It is true that USC’s Lane Kiffin has had two great recruiting classes at USC, but that was because he signed 25 players both in 2010 and 2011. He delayed “Judgement Day” by getting permission to avoid the 15 scholarship limits (imposed for 3 years) while the school appealed the NCAA’s decision.

Therefore, all these articles that are claiming that Kiffin has beat the odds don’t know what they are talking about. For instance, if he had taken his medicine earlier then next year he would have been back with the ability to sign 25 again. Instead, he will only be able to sign 15 in 2012, 2013 and 2014. Also he is in trouble this year because he is 5 above the total 75 limit that he carry on the team. Obviously he has been mum on who he will kick off.

Despite NCAA sanctions, Lane Kiffin is on the verge of landing his second straight top five recruiting class at USC.

Below is an article that is being circulated about Kiffin:

Lane Kiffin still remembers reading the premature obituaries for USC‘s football dynasty that accompanied the arrival of probation in the summer of 2010.

“Eighteen months ago, you couldn’t find a positive article about the future of USC’s program,” said Kiffin, who took over USC’s program at that time. “Eighteen months ago, when [the sanctions] happened, everybody talked about it being the death penalty. USC was over.”

NCAA sanctions have caused Lane Kiffin to be more selective in recruiting.

Nobody’s saying that anymore.

USC, banned from bowl games the past two seasons, has overcome NCAA sanctions to regain its status as one of the nation’s most feared college football programs.

USC closed the 2011 season ranked sixth nationally by The Associated Press, and the return of star quarterback Matt Barkley should catapult the Trojans into the top five of the 2012 preseason rankings.

This winter was supposed to be the first year recruiting sanctions hurt the school; it is limited to just 15 scholarships – or 10 fewer than the NCAA’s limit – the next three recruiting cycles.

But one week before National Signing Day, USC has one of the strongest classes in the country and remains very much in the mix with many of the nation’s top uncommitted recruits.

It has commitments from four Rivals100 prospects – including five-star offensive lineman Jordan Simmons. It is in contention for about a dozen others, including five-star offensive lineman Zach Banner.

And just last weekend, four-star quarterback Cyler Miles, the No. 2 dual-threat prospect who committed to Washington in June, said he is now considering changing his commitment to USC.

[ More on the Trojans: USCFootball.com ]

“It’s business as usual at USC except they are having this success despite having to be much more careful with their offers and who they can take commitments from,” said Mike Farrell, a national recruiting analyst for Rivals.com. “A great season on the field certainly helped, but Lane Kiffin and his staff are keeping the brand name of USC strong.”

Whether USC truly is going to not just survive but thrive during this loss of scholarships period will depend on the talent evaluation skills of Kiffin’s staff – and some fun with numbers.

USC already has eight verbal commitments for 2012, not counting the four early enrollees who are considered part of the 2011 class. Kiffin has said he wants to sign a full class of 15 recruits.

Here’s where the math gets tricky.

As it stands now, a full 15-man recruiting class would give USC roughly 80 scholarship players. USC, as part of its probation, cannot have more than 75 scholarship players.

How will they get to that number? Kiffin isn’t saying.

“We’ve had a stance here on numbers going back to a year-and-a-half ago when this happened, that we don’t discuss really how we’re managing the situation here with numbers and stuff for competitive reasons,” Kiffin said.

Those numbers could naturally go down if a few more players decide to leave. USC’s scholarship numbers already have decreased since the start of the 2011 season with the transfers of running back Dillon Baxter, defensive back T.J. Bryant, wide receiver Brice Butler, running back Amir Carlisle, defensive back Patrick Hall and wide receiver Kyle Prater.

Perhaps more players will depart before the start of preseason camp. Off-field issues potentially could result in more defections. It’s also worth noting that any school’s scholarship offer to a potential student-athlete merely represents a one-year agreement and not a four-year guarantee.

