond improving the bar and restaurant trade.

Why middle-to-upper middle class condos?  Think of how many thousand state workers come into downtown every day to work who would like to live within walking distance of their jobs.

Those condos coupled with the Simonsen redevelopment, Capitol Avenue restoration and additional re-development of upstairs areas of downtown stores would revitalize the city core and lead to more close-in redevelopment spirit that could spread to the south side.

Of course, if people are to return to our central core, they will need services.  If I were one of the bigger grocery stores, I would be thinking of opening a satellite store downtown; there’s plenty of available spaces, and anything not available from the downtown store can be easily delivered from one of the main stores on our periphery.  And that might be just a start.

I will leave it to your thoughts about how this could revitalize a wide area of our city’s heart in several different ways.

Understand I am not hoping for the failure of the Madison and Capitol convention center concept. Right now, the proper question is being asked: “How can we do this?”

But it’s always good to think about a Plan B.

Sports A Tipping Point for Women’s Basketball; A Pro Football Attendance Record 

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

Normally we would be talking baseball and wrapping up the hockey season at this time of year. But we start with a national championship and a football attendance record that should attract the attention of the National Football League.

(WOMEN’S BASKETBALL)—-The ferocity of play in women’s basketball, led by the record-setting play of Iowa’s Caitlin Clark, and the record television audiences for the last three games of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament, has created a whole new audience for the sport.

Why?  Because it’s more fun to watch.  And because it’s more than three-point shots and showboat dunks.

We have a national champion women’s team here in Missouri.

Easily overlooked because of the NCAA tournament has been the Women’s National Invitation Tournament.  And St. Louis University has become part of that magical season.

Coach Rebecca Tillett has led her Billikens to the WNIT championship with a 69-50 drubbing of Minnesota in the season finale.  The team showed toughness by winning its first five tournament games (four on the road) by a total of 21 points before polishing off Minnesota by 19. The margin had reached 25 before Tillett started running in her subs. The Billikens hit eleven three-pointers and were led by Kayla McMakin with 20 and Peyton Kennedy with 19. Kennedy was the tournament’s MVP.  The defense held Minnesota to a 3-23 performance beyond the arc

St. Louis University finished with a 22-18 record after splitting 18 Atlantic Conference games. But in the conference post season tournament, they upset nationally 10th- ranked George Washington, number two VCU, and number six Rhode Island.

Minnesota finished 20-16.

The championship marked the conclusion of a remarkable turnaround for the Billikens. They were 11-17 on February 21 after losing to Fordham. Their 11-1 run after that brought them the first WNIT championship in school history and the first in Atlantic 10 history.

This was Tillett’s second season at SLU. Last year, her team went into the post season with a 7-16 record before winning the A10 postseason tournament and getting an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament where they lost to Tennessee.

Tillett says this year has been a “tipping point” for women’s basketball. “It’s always been great. But now everybody knows it’s great. Everybody can see it. You are seeing fans become enamored with the way women play and compete.”  She says she’s “grateful” that her Billikens are part of that history.

(BATTLEHAWKS)—Fans of the St. Louis Battlehawks of the  United Football League continue to make a great case for the NFL to consider St. Louis as a place for an expansion team or a team looking for a new home.

More than 40,000 fans watched Battlehawks kicker Andre Szmyt hit a 22-yard field goal as the clock ran out to give the ‘Hawks a 27-24 win over Arlington.  The attendance in St. Louis almost equalled the total attendance of all four of the UFL’s season openers—almost 46,000. The crowd also set a record for professional spring football.

Running back Mataeo Durant set up the winning kick with a 41-yard bolt that gave him 104 rushing yards for the day.  Quarterback A. J. McCarron was 19 for 29 passing, 248 yards as the Battlehawks evened their record at 1-1.  The league has a ten-game schedule.

(BASEBALL—ROYALS)—The Kansas City Royals’ rebound from last year’s forgettable season has produced the team’s first four-game sweep since 2021.  M. J. Melendez’s two-run homer in the seventh inning Sunday keyed a rally that led the Royals to a 5-3 win over the White Sox.  The White Sox are 1-8 so far this year, tied for the second-worset season start in team history.  The Royals are now 6-4 and open a series at home against Houston tonight.

(BASEBALL—CARDINALS)—The St. Louis Cardinals have split ten games so far this year. The pitchers’ 4.66 ERA ranks the staff 22nd among all pitching staffs in the league. That might explain why they’re 5-5 heading into tonight’s game against the Phillies in Philadelphia.

Sonny Gray finally will get his first regular-season start for the Cardinals tonight against the Phillies.

The Cardinals became the first team beaten by the Miami Marlins Sunday.  The Marlins savaged the Cardinals with two three-run homer in the first inning to get their first win of the season after a record nine straight season-opening losses.

—-Now, about the folks who have roaring good times:

(NASCAR)—William Byron picked up his third win in eight races this year, leading Hendrick Motorsports teammates Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott to the first 1-2-3 finish in HMS history. The win was the 29th for HMS at Martinsville, a record for most wins at a single NASCAR venue ever and it adds to the distinguished start of Hendrick’s fortieth season in NASCAR’s Cup series.

