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“Margaritaville” singer Jimmy Buffett, who turned beach-bum life into an empire, dies at 76.
NEW YORK (AP) — Singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett, who popularized beach bum soft rock with the escapist Caribbean-flavored song “Margaritaville” and turned that celebration of loafing into a billion-dollar empire of restaurants, resorts and frozen concoctions, has died. He was 76.
“Jimmy passed away peacefully on the night of September 1st surrounded by his family, friends, music and dogs,” a statement posted to Buffett’s official website and social media pages said late Friday. “He lived his life like a song till the very last breath and will be missed beyond measure by so many.”
The statement did not say where Buffett died or give a cause of death. Illness had forced him to reschedule concerts in May and Buffett acknowledged in social media posts that he had been hospitalized, but provided no specifics.
“Margaritaville,” released on Feb. 14, 1977, quickly took on a life of its own, becoming a state of mind for those ”wastin’ away,” an excuse for a life of low-key fun and escapism for those “growing older, but not up.”
The song is the unhurried portrait of a loafer on his front porch, watching tourists sunbathe while a pot of shrimp is beginning to boil. The singer has a new tattoo, a likely hangover and regrets over a lost love. Somewhere there is a misplaced salt shaker.
The song — from the album “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes” — spent 22 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and peaked at No. 8. The song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2016 for its cultural and historic significance, became a karaoke standard and helped brand Key West, Florida, as a distinct sound of music and a destination known the world over.
“There was no such place as Margaritaville,” Buffett told the Arizona Republic in 2021. “It was a made-up place in my mind, basically made up about my experiences in Key West and having to leave Key West and go on the road to work and then come back and spend time by the beach.”
The song soon inspired restaurants and resorts, turning Buffett’s alleged desire for the simplicity of island life into a multimillion brand. He landed at No. 18 in Forbes’ list of the Richest Celebrities of All Time with a net worth of $1 billion.
Music critics were never very kind to Buffett or his catalogue, including the sandy beach-side snack bar songs like “Fins,” “Come Monday” and “Cheeseburgers in Paradise.” But his legions of fans, called “Parrotheads,” regularly turned up for his concerts wearing toy parrots, cheeseburgers, sharks and flamingos on their heads, leis around their necks and loud Hawaiian shirts.
“It’s pure escapism is all it is,” he told the Republic. “I’m not the first one to do it, nor shall I probably be the last. But I think it’s really a part of the human condition that you’ve got to have some fun. You’ve got to get away from whatever you do to make a living or other parts of life that stress you out. I try to make it at least 50/50 fun to work and so far it’s worked out.”
His special Gulf Coast mix of country, pop, folk and rock added instruments and tonalities more commonly found in the Caribbean, like steel drums. It was a stew of steelpans, trombones and pedal steel guitar. Buffett’s incredible ear for hooks and light grooves were often overshadowed by his lyrics about fish tacos and sunsets.
Rolling Stone, in a review of Buffett’s 2020 album “Life on the Flip Side,” gave grudging props. “He continues mapping out his surfy, sandy corner of pop music utopia with the chill, friendly warmth of a multi-millionaire you wouldn’t mind sharing a tropically-themed 3 p.m. IPA with, especially if his gold card was on the bar when the last round came.”
Tributes on Saturday came from all walks of life, from Hollywood star Miles Teller posting photos of himself with Buffett to former U.S. Sen. Doug Jones of Alabama, who wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that Buffett “lived life to the fullest and the world will miss him.” Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys wrote: “Love and Mercy, Jimmy Buffett.”
Buffett’s evolving brand began in 1985 with the opening of a string of Margaritaville-themed stores and restaurants in Key West, followed in 1987 with the first Margaritaville Café nearby. Over the course of the next two decades, several more of each opened throughout Florida, New Orleans and California.