The uncertainty has caused recruits to hear plenty of different stories about USC’s pending numbers crunch. How much negative recruiting has gone on is subject for debate.

Jabari Ruffin, a four-star linebacker from Downey (Calif.) High who committed to USC last March, said other schools didn’t discuss USC’s sanctions with him.

“That was never brought up, especially with the season [USC] just had,” said Ruffin, the No. 40 prospect in the nation. “I was surprised, though. In a job like that, when you’re recruiting somebody to a school, you might say anything. But nobody went there.”

Although Ruffin apparently didn’t hear anyone badmouth USC in those terms, Kiffin indicated other recruits received plenty of false or misleading statements.

“A lot of stuff gets thrown out there to these kids from other places that’s inaccurate on what exactly is happening over the next few years, how many guys we can sign and what our numbers really are,” Kiffin said. “We actually have to do a lot of correcting inaccurate information. We get all kinds of things. That if you get injured, with the reduced numbers, they’re going to cut you. That they’re only going to be able to sign six guys [in a given year]. We deal with a whole bunch of stuff.”

Those concerns haven’t stopped USC from landing plenty of quality talent.

Ten of USC’s 12 commitments for 2012 (including early enrollees) are four- or five-star prospects. Even in the midst of probation, the USC name means plenty to blue-chip prospects.

“It’s freaking USC,” Pleasant Hill (Calif.) Diablo Valley College defensive end Morgan Breslin told USCfootball.com last month after switching his commitment from UCLA. “I was just in shock that they were recruiting me. … To be honest, I don’t even know how to explain how excited I was to have a chance to go there.”

USC’s class currently is made up entirely of California players, a notable change from the more national recruiting approach used by former coach Pete Carroll. Kiffin has made a point of pursuing in-state prospects, but he also hopes the Trojans’ recent success on the field will make a difference with top out-of-state recruits.

“The great stats that Matt had and the two receivers [Robert Woods and Marqise Lee] had, it was like the old days,” Kiffin said. “Obviously that helps when you talk about national recruiting. That’s been the hardest thing the last few years – the national recruiting. Because of the bowl ban and dealing with the sanctions, it makes it a lot harder for a kid to leave home, when he has great options right there, to come out here. I know that this season has helped for the future of our national recruiting.”

But the scholarship reductions prevent USC from signing every notable recruit who wants to play for the Trojans. Kiffin’s staff must decide which of them represent the best fits for his program.

“I think their goal for the next three years is to get 15 – and to get 15 quality kids,” Farrell said. “That’s why you’re seeing a lot less offers out there. They used to blanket the country with offers. Now they’re not doing that. They’re being very picky. Getting to 15 is easy. It’s about getting to 15 with the right guys.”

It’s the same challenge that other probation-ridden programs also faced while dealing with scholarship losses.

“You have no room for error,” said Florida International athletic director Pete Garcia, who served as the recruiting coordinator on former Miami coach Butch Davis’ staff when the Hurricanes were on probation in the 1990s. “Evaluation is the key. It’s more about evaluating than recruiting. When you have limits on scholarships, you have to make every one count.”

Even if a program makes all the right choices, it inevitably will encounter depth problems. For example, Carlisle’s transfer has left USC with only three scholarship tailbacks.

Then again, USC may be uniquely equipped to deal with scholarship reductions.

When the NCAA handed down its sanctions in the summer of 2010, it essentially turned USC’s juniors and seniors into free agents by allowing them to leave for another Division I program without sitting out a year. USC opened preseason camp in 2010 with only 70 scholarship players, so Kiffin won’t be facing a situation he had never encountered before.

“It’s just made us manage our team a little more like an NFL team, with the lower numbers on game day, the lower numbers in practice and the lower numbers in the spring,” said Kiffin, who coached the Oakland Raiders in 2007 and 2008. “We had to be a little more specific. Instead of maybe signing big classes – or getting good players regardless of position – we had to be more specific about where those guys would exactly fit in as we moved forward. It’s more like the NFL.”

