Category Archives: History

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On this episode: The Kmart brand was born in Michigan. Now, it's leaving.

Host Cary Junior II chats with Free Press business reporter JC Reindl, who broke the story on the planned closure of the last Kmart in Michigan.

Reindl walks listeners through the downfall of the former retail giant.Meanwhile, Detroit Historical Society assistant curator Bill Pringle traces its history back to 1899, and the roots of the S.S. Kresge Co. in Detroit.

Shoppers at the last store, in Marshall, also give into the nostalgia and bid farewell.

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Transcripts of each episode are available by the next workday. The Detroit Free Press uses Omny Studio's automated transcription service and then checks the text against the audio for accuracy.

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Listen to 'On The Line': Detroit history checking out with last Kmart - Detroit Free Press

Hes got a slightly different notion of what a descendant community might be. I looked out at the sea of people that were there, he said. This country is rooted in the story of enslaved people. This is everyones history. You can be a cynic about all of this, Reaves admitted. Its one thing to pray for the dead; its another to look after the living. But Reaves isnt cynical. Its a door, he said. You open it, some of them will walk through. The question is what lies on the other side.

God has no children whose rights may be safely trampled on.

Frederick Douglass, 1854.

Samuel Morton, a Philadelphia doctor, began collecting skulls in 1830. Determined to study the craniums of the worlds five newly classified races, he directed faraway correspondents to dig up graves and ship him heads, eventually amassing nearly nine hundred, including, closer to home, those of fourteen Black Philadelphians. Morton is buried in Philadelphias Laurel Hill Cemetery, under an obelisk inscribed, Wherever Truth Is Loved or Science Honored, His Name Will Be Revered. In 1854, three years after Mortons death, Frederick Douglass called his work scientific moonshine, but it took more than a century for scientists to disavow the notion of biological race. And yet calls for the return of those remains rest on a notion of race, too.

Christopher Woods, a Sumerologist from the University of Chicago, is the first Black director of the Penn Museum, in Philadelphia. In April, not yet two weeks after he began his appointment, the museum issued a statement apologizing for the unethical possession of human remains in the Morton Collection and pledging to return them to their ancestral communities. Penn is not alone. In January, the president of Harvard issued a similar apology and charged a committee to inventory the human remains found in its museums, with priority given to those of individuals of African descent who were or were likely to have been alive during the period of American enslavement. As Evelynn Hammonds, a historian of science who chairs the Harvard committee, told me, No one institution can solve all these questions alone.

But Penn has other problems. Days after Woodss first apology, the museum issued another one, this time for holding on to the remains of a Black child killed by police in 1985 during a raid against the Black-liberation organization MOVE. (The police bombed the MOVE house, and eleven people, including five children, were burned to death.) The museum returned those remains to the families this summer. As for the rest of the remains, including the Morton collection, We want to do the right thing, Woods told me. We want to be able to repatriate individuals when descendant communities want that to be done.

During the years when Morton was collecting skulls, much of Philadelphias African American community was burying its dead in a cemetery on Queen Street thats now a playground called Weccacoe, for a Lenni Lenape word that means peaceful place. The day I stopped there, the playground was a tumble of sippy cups and strollers, water buckets and tubes of sunscreen, and toddlers playing pirates. Underneath lie thousands of graves.

Pennsylvania passed a gradual abolition law in 1780, and by the seventeen-nineties Philadelphia had a thriving free Black community, much of it centered on what is now the Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1810, the Bethel church trustees and the A.M.E.s founder, Richard Allen, bought a city block on Queen Street. Until 1864, the congregation used the land as a burial ground and then, in 1889, strapped for cash, sold it to cover the cost of a new church. The burial ground became a park, and then a playground. Nearly half the citys population is Black, but the citys monuments and museums mostly commemorate Benjamin Franklin, the Declaration of Independence, the American Revolution, and the drafting of the Constitution. Avenging the Ancestors, a coalition formed in 2002 to advocate for a slavery memorial in the city, has taken a broad view of the notion of a descendant community, describing its members as todays free Black sons and daughters of yesterdays enslaved Black fathers and mothers.