Hendrick wasn’t at the race to enjoy the celebration. He had had a knee replaced earlier in the week. Larson’s second-place finish was enough for him to pass Martin Truex Jr., for the regular season points lead.

(INDYCAR)—INDYCAR runs its second points race of the year next weekend on the streets of Long Beach.

(FORMULA 1)—Back to things as usual for Max Verstappen and Red Bull Racing, as he ran off with a win at the GP of Japan.  He joins Michael Schumacher as the only drivers to win the Japanese Grand Prix three times in a row. He has won 22 of the last 26 Grand Prix races and is shooting for his fourth straight Formula 1 championship.

 

 

One Man’s Vision—5 

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The shift of the focus on a convention center and hotel reopens the penitentiary for more redevelopment ideas than museums.

We need a new library.

Last August, the local library board asked voters for a 15-cent levy increase to renovate, expand, and modernize our 50-year old building.  The $28-million effort was killed by a secret group of people, none of whom had ever attended a single library board meeting during which these plans were developed (and who have never attended a board meeting since), who circulated a huge lie throughout Cole County that the library board was going to increase property taxes by 75%.  We were asking for nothing of the sort and I am still waiting for someone from this group to explain to the library board why they circulated this lie and who created it.  I want to see its homework but it appears no one from this group has the courtesy or the courage to prove its case.

—Because it can’t.

What is true is that the need for 21st century library service has not changed.  We know that we will have to go to the voters again but we worry that this group so poisoned public confidence in the library system and the library board that our task of winning support for the library this city, county, and region must have for most of the rest of this century is much harder.

Nonetheless, we cannot stay in a building that no longer meets the needs of our constituents. Our efforts to maintain the services we offer has led to the rental of office space across High Street for our administrators who have been crowded out by the space we needs to meet our responsibilities. We are facing a choice of moving some of our staff back into the building and reducing some services now occupying the space they would reclaim, or leaving things as they are.

We have never had the parking we need.  When the present building was constructed, the plan was to tear down the original Carnegie building to create parking for our patrons. After the building was completed, however, those interested in historic preservation preserved the old building.

We thought in our planning for last year’s renovation election that the county would be picking up some of the Buescher vacant lots and leasing some of the space to us, but the city decided after we had set the August election date that it would be keeping all of them—although it has told us it will lease space to us once it has completed its acquisition program.

But that still does not resolve the inadequacies that have developed through fifty years since the building was new.  The county has indicated an interest in acquiring the building if we decide to sell and move, and further negotiations are warranted because we will, eventually, move.

We have no choice but to do so if we are to responsibly serve our patrons.

About twenty years ago or so, we planned to put up a new building across Lafayette Street from the original prison entrance. But the federal government decided to build the Christopher S. Bond Federal Courthouse there, leaving us in our present situation.

Moving the convention center discussion to Madison and Capital re-opens the prison as a potential site for a new library. It’s in the minds of our library board members but not yet an active discussion.

We are starting to think about asking ourselves, however, “How can we do this?”

One Man’s Vision—4 

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A state-of- the-art comprehensive Jefferson City/Cole County History Museum, at the old prison—discussed in the previous entry in this series—should be only a start.

Let’s shoot for the moon.

What really would be a giant step toward greatness would be he acquisition of another museum, one destined for a Smithsonian-quality reputation.

Six years ago we had a shot at getting the Steamboat Arabia museum to move here from Kansas City. But our planning group never got beyond talking, talking, talking and the expertise I hoped would develop when the group was formed never did develop. In effect, we decided we are good enough, as is. And one important business leader straight-out told me it wouldn’t work here.

None of the people I thought would take the practical lead did. But another smaller, more ambitious town went beyond talking and what it discovered for itself speaks volumes of what Jefferson City would have discovered had there been some initiative generated by all of that talking and should be a challenge to Jefferson City to show it wants to be more than the state capitol, more than a convention center can give us, more than we are.

City leaders in Marshall reportedly raised $150,000 for a feasibility study of a steamboat museum at I-70 and Highway 65. The initial investment would be high. The payoff will be large and long-lasting

The findings show that the payoff of this major commitment will be multiples of what was forecast for the Marshall/Sedalia/Lexington area.

I took a lot of notes at the meeting where the findings by the consulting firm of Peckham, Guyton, Albers & Viets (PGAV) were revealed three years ago.

PGAV called the museum proposal “a chance to put something iconic in Central Missouri.’  It described a state of the art museum with a national and regional strategy. It addressed continued investment that renewed the museum’s life cycle, the development of supporting amenities, the financial sustainability for generations, and the leadership the project would provide for future development.

The company looked at tourism strategies—attracting people to the area, creating support for the project, and connecting the museum to other parts of the country by defining a larger region to draw from.

They saw the museum as being a local draw and, more important, a destination attraction. PGAV calculated the trade area for the museum south of Marshall at more than 7.5 million people within a three-hour travel time.  The study forecast the operating costs would be about $2.4 million a year, based on an $18 adult admission fee, retail sales, and food and beverage income, among other things. It could be operated with 18 fulltime employees.