Of course, classes don’t get much bigger than the 30-man group (including eight early enrollees) that USC signed last year. USC wouldn’t be facing such a numbers crunch if it had brought in a smaller class last year, but Kiffin has no regrets. He said the large 2011 class was necessary so that USC would have enough talent in place to deal with the pending scholarship cuts.

“It would have been crippling to our program not to do what we did,” Kiffin said.

A look at USC’s depth chart backs up Kiffin’s point. That 2011 class included four players who were starting by the end of the season: Lee, offensive guard Marcus Martin, linebacker Lamar Dawson and kicker Andre Heidari.

The rapid development of that class has helped put USC in its current position as a potential title contender.

“To finish sixth in the country, have 10 regular-season wins and to [potentially] be a preseason top-five team, it makes us feel very good about what has happened and where our program is now compared to where everybody said it would be,” Kiffin said.

USC undoubtedly has withstood the effects of probation thus far better than anyone could have reasonably expected.

But their biggest challenge is still to come. As the scholarship losses take effect, USC’s ability to remain a national power in the post-Barkley era will depend on whether the quality of these next few recruiting classes makes up for their lack of quantity.

(Olin Buchanan of Rivals.com contributed to this report).

Steve Megargee is a national writer for Rivals.com. He can be reached at smegargee@rivals.com, and you can click here to follow him on Twitter.

The Keith Green Story pt 5/7

Keith Green had a major impact on me back in 1978 when I first heard him. Here is his story below:

Tribute Recordings

In 1992, several artists joined together to re-record many of Green’s best-known songs for a tribute album called No Compromise: Remembering the Music of Keith Green under the Sparrow Records label. Artists contributing to the recording include Petra, Charlie Peacock, Susan Ashton, Margaret Becker, Michael Card, GLAD, Rich Mullins, Steven Curtis Chapman, Steve Green, and Russ Taff.

In 2001, BEC Records released a second, more modern, tribute record Start Right Here: Remembering the Life of Keith Green. Produced by Derri Daugherty, the album included performances by new contemporary Christian artists MxPx, Joy Electric, Starflyer 59, among others.

At the twentieth anniversary of Keith’s death, Sparrow Records released yet another tribute album, Your Love Broke Through: The Worship Songs of Keith Green. The 2002 album contains re-recordings by Rebecca St. James, Michelle Tumes, Chris Tomlin, Twila Paris, Darlene Zschech, Jason Upton, Martin Smith, Charlie Hall, Joanne Hogg, Matt Redman, Paul Oakley, and Sarah Sadler. The album contains contemporary Christian and mainstream artist Michael W. Smith’s version of the song There Is One, an unfinished work by Keith Green. Composition of the song was completed by Smith, along with British songwriter and Christian music artist Martin Smith.
Last Days Ministries
Green Hall dormitory, originally part of LDM property, was named after Keith Green when Teen Mania purchased the property in 1996

The LDM property was sold in 1996 and is now occupied by Teen Mania Ministries. Teen Mania has dedicated one of its dormitories, Green Hall, in memory of Keith. Melody Green continues to operate Last Days Ministries from Oceanside, California, and is a well-known speaker and author. With David Hazard, she authored a biography of Keith, No Compromise: The Life Story of Keith Green (Harvest House Publishers, 1989; revised and expanded in 2000; revised and expanded again and released by Thomas Nelson in 2008; also on the Compact Disc version of The Ministry Years, Volume Two album).
Honors

On November 27, 2001, Keith Green was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame.

On April 3, 2006, Green was honored with the ASCAP Crescendo Award at the 28th annual ASCAP Christian Music Awards presentation dinner. His widow, Melody Green, was present to receive the award for her late husband.

Quotes

“It’s time to quit playing church and start being the Church (Matt. 18:20)” ? Keith Green, as quoted by Melody Green in the introduction to A Cry in the Wilderness, Sparrow Press, 1993.