The brand has since expanded to dozens of categories, including resorts, apparel and footwear for men and women, a radio station, a beer brand, ice tea, tequila and rum, home décor, food items like salad dressing, Margaritaville Crunchy Pimento Cheese & Shrimp Bites and Margaritaville Cantina Style Medium Chunky Salsa, the Margaritaville at Sea cruise line and restaurants, including Margaritaville Restaurant, JWB Prime Steak and Seafood, 5 o’Clock Somewhere Bar & Grill and LandShark Bar & Grill.
There also was a Broadway-bound jukebox musical, “Escape to Margaritaville,” a romantic comedy in which a singer-bartender called Sully falls for the far more career-minded Rachel, who is vacationing with friends and hanging out at Margaritaville, the hotel bar where Sully works.
James William Buffett was born on Christmas day 1946 in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and raised in the port town of Mobile, Alabama. He graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and went from busking the streets of New Orleans to playing six nights a week at Bourbon Street clubs.
He released his first record, “Down To Earth,” in 1970 and issued seven more on a regular yearly clip, with his 1974 song “Come Monday” from his fourth studio album “Living and Dying in ¾ Time,” peaking at No. 30. Then came “Margaritaville.”
He performed on more than 50 studio and live albums, often accompanied by his Coral Reefer Band, and was constantly on tour. He earned two Grammy Award nominations, two Academy of Country Music Awards and a Country Music Association Award.
Buffett was actually in Austin, Texas, when the inspiration struck for “Margaritaville.” He and a friend had stopped for lunch at a Mexican restaurant before she dropped him at the airport for a flight home to Key West, so they got to drinking margaritas.
“And I kind of came up with that idea of this is just like Margarita-ville,” Buffett told the Republic. “She kind of laughed at that and put me on the plane. And I started working on it.”
He wrote some on the plane and finished it while driving down the Keys. “There was a wreck on the bridge,” he said. “And we got stopped for about an hour so I finished the song on the Seven Mile Bridge, which I thought was apropos.”
Buffett also was the author of numerous books including “Where Is Joe Merchant?” and “A Pirate Looks At Fifty” and added movies to his resume as co-producer and co-star of an adaptation of Carl Hiaasen’s novel “Hoot.”
Buffett is survived by his wife, Jane; daughters, Savannah and Sarah; and son, Cameron.
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AP Entertainment Writer Andrew Dalton contributed from Los Angeles.
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Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits
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Mississippi governor’s brother suggested that auditor praise Brett Favre during welfare scandal
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — As Brett Favre became ensnared in media attention for his connection to Mississippi’s sprawling welfare scandal, Gov. Tate Reeves’ brother suggested the state official investigating the case praise the retired NFL quarterback.
Screen shots of text messages released Thursday by Reeves’ re-election campaign show the governor’s brother, Todd Reeves, passing along a request from Favre to Mississippi State Auditor Shad White for a favorable statement about the retired star athlete. Todd Reeves texted White on May 6, 2020, months after the auditor announced in February that criminal charges were brought against six people accused of diverting welfare money intended for some of the poorest people in the nation to the rich and powerful.
Favre has not been charged with a crime. But he has said the media “ unjustly smeared ” him in coverage of the scandal, including about payments he received to help fund his pet project — a volleyball arena at the university he attended and where his daughter was playing the sport.
“If possible, Brett would like you to say something along the lines of ‘the investigation (shows to this point) Brett has done nothing wrong and the monies he is paying back for commercials and Psa’s is from his own good will,’” Todd Reeves texted White.
Another text from Todd Reeves said reporters were “hounding” Favre.
On the same day Todd Reeves texted White, the auditor released a statement applauding Favre for repaying $500,000 in money from the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.
“I want to applaud Mr. Favre for his good faith effort to make this right and make the taxpayers and TANF families whole,” White said in the 2020 statement. ”To date, we have seen no records indicating Mr. Favre knew that TANF was the program that served as the source of the money he was paid.”
In a statement Friday, Fletcher Freeman, a spokesperson for White, said everything the auditor said in that statement was true at the time.