In 2010, Terry Buckalew, an independent researcher and aging antiwar activist, read in the newspaper that the city was about to renovate Weccacoe. They were going to dig it up, he told me. They were going to put in new trees, new light poles, and a sprinkler. And I said, Oh, no. The bodies are still there! Three years later, the city conducted a ground-penetrating-radar survey and concluded that the site, the Bethel Burying Ground, contained at least five thousand bodies. Buckalew, who is white, has spent his retirement researching the lives of those thousands of Black Philadelphians. I asked him why. Reparations, he said. I firmly believe in reparations.

Reparations rest on arguments about inheritance and descent. But, if genealogy has a new politics, it has always been urgent. After Emancipation, people put ads in newspapers, desperately looking for their children, husbands, wives, and parents. INFORMATION WANTED of my mother, Lucy Smith, of Hopkinsville, Ky., formerly the slave of Dr. Smith. She was sold to a Mr. Jenks of Louisiana, Ephraim Allen of Philadelphia posted in the Christian Recorder in 1868. Today, reparative genealogical projects in search of descendants put out calls on social media and ask people to fill out Google Forms. One of the most successful, the Georgetown Memory Project, has been looking for direct descendants of two hundred and seventy-two enslaved people sold by the Jesuit Society that ran Georgetown in 1838, mostly to pay off debts. So far, the project, in conjunction with independent researchers and American Ancestors (the nations oldest genealogical research organization, which established pedigrees for Mayflower descendants), has located more than eight thousand descendants. In 2019, after a student-driven referendum, the university announced a plan to provide four hundred thousand dollars a year in reparations, in the form of community-based projects to benefit Descendant communities.

Reparations hasnt been the dominant note sounded in Philadelphia over Bethel, perhaps in part because it was the A.M.E. Church that sold the burial ground. Still, theres been plenty of controversy, along with the usual and more than usual delays of a complicated city-planning process. But last year the Bethel Burying Ground Historic Site Memorial Committee selected a proposal by the award-winning artist Karyn Olivier, for a memorial titled Her Luxuriant Soil.

Olivier, who teaches sculpture at Temple University, was born in Trinidad and Tobago in 1968. My ancestors were slaves, but not here, she told me. Olivier likes to work with soil: It holds history and holds loss and holds pain. But she took her title from a speech made by Richard Allen in 1817, before a meeting of three thousand free men of African heritage, whod gathered to debate a proposal, mostly favored by Southern slaveowners, for resettling free Black men and women in West Africa. Whereas our ancestors (not of choice) were the first cultivators of the wilds of America, Allen said, we their descendants feel ourselves entitled to participate in the blessings of her luxuriant soil.

Oliviers elegiac design incorporates features discovered during excavation of the site, including the inscription found on the only headstone that was unearthed: Amelia Brown, 1819, Aged 26 years. Whosoever live and believeth in me, though we be dead, yet, shall we live. A wrought-iron cemetery gate reading Bethel Burying Ground will mark the entrance to the parkhalf of which will still be a playgroundwhere paving stones engraved with epitaphs will have something of the quality of Germanys Stolpersteine, or stumbling stones, marked with the names of those who were killed in the Holocaust. You wont trip over Oliviers installation; instead, inscribed into water-activated concrete, the words will appear, and disappear, with rain, snow, and a sprinkler system. The plan is to break ground in March. But it wont be very broken: the graves lie only inches deep.

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When Black History Is Unearthed, Who Gets to Speak for the Dead? - The New Yorker

If you had asked Luis Santana Garcia 21MA if he wanted to join the Peace Corps a few years ago, the idea wouldnt have even crossed his mind until a conversation with a faculty member in UCFs Department of History.