“I repent of ever having recorded one single song, and ever having performed one concert, if my music, and more importantly, my life has not provoked you into Godly jealousy or to sell out more completely to Jesus!” ? Keith Green

“You shouldn’t go to college unless God has definitely called you to go.” ? Keith Green, ‘Why YOU should go to the mission field’, 1982

“No Compromise is what the whole Gospel of Jesus is all about… ‘For I tell you…no man can serve two masters…’ (Matt. 6:24). In a day when believers seem to be trying to please both the world and the Lord (which is an impossible thing), when people are far more concerned about offending their friends than offending God, there is only one answer…Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Him!” ? Keith Green, No Compromise album, 1978.

“He, being dead, yet speaketh.” ? Leonard Ravenhill, Keith’s mentor, borrowing from Hebrews 11:4 (KJV) in his 1990 2-page Memories of Keith tribute from a computer file, part of the Enhanced CD version of No Compromise by Melody Green with David Hazard.

From Wikipedia:

McEnroe won a total of 148 ATP titles (a record for a male professional) during his career — 77 in singles, 71 in men’s doubles, and 1 in mixed doubles (not counted as ATP title).He won seven Grand Slam singles titles. He also won a record eight year end championship titles overall, the Masters championships three times, and the WCT Finals,a record five times.His career singles match record was 875–198 (81.55%_. He posted the best single season match record (for a male player) in the Open Era with win-loss record: 82–3 (96.5%) set in 1984 and has the best Carpet Court career match winning percentage: 84.18% (411–346) of any player.

According to the ATP website, McEnroe had the edge in career matches on Jimmy Connors (20–14), Stefan Edberg (7–6), Mats Wilander (7–6), Michael Chang (4–1), Ilie Năstase (4–2), and Pat Cash (3–1). McEnroe was even with Björn Borg (7–7), Andre Agassi (2–2), and Michael Stich (1–1). He trailed against Pete Sampras (0–3), Goran Ivanišević (2–4), Boris Becker (2–8), Guillermo Vilas (5–6), Jim Courier (1–2), and Ivan Lendl (15–21). McEnroe won 12 of the last 14 matches with Connors, beginning with the 1983 Cincinnati tournament. Edberg won the last 5 matches with McEnroe, beginning with the 1989 tournament in Tokyo. McEnroe won 4 of the last 5 matches with Vilas, beginning with the 1981 tournament in Boca Raton, Florida. And Lendl won 11 of the last 12 matches with McEnroe, beginning with the 1985 US Open.

McEnroe, however, played in numerous events, including invitational tournaments, that are not covered by the ATP website. McEnroe won eight of those events and had wins and losses against the players listed in the preceding paragraph that are not reflected on the ATP website.

Grand Slam finals (11)

[edit] Singles: (7–4)

Wins (7)

Year	Championship	Surface	Opponent in final	Score in final
1979	US Open	Hard	Vitas Gerulaitis	7–5, 6–3, 6–3
1980	US Open (2)	Hard	Björn Borg	7–6(7–4), 6–1, 6–7(5–7), 5–7, 6–4
1981	Wimbledon	Grass	Björn Borg	4–6, 7–6(7–1), 7–6(7–4), 6–4
1981	US Open (3)	Hard	Björn Borg	4–6, 6–2, 6–4, 6–3
1983	Wimbledon (2)	Grass	Chris Lewis	6–2, 6–2, 6–2
1984	Wimbledon (3)	Grass	Jimmy Connors	6–1, 6–1, 6–2
1984	US Open (4)	Hard	Ivan Lendl	6–3, 6–4, 6–1

Runner-up (4)

Year	Championship	Surface	Opponent in final	Score in final
1980	Wimbledon	Grass	Björn Borg	6–1, 5–7, 3–6, 7–6(18–16), 6–8
1982	Wimbledon (2)	Grass	Jimmy Connors	6–3, 3–6, 7–6(7–2), 6–7(5–7), 4–6
1984	French Open	Clay	Ivan Lendl	6–3, 6–2, 4–6, 5–7, 5–7
1985	US Open	Hard	Ivan Lendl	6–7(1–7), 3–6, 4–6