“Later, when more evidence was uncovered that showed Mr. Favre knew the money was intended for people in ‘shelters’ and that Mr. Favre sought to hide this from the media, Auditor White openly highlighted this for the public,” Freeman said, referring to the misuse of funds intended for anti-poverty initiatives like state-funded shelters. “Auditor White has been brutally honest about Mr. Favre’s involvement here each time new evidence comes out, which is why Mr. Favre has repeatedly attacked him.”
In February, Favre sued White and two national sportscasters for defamation.
In its Thursday news release, Reeves’ campaign also shared a statement from Todd Reeves. The governor’s brother said he connected Favre and White to facilitate the repayment of misspent TANF money.
“I’ve been friendly with Brett for years, and always heard great things about Shad. I didn’t learn anything about this TANF mess or Brett’s dealings with the state until it was front page news,” Todd Reeves said in the statement. “When Brett was considering repaying the funds, he asked me if I could help him get in touch with the auditor to coordinate that–so that’s what I did.”
To date, Favre has repaid $1.1 million he received from a nonprofit that improperly spent TANF funds with approval from the state Department of Human Services. He still owes $228,000 in interest, according to White.
In response to a list of questions emailed by The Associated Press, a Reeves spokesperson said the campaign released every text between Todd Reeves and White.
The welfare scandal has become a flashpoint in Mississippi’s gubernatorial race. Reeves has said he had nothing to do with the scandal, while his Democratic opponent, Brandon Presley, has said Reeves didn’t do enough to stop it when he was lieutenant governor.
“The Reeves administration has launched lawsuits against everyone who the state believes owes money back, and the only thing that might harm that effort is Democrats lying to make the scandal a campaign issue,” the spokesperson said. “Their claims require belief in time travel. As Todd said in his statement, Brett believed he had done nothing wrong and he was helping to convince him to return the money anyway.”
As recently as Wednesday, the auditor’s office had been fighting Mississippi Today in court to avoid handing over the text messages in response to public records requests. One day later, the governor’s campaign released texts the auditor hadn’t wanted to disclose amid an ongoing investigation. There is no indication the governor’s campaign gave the auditor any advance notice about its decision to release the messages, and the campaign did not respond to a question asking if they did.
The auditor’s office had argued that releasing the messages could damage its ongoing investigation into the welfare scandal and compromise efforts to recover stolen funds.
“The Auditor’s office has not and will not release any text messages regarding any case because they are part of an investigative file,” Freeman said. “Our job is to investigate stolen or misspent taxpayer funds and then hand the case to prosecutors to do their job.”
The Mississippi Department of Human Services, with a new director, filed a civil lawsuit last year against Favre, along with more than three dozen other people and businesses, to try to recover more than $20 million of the misspent welfare money.
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Natchez budget plan being presented Tuesday
NATCHEZ, Miss. – The budget proposal that the mayor and city aldermen will present to the public Tuesday includes pay raises for city employees.
The hearing will show how city officials plan to spend Natchez taxpayers’ money in the fiscal year that starts in October.
The proposed budget – which does not include a property tax hike – calls for increasing the salaries of fire department and public works department employees by 8 percent, according to City Clerk Megan McKenzie, Natchez police officers – who got a raise in pay last year – are in line for another 4 percent increase in the coming year. The spending plan also itemizes higher pay for other city employees – including $6,000-a-year salary increases in the city clerk’s office.
While spending projections are being finalized for the next fiscal year, the current year began last October budgeted with about $50 million in total expenditures of federal, state and local funds for Natchez.
The city is now “running a surplus” as sales and property tax collections continue to flow up due to the city’s robust economy, according to Mayor Dan Gibson.
Noting Natchez has more business activities and increased land values generating more tax revenues, Gibson said he’s “so pleased with how things are going financially for the city.”
He also pointed to “a record number of grants that have come into our city” that have enabled officials “to do more for Natchez.” The state and federal grants include money to improve Morgantown Road, Silver Street “and the list goes on and on,” Gibson said.
Gibson and the Board of Aldermen met this past Tuesday to discuss the budget, which will be presented next Tuesday at a hearing where the general public can pose questions and provide input for the fiscal plan. The Sept. 5 meeting at the City Council Chambers on Pearl Street is scheduled to start at 6 p.m.