One day, I just happened to walk in and talk to Dr. [Richard] Crepeau about Ethiopia, he says. He mentioned that he went in the Peace Corps to Ethiopia. He explained to me what he did and that put it onto my radar. I was like, Oh, this actually might be something that I should consider seriously.

Fast-forward to today, and Santana Garcia is currently lined up for his second service opportunity with the volunteer program that seeks to promote world peace and friendship through cross-cultural exchange. As a graduate of UCFs history masters program, Santana Garcias first service opportunity in Malawi tied into his research on East African history. It also granted him the opportunity to share his own culture as a Mexican American with an entirely new community.

What inspired you to join the Peace Corps?In 2017, I was a member of the STARTALK program at UCF. One of the instructors, Anna Kiryakova, mentioned that they were they were having a World Festival (of Youth and Students) in Russia and that I should attend, so I did. I met people from all over the world: Africa, Asia, Europe and South America. Going through that process, something in my mind clicked and it was an understanding of the Peace Corps goal of facilitating cross-cultural exchange; You give something back and you get something in return, culturally. I wanted to help facilitate that and bring understanding of other cultures back with me.

What did your time with the Peace Corps entail?When you apply [for the Peace Corps], you apply for a specific branch. In my country, Malawi, there was agriculture, health and education, [which I selected] and had a specific job as secondary school English and literature teacher. This was my day job, but youre on the job 24/7. Some projects are required depending on the country and sector, such as malaria prevention, HIV prevention and projects relating to empowering female students. For my project, I helped them build and maintain a library and worked with malaria prevention, as well. Theres a lot you can do.

What did you learn about Malawi and/or East African culture during your time in the Peace Corps?The Peace Corps expects volunteers to integrate into their communities, and that is what you are doing from day one of service. There were things that you had to learn, such as never going into the small woods near a village as it is a cemetery. Only the Gule Wamkulu, costumed members of a secret society, were allowed in there. They wore colorful clothing and masks to hide their identity. The name also refers to their religious dances, quite literally meaning big dance, that were performed at funerals, big events and changing seasons. That was one of the biggest things I learned during my time in Malawi, and our group saw them dance on several occasions, including the volunteer swear-in ceremony. When I first saw them and learned more about them, it reminded me of Day of the Dead and the celebration of death.

Malawians love football (soccer) and there was a local field where we got to see a few matches being held. The whole village came out to see the games. [The culture in Malawi] was very family oriented, so I tried my best to fulfill my role in [my host] family when it came to chores. They call Malawi the warm heart of Africa, and it lived up to that name during my stay.

How did your own cultural identity affect your experience in Malawi?You have to learn how to integrate into the community because the only way youre going to get things done is by being seen as one of them. But youre never going to be one of them, youre always going to be different. Youre trying to integrate into a community that holds Americans to this almost mythical standard. They dont know what a Hispanic American is, nor do they know what a Mexican American is. It then becomes your responsibility to represent that community, facilitate that cross-cultural exchange, and show that Americans are incredibly diverse. You kind of teach them this is what it means to be, for me specifically, Mexican American. I would show them pictures of my family and explain to them where theyre from, what they did, and what they meant to me. Or Id show them little things, like calaveras, or sugar skulls. And that kind of helped me a cope a little bit, just having a little bit of a home with me.

Tell us about your research.My research for my graduate degree at UCF was about East African history. Specifically, the Ogaden Conflict between Ethiopia and Somalia and how the global influences from the European superpowers during the late 1800s to early 1900s and then later [between the] United States and the Soviet Union shaped and [contributed to] an inevitable conflict with each other, and shaped the outcome. Even today, theyre still in conflict internally.

How did your research connect with your time in the Peace Corps?When I was in the capital (of Malawi), I would talk to some of the people that were in the in the Peace Corps about the Cold War and things like that. I got a little bit of a different understanding of how to view the Cold War from people that were affected by it most. In essence, [I realized] how often we as Americans view history by looking at it from an American or Western perspective, and that I should incorporate other perspectives in my research. My service also helped in removing me from my usual daily schedule and habits, which helped me focus on my research.