The first phase would be a 77,000 square foot museum (about double the present footprint, that would hold the Arabia and a second boat (we’ll discuss that later) and provide support and storage space on 3.7 acres, including parking. Estimated cost: $37 million.  That’s what we built the Center for Missouri Studies for in Columbia—a three-story, 77-thousand square feet building.  By the time the third phase of the steamboat museum would be completed, the complex would cover 8 acres, including parking

PGAV’s site analysis pointed to the great visibility of the museum from I-70 and to the great amount of open land at Marshall Junction.

The company found that museums are “economic engines” for an area—that non-profit art and culture attractions have an economic impact of more than one-billion dollars in Missouri (that’s a 2015 study).  They calculated that $1 generated by such a museum would generate $3.20 for the economy.

The study identifies several financial tools created by state law—Community Development Block Grants, Neighborhood Assistance tax credits, Community Improvement Districts, and ta exempt bonds issued by the Missouri Development Finance Board.

Additionally, PGAV calculated the national 250th anniversary celebration in 2026 will create federal funding capabilities for projects with about two-billion dollars allocated for state signature projects—and the museum, they said, would be a prime choice that a signature project (Jefferson City benefitted from the Bicentennial in 1976 by getting funding for restoration of Lohman’s Landing when it was declared a statewide bicentennial project).

In Summary, PGAV concluded that the Marshall-centered market would be enough to support a destination museum that would be an anchor for other tourism assets in the region (Arrow Rock, Sedalia and the State Fair, Santa Fe Trail sites, etc.  It would develop tourism synergies for local tourism in a three-county region (or broader), it would trigger multiple development opportunities near the Marshall Junction interchange and would create an economic development opportunity when combined with other attractions.  The study indicated the museum would draw 3.7 million visitors when phase one opens in 2026.

If that is true for Marshall, consider what it would mean for Jefferson City.

The population of Columbia, Jefferson City, and Fulton tops 182,000.  The combined populations of Marshall, Sedalia, Lexington, Boonville, and Moberly is about one-third that.

Seven state or private institutions of higher education within thirty miles of Jefferson City have more than 44,000 students. Another thirty miles, north and south, are Moberly Area Community College and the Missouri University of Science and Technology that add another 12,000 students. Sporting events and parental visits bring tens of thousands more people to those schools.

Add tto that, that Jefferson City is on the way to the Lake of the Ozarks. Lake Expo recently estimated 2.5-million people visit the Lake every year, 75% of them between May and September.

Increased tourism is only part of the benefit. The steamboat museum here could offer academic opportunities in technology, archaeology, textile preservation, museum management, American Western history, and other programs at or through those higher education institutions. The museum could benefit them and could gain benefits from them.

And think what a museum dedicated to grow in coming years or decades to capture the history of  the golden decades of Missouri River commerce and frontier development (1820-1880) could do.  The goal of the museum is to have artifacts—and maybe complete steamboats—excavated from past river channels, now farm fields from each of those decades.  Arabia museum President Dave Hawley has one of those boats located and test borings indicate the Malta might be complete enough to bring up as whole as possible. He would love to open a new museum with an 1841 steamboat in it.

Think about that.

Six years ago, we had the chance to raise about five million dollars to pay the costs of excavating the Malta and having it here, keeping the museum project highly visible while he rest of the project developed. Only one person was asking, “How do we do that?”  Nobody answered.

At the time, major fund-raising was focused on the Bicentennial Bridge or on the Missouri River Port.

I wrote at the time that I didn’t see hundreds of school buses with thousands of school children and their adult chaperones visiting a river port or taking in the view from Adrian’s Island as they would visit a steamboat museum.  To be clear, I think Adrian’s Island will be appreciated more in ten years than it was then or might be appreciated now. I can’t recall the last time I heard anything about the riverport but it’s not likely something I will take visiting relatives to see.

The Arabia museum is running out of time before it closes and the collection possibly moves to Pennsylvania, significantly, in November, 2026. Making the acquisition of that museum for our city as the official Capital City Bicentennial Project would be about a $50 million initial commitment. But it would transform our city and it would be an incredible driver to prison redevelopment as well as an incredible complement to the convention center/capitol avenue restoration and redevelopment effort.

Based on my conversations with Joe and Josephine Jeffcity, the steamboat museum would enhance chances for approval of a bond issue for the convention center, the library, and the historical museum, together or separately.

How can we make this step toward greatness happen?

Why should we do it?

Some of us are old enough to remember President Kennedy’s September 12, 1962 speech at Rice University when he set the goal of a manned moon landing within the decade:

“But why, some say, the Moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic?…We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win.”

The steamboat museum can be, should be, Jefferson City’s moonshot.

At the risk of sinking into hyperbole, bringing this museum to Jefferson City could be the greatest reach for greatness in city history since civic leaders organized the construction of our first Missouri River bridge that helped blunt Sedalia’s effort to steal the capital in 1896.

How can we organize and measure the best of our energies and skills to make it happen?

How can we do it?