The board is scheduled to approve the final budget Sept. 12.
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Natchez College grad Anne Moody to be honored by Tougaloo College on Oct. 13
NATCHEZ, Miss. — Civil rights pioneer Anne Moody will be inducted into the Tougaloo College National Alumni Association Hall of Fame during a banquet ceremony at 7 p.m., Friday, Oct. 13, at the Jackson Convention Complex Center at 105 E Pascagoula St.
Frances Jefferson, Moody’s sister, shared the news Thursday. She said she is looking forward to the event.
“I’m so proud that after fifty-nine years since her graduation, she’s finally given this honor in the Hall of Fame” Jefferson said. “If she were alive today, I know she would be very happy about this recognition. It’s been a long time coming.”
Kerry Thomas, committee chairman for the association, said the banquet is a ticketed event that is open to the public.
In addition to Moody, a 1964 graduate of Tougaloo, other honorees will include the Honorable Shirley C. Byers, 1975 graduate; Dr. Jean D. Chamberlain, 1971 graduate; and Dr. Sandra C. Melvin, 1995 graduate. Chamberlain and Moody will be honored posthumously.
Moody is the author of “Coming of Age in Mississippi.” She died in 2015 in Gloster at the age of 74. She will be recognized for her work in the field of communications. The Hall of Fame honor is presented to Tougaloo alumni “who have distinguished themselves through their dedication and commitment to their professions and Tougaloo College,” according to the association’s website.
Moody grew up in Centreville. After completing high school in Woodville, she enrolled at Natchez College. She attended the school from 1959 to 1961on a basketball scholarship. Moody wrote about her college life in her memoir, “Coming of Age in Mississippi.”
The Rev. Reginald Buckley, president of the General Missionary Baptist State Convention of Mississippi, which owns Natchez College, has suggested the college and Moody have an important role in Natchez’s history.
He spoke of Moody during a January 2023 press conference at the school. Buckley described the school as a “special place where Anne Moody began her college career and led her first protest over what most college students protest over – a cafeteria meal.”
After graduating from Natchez College, Moody began her studies at Tougaloo College, where she became a civil rights activist. She once said she had planned to study medicine and become a doctor, but life had other plans.
In a Feb. 19, 1985, interview with Debra Spencer of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Moody said that as a pre-med student, she considered becoming a doctor in Centreville.
“When the hospital was all … segregated, and they had very bad medical facilities for blacks and not any black doctors. I would be the one to take care of my people medically but then … I realized even before we came to that point, you’ve gotta survive as a race. I mean you’ve gotta survive as a human being with dignity and with grace, and we didn’t have that.”
Moody said becoming “the only black doctor” in Centreville or Woodville would have been “prestigious” and “fantastic. However, instead of becoming a doctor, she said, “I became a fulltime civil rights worker making $25 a week.”
At Tougaloo, Anne met and worked with some of the most renowned people in the civil rights movement, which included Medgar Evers, NAACP’s first field secretary in Mississippi. In “Coming of Age,” she wrote, “A few weeks after I got involved with the Tougaloo chapter of the NAACP, they organized a demonstration at the state fair in Jackson. Just before it was to come off, Medgar Evers came to campus and gave a bit hearty speech about how ‘Jackson was gonna move.’”
Anne Moody (1940-2015)
Photo by Jack SchrierMoody also became friends with Joan Trumpauer, a freedom rider. She and Trumpauer appear in the iconic photo of the Woolworth’s sit-in on May 28, 1963, in Jackson, where they were violently harassed and assaulted by a white mob. The photo shows the mob pouring sugar, ketchup and mustard on the heads of the activists.
It was during her time at Tougaloo that she also came to know civil rights workers James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman, who were tortured and murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in June 1964. In her interview with Spencer, Moody recalled, “The week before they disappeared, I was in Meridian. We were sitting on the church steps and talking. That’s the first time I had ever met them, and I really liked them. We were joking around. Just the week before they disappeared.”