What surprised you the most about your time with the Peace Corps?I never really expected that I could actually do something like this. When I was in the first week, I was like, I dont know if I can do this. What am I thinking? I came to a country on the other side of the world that Ive never had an experience with. I was freaking out for the longest time. My family was having a family reunion, and I couldnt go because they couldnt move the date, but my mom just happened to be on the phone with me when all my relatives were there. And it pushed me a little bit to know they were proud of what I was doing. And Im glad I did, because within two or three weeks, it was like second nature.

Whats next for you?The Peace Corps sent me an offer to teach at a university in Ukraine, but because of COVID [my start date is on hold and] Im just waiting for that. Im really excited to go not only further my own career, but also to experience that and give back to my own country and the Ukraine. I talked with some people who were in the university program, and a lot of them also help with projects with the embassy, which is what I really want to do. I want to work with the consulate in a foreign service in some degree.

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History Alums Heritage and Research Informed His Time in the Peace Corps - UCF

There's a turnoff at the top of Freezeout Hill, outside Emmett, which takes you down the original Freeze Out Road. The long and winding road has a unique history.

EMMETT, Idaho Any map today will show you it's an easy 30-minute drive from Boise to Emmett. A straight shot down State Street, or Highway 44, with a sharp turn to the right onto Highway 16. Continue driving straight until you drop down Freezeout Hill into Emmett.

But a little more than a century ago, there were many more turns involved when going to Emmett, and you can still go that way today.

At the top of Freezeout Hill there's a turnoff called "Old Freeze Out Road" - a long and winding road with a colorful history.

The old road has 26 curves.

"It's a fun hill to weave and wind down," says Gem County Historical Society volunteer, Mike Carr.

But don't let the term 'hill' fool you. The guardrails are old, the road surface is not in the best repair, and many people ease their way down it at 25 miles per hour. It's never really been for the faint of heart.

Old Freeze Out Road is actually the third of four renditions of the road. The original pathway down the hillside was part of Goodale's Cutoff, a spur of the Oregon Trail. The second path down was built in 1872 by a man named Baycee. The Old Freeze Out Road you can drive today was constructed in 1919.

The route that Timothy Goodale developed into a pioneer wagon trail was originally used as a pathway by Native Americans.

"Goodale was a frontiersman who developed and explored what we know today as 'Goodale's Cutoff'," explains Carr. "That was part of the Oregon Trail that cut off a lot of the Snake River journey of the trail. It came through Boise, Eagle, across the foothills through Emmett and on through Orchard and up into Brownlee."

Goodall's Cuttoff may have cut time off the trip, but it didn't do much to diminish the danger of the hillside.

"When Goodale led the wagon train across, they wound up at that point (at the top of Freezeout Hill) and they would block the back wheels on the wagon, which was typical for hills," said Carr. "Then you would just slide the wagon down with the front wheels free wheeling so you could steer it."

A grade that barely made the grade.

"I'm not sure I even want to walk down it, let alone drive an animal down it," said Carr. "It's a little bit scary for me looking down it."

In 1864 a wagon train carrying goods prepared to head down the steep hillside. Doctor Burge and his wife were leading the way bringing a load of glass from Boise to their new house.

"Unfortunately, about halfway down the hill they slid off the trail," said Carr. "and to quote people from the time, 'the wagon tumbled into the valley'."

Not a good trip for the good doctor, or the glass.

The freighters in the wagon train watched the doctor's wagon tumble down the hill and decided to find a better place to descend in the morning.

They spent the night on top of the hill. It was mid-winter and there was no firewood to be found.

The next morning they found their way down the hill and described their freezing night this way: "That is a freezeout hill sure enough. We were froze out of the valley and nearly froze to death." People have known it as Freezeout Hill ever since.

A name that would carry over to the current roadway into Emmett, built by the Idaho Transportation Department in the 1960s.