The Keith Green Story pt 4/7

Keith Green had a major impact on me back in 1978 when I first heard him. Here is his story below:

Last Days Ministries

In 1978, Last Days Ministries (LDM) began publishing the Last Days Newsletter. Originally printed on a few pages of loose paper, the newsletter grew in content to eventually become a “small, colorful magazine,” and was renamed in mid-1985 as Last Days Magazine. The magazine featured articles by Green and his wife as well as contemporary Christian authors David Wilkerson, Leonard Ravenhill, and Winkie Pratney, all of whom lived in the area. The publication also later included the reprinted works of classic Christian authors such as Charles Finney, John Wesley, and William Booth and his wife Catherine. Most of the articles were reprinted as tracts. At the peak of its popularity, the Last Days Magazine was sent out to over 300,000 people worldwide.

In 1979, the ministry relocated from the San Fernando Valley to a 40-acre (160,000 m2) plot of land in Garden Valley, Texas, a crossroads community about nine miles (14 km) west of Lindale, Texas. Within a few years, Last Days purchased additional land, bringing the total to 140 acres (0.6 km2).

Plane crash

Gravesite at Garden Valley Cemetery

Along with eleven others, Keith Green died on , 1982, when the Cessna 414 leased by Last Days Ministries crashed after takeoff from the private airstrip located on the LDM property. The small two-engine plane was carrying eleven passengers and the pilot, Don Burmeister, for an aerial tour of the LDM property and the surrounding area. Green and two of his children, three year old Josiah, and two year old Bethany, were on board the plane, along with visiting missionaries John and Dede Smalley and their six children.

Among several causes, the NTSB determined that the crash was largely due to aircraft gross weight overload. It was determined that the pilot, should have refused to take five more passengers than there were seats on the plane. As Burmaster was a former United States Marine Corps aviator, the NTSB concluded that since military requirements put weight and balance responsibilities on the loadmaster of the flight and not the pilot, the pilot may have neglected this responsibility by former habit. With eleven passengers on board, the aircraft was overloaded by nearly 450 pounds (202 kg) and laden center of gravity was located 4.5 inches (110 mm) past the maximum aft limit. Also considered in the final ruling was the fact that operator and pilot did not satisfy insurance requirements for aircraft familiarization for operation, and pilot’s failure of several checkrides, leading to the revocation of Burmaster’s license shortly before the accident.

Keith, Josiah, and Bethany Green are interred at Garden Valley Cemetery behind the Garden Valley Baptist Church, less than a half-mile from the LDM property. He was survived by his wife and two daughters, the youngest of whom was born after Green’s death.

Legacy

Two full albums of original Green songs were released posthumously: The Prodigal Son (1983) and Jesus Commands Us to Go! (1984). Another release, I Only Want to See You There (1983) contained mostly previously released material. A complete volume of his work, The Ministry Years, was released in 1987 and 1988, including a few more previously unreleased songs.

Another unreleased Christian song known to have been recorded by Green was “Born Again,” which was finally released in 1999, 17 years after his death, on the First Love compilation video and CD. Both feature a two-song tribute to Green by other Christian artists.

In 2008, Last Days Ministries and Sparrow Records partnered together and released The Live Experience – Special Edition, a CD+DVD combination of 16 live recordings and 4 hours of DVD footage including video of live performances as well as details regarding Green’s life and his passing.  A “Greatest Hits” album was also released at the same time, including 17 of Green’s most popular songs and one more previously unreleased Christian song, “Your Love Came Over Me”.  

A prolific personal journalist, Green’s writings were published as excerpts in the books A Cry In The Wilderness (Sparrow, 1993), If You Love the Lord (Harvest House, 2000), and Make My Life a Prayer (Harvest House, 2001).