Moody was so moved by the killings that when she tried to speak at a UAW convention, she became overcome with emotion. She wept and was unable to speak.
Moody’s book has remained in print since the first day it was published in December 1968. In addition to having been a bestseller, it has been translated into many languages. It has also been required reading over the years in colleges and high schools.
For tickets, donations, and more information on the 2023 TCNAA Alumni Hall of Fame induction ceremony, visit https://tcnaa.org or send email to info@tcnaa.org.
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Co-Lin Natchez Campus to offer special interest classes this fall
NATCHEZ – Copiah-Lincoln Community College’s Natchez Campus is gearing up
to host Special Interest classes again this fall. Special interest classes are non-credit
classes open to community members of any age and offer a wide variety of topics to
appeal to a large audience who are interested in life-long learning.For individuals wanting to increase their computer skills, digital awareness, or
business and office technology skills, there will be multiple class options.Digital Citizenship teaches participants how to be safe, responsible, and kind in
the digital world. Participants will also learn what it takes to become comfortable using
the internet, applications, and devices. This class costs $50 and will be held from 5:30-
6:30 p.m. on September 6, 11, 20, and 25.Computer Basics is for participants who are completely new to computers or
need a quick refresher. This course will begin with an introductory lesson in computer
concepts that will emphasize basic principles of a personal computer. Participants will
also learn how to manage files, perform tasks in program applications, and navigate the
internet. This class meets September 18 and 19 from 5:30-7:30 p.m. The fee is $40.Office Ready Using Microsoft Word will teach the functions of Microsoft Word
including creating professional documents, flyers, newsletters, forms, and mail merger.Participants should have basic computer skills. Bring a notebook, pen or pencil and flash
drive to class. The class meets September 25 and 26 from 5:30-7:30 p.m. and costs $40Excel for Beginners teaches the basic skills and concepts necessary to create and
edit spreadsheets using function tools for managing worksheets and organizing data.
Requirements are a notebook, pen or pencil and flash drive. This class meets on October
23, 24, 30, and 31 from 5:30-7:30 p.m. and costs $40.PowerPoint Presentation for Beginners will cover the fundamentals of
formatting text on slides, enhancing the visual appeal by adding or modifying graphical
objects to a presentation, and adding tables and charts to a presentation to present
data in a structured form. Requirements are a notebook, pen or pencil and flash drive.
The class meets on November 6 and 7 from 5:30-7:30 p.m. and costs $40.Community members who are interested in health and wellness should consider
two class options.BLS/CPR trains participants to save the lives of victims in cardiac arrest through
high-quality CPR. This course will demonstrate basic lifesaving skills and how to give
quality chest compressions and ventilations. Participants will earn a CPR certificate
backed by the American Heart Association at the conclusion of the course. The class
meets on Tuesdays from September 12- October 3 from 4:30-7:00 p.m. The cost is $50.Healthy Tasty Bites will teach participants about proper nutritional meal
balance, how to correctly plan your means, and how/why to track your meals.
Participants will learn to prepare healthy dishes in bulk with foods you have on hand.
The class will meet on Thursdays from 5:30-7:30 p.m. from September 14 to October 5.
The cost is $80.All classes will be held on the Co-Lin Natchez Campus. These classes do not offer
college credit. To register, contact Kimberly Grover at 601.446.1103 or
Kimberly.grover@colin.edu, or stop by the Willie Mae Dunn Library in the Tom Reed
Academic Building at 11 Co-Lin Circle; Natchez, MS, 39120. Pre-registration is required,
and space is limited for some classes. -
In Mississippi, a tiny fish is reintroduced to the river where it disappeared 50 years ago
PINOLA, Miss. (AP) — A species of tiny fish that once flourished in a river running hundreds of miles from central Mississippi into southeastern Louisiana is being reintroduced to the Pearl River after disappearing 50 years ago.
Wildlife experts say a number of factors likely contributed to the disappearance of the pearl darter from the Pearl River system, including oil and gas development, agricultural runoff, urban pollution, and dam construction. All are deemed detrimental to the pearl darter’s habitat and survival.
And even though pollution and other threats to habitat remain today within the Pearl River, more than 400 miles (644 kilometers) long, officials say the 1972 federal Clean Water Act has helped make it cleaner. Clean enough, in fact, that Mississippi and the federal government wildlife experts say there are signs that the pearl darter may be able to thrive there again.
“This site has some of the highest species diversity in the entire Pearl River,” said Matt Wagner, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist who last month joined workers wading into the Strong River, a headwater tributary of the Pearl. They dipped bowls into buckets full tiny pearl darters from a private hatchery and eased them into the water.
“There’s more species here than most other places, and a lot of the species that we find here are what we call sensitive species. They are species that are not very tolerant of things like pollution, high disturbance and things of that nature.”
The pearl darter is a bottom-dwelling fish that measures about 2.5 inches (6.4 centimeters) long. It is named for the iridescent coloring around its gills, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which listed it as a threatened species in 2017.
It had not vanished completely by 1973. It was still found in Mississippi’s Pascagoula River system. But that accounted for only about 43% of its historic range.
Wagner is optimistic about its future in the Pearl River.
“This is the biggest win of my career as a biologist so far,” Wagner said. “It’s very seldom that you get to restore a species back to its historic range. As a biologist, when you go to school, this is the type of day you’re all dreaming about.”
There will be regular sampling of the waters to see how the species is surviving. The hope is that they will thrive and spread throughout the Pearl system and federal protection will some day no longer be needed.
“They should, ideally, get delisted from the Endangered Species Act,” Wagner said.
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ACC becomes latest power conference to expand cross-country by adding Stanford, Cal and SMU
The Atlantic Coast Conference voted Friday to add Stanford, California and SMU to the league next year, providing a landing spot for two more schools from the disintegrating Pac-12 and creating a fourth super conference in major college sports.
The additions make the ACC the latest power conference to expand its membership and footprint westward. Starting in August 2024, the league with Tobacco Road roots in North Carolina will increase its number of football schools to 17 and 18 in most other sports, with Notre Dame remaining a football independent.
“We are thrilled to welcome three world-class institutions to the ACC, and we look forward to having them compete as part of our amazing league,” ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips said in a statement.
Notre Dame is currently the westernmost ACC school in South Bend, Indiana, with Louisville the farthest west among football members.
But now, like the Big Ten and Big 12, the ACC will be a cross-country conference. The ACC will span from Boston in the Northeast to Miami in South Florida, out to Dallas in the heart of the Southwest and up to the Northern California, where Stanford and Cal reside.
The ACC becomes the fourth league, along with the Southeastern Conference, Big Ten and Big 12, to have at least 16 football-playing members.
The move seems to signal an end to realignment among the nation’s wealthiest and most powerful college athletic conferences after three years of turbulent movement that has whittled the so-called Power Five down to four.
For the Bay Area schools, it was a marriage of desperation after the Pac-12 was picked apart by the Big Ten and Big 12.
For the ACC, adding three schools will increase media rights revenue from its long-term deal with ESPN, and allow the conference to spread much of that new money to existing members.
New conference members typically — though not always — forgo a full share of revenue for several years upon entry.
The ACC has been generating record revenue hauls, yet is trailing the Big Ten and Southeastern conferences, and staring at an even greater gap as those leagues have new TV deals kick in.
The ACC’s deal runs through 2036.
The ACC reported nearly $617 million in total revenue for the 2021-22 season, according to tax documents. That included distributing an average of $39.4 million to full members, with Notre Dame receiving a partial share (roughly $17.4 million) as a football independent.
Yet the Big Ten reported $845.6 million in total revenue (an average of $58 million in school distributions) and the SEC reported about $802 million in revenue ($49.9 million per school) for that same time period.
The ACC outgained the Big 12 (by roughly $136 million) in total revenue for third among the Power Five that season, though Big 12 schools received more money per school (roughly $43.6 million) with the league having just 10 members.
The angst over revenue led the ACC to announce plans for schools to keep more money based on their postseason success that has typically been evenly distributed to league teams.
The sticking point on expansion, which the ACC has been weighing for more than three weeks, has been how much of the new money from ESPN for three more members will go into the new performance-bonus pool and how much would be shared equally among existing members.
Clemson, Florida State, North Carolina and North Carolina State had been opposed to expansion when the conference presidents chose not to vote three weeks ago on adding the three schools.
As late as Thursday night, two North Carolina trustees released a statement saying they were opposed to the ACC’s expansion plan.
Stanford and Cal will be the ninth and 10th schools to inform the Pac-12 that this will be their last sports seasons in the self-described Conference of Champions.
“We are confident that the ACC and its constituent institutions are an excellent match for our university and will provide an elite competitive context for our student-athletes in this changing landscape of intercollegiate athletics,” University of California-Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ said.
The Big Ten lured away Oregon and Washington earlier this month. That came a little more than a year after Southern California and UCLA started the Eastern migration by West Coast schools when they announced they were leaving the Pac-12 for the Big Ten in 2024.
The Big 12 has poached four Pac-12 schools for next year: Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah.
The Pac-12 will now be down to Oregon State and Washington State.
Officials at both Pacific Northwest schools have said their desired path forward is to rebuild the Pac-12, but without Stanford and Cal that becomes even more complicated. Joining the Mountain West or American Athletic Conference now becomes more likely.
Stanford and Cal have athletic programs with rich histories of producing Olympians, all-stars and hall of famers, including Super Bowl winning quarterback John Elway and swimmer Katie Ledecky from Stanford and NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers and swimmer Missy Franklin from Cal.
The Cardinal won the women’s NCAA basketball tournament 2021 and last year earned for the 26th time the Directors’ Cup, which measures overall athletic department success.
Success has been harder to come by in football lately for the Big Game rivals.
After a decade that included three Pac-12 championships and six double-digit victory seasons under coaches Jim Harbaugh and David Shaw, Stanford sunk to 14-28 the last four years and now have a new coach in Troy Taylor.
Cal has been mired in mediocrity — and athletic department debt — since not long after Rodgers was drafted by the Green Bay Packers 2005. The Bears have just three winning football seasons since 2010.
For SMU, the ACC is a return to major conference football for the first time since the program infamously was shuttered by the NCAA as part of sanctions for paying players back in the early 1980s.
While the schools are a long way from their new conference mates, they do have some similarities to smaller private schools such as Duke, Wake Forest and Boston College, along with flagship state schools such as North Carolina and Virginia, that make up the ACC.
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Dire Straits legend Jack Sonni dead at age 68
Dire Straits guitarist Jack Sonni has died at the age of 68.
Known as “the other guitarist” during the iconic group’s Brothers in Arms era, his passing was announced by the band on X (formerly Twitter).
His cause of death has not yet been revealed.
Brothers in Arms was the fifth album released by Dire Straits in 1985.
Jack had been working at the iconic New York City guitar shop Rudy’s Music Stop in the 1970s when he first met the band’s co-founders David and Mark Knopfler.
He played alongside the group at 1985’s Live Aid concert at Wembley Stadium and news of his passing, which was posted by the band on Thursday at lunchtime, is prompting a flood of tributes from fans.
Born in Indiana, Pennsylvania, after his collaboration with Dire Straits, Jack went on to contribute to a series of other musicians’ works but ended his professional musical career when his twin daughters were born in 1988.
He began a second career as a marketing executive, first at Seymour Duncan, then Rivera Guitar Amplifiers followed by several years as director of marketing communications at Line 6, a manufacturer of digital technology products for musicians.
In 2001, he became vice president of marketing communication for Guitar Center.
In the summer of 2006, Sonni left Guitar Center to write books, moving to San Jose del Cabo, then California.
He was writer-in-residence and house manager at the Noepe Center for Literary Arts on Martha’s Vineyard until its closure in 2017.
Jack had also returned to playing music on a regular basis with his band The Leisure Class.