Wagons are not the only modes of transportation to struggle on Freezeout Hill.

"If you had a model A, you had to have a full tank of gas to go up the hill," explained Carr. "Some of the other older cars, the gasoline was gravity fed, it didn't have a fuel pump. And the outlet in the gas tank was right in the middle of the tank." Leading those older cars to run out of gas while climbing the hill.

As drivers tired of pushing their cars, there was a big push to straighten out the highways, making them more convenient and allowing for more traffic.

In 1928 a memorial was put at the top of the hill. But it was an easy target for vandals. It now sits outside the Gem County Courthouse.

Freezeout Hill is made up of fine-quality silicone sand. There are areas of the hill where the sand has been excavated, cleaned, and shipped around the world to be used in glassmaking, golf course sand traps, and even as an overlay on some beaches.

If you make the drive down Old Freeze Out Road, look at the hillside to see some of the white sand which is being used today around the world.

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Get to know the history of Old Freeze Out Road - KTVB.com

Walk up the stairs at 1101 Washington St. and enter a whole new world.

Visiting The Attic Gallery atop the Highway 61 Coffee House allows visitors to escape their worries for a while and indulge their senses with works of art lining the walls and adorning the floor.

Thats the atmosphere owner Lesley Silver tried to create 50 years ago, even when the gallery first opened at 1406 Washington St., in the building now occupied by Sassafras to walk up the steps and enter a unique world.

I thought that people would love coming up the stairs because they left their worries behind; it was a different world and they still say the same thing, Silver said in a 2018 interview. What were doing is connecting the people with the art and making them breathe differently and feel differently.

There was a time when an art gallery was a foreign idea for Silver, and it was as distant as the Milky Way.

Although her mother was an artist and she was surrounded by art, Silver said she wasnt that interested in following in her footsteps.

My mother graduated Pratt Art Institute in New York and taught at Pratt Art Institute, she said.

When her parents moved from New York to Alabama in the 1940s, Lesley continued her aversion to art.

When she was a student at the University of Alabama, she took an art class, and it was a disaster.

I showed my work to my grandfather, and he said that was terrible, she said.

It took a series of events over about 11 years before The Attic Gallery became a reality, and it began with a man named Mike Silver of Vicksburg, whom Lesley met and married.

When Mike was discharged from the Army in 1964, the couple went to the New York Worlds Fair and then to Lesleys parents home, where they lived while Mike looked for a job. That October, he found one helping his father at the family jewelry store in Vicksburg at the request of his mother.

The couple later built a home in Marion Park and by 1966 had two children.

But art was still a part of Leslies life.

Every time we went anywhere, I gravitated to the art, because I grew up with art all around me; I was surrounded by it, she said.

It was a trip to California and a visit to the Comsky Gallery in Los Angeles, Calif., that started the move toward the gallery. Gallery owner Cynthia Comsky talked with Lesley and Mike about art, and they had dinner with Comsky and her husband. Comsky also told Mike if he would send her $500, she would send art. He took her up on the offer.

The artwork arrived June 8, 1971, while Leslies daughter was having her birthday party and the women attending with their daughters all bought something.

More packages followed. When the artwork began stacking up in the couples living room, Mike suggested Lesley consider using the attic above Versils, the family store at 1406 Washington St.

I went up into the attic, and there was no electricity, Lesley said. I walked up in the dark and it was sort of a very mysterious, haunted, but more than that, it had decks of cards under the linoleum; you knew it was right on the river, it had been used for gamblers and it had its own history, and it was kind of exciting.

With the help of some friends, she began cleaning out the attic and clearing the floor for exhibit space.

She later invited the Ferdinand Roten Gallery of Baltimore, Md., which brought artwork to different areas. The gallery agreed to come to Vicksburg but told her she would need to get eight tables. She would also be able to get 20 percent in cash or artwork from the sales.

They came and people really supported it in Vicksburg, because there were Roloffs, there were real Picassos; this was something that had a reputation with all the educational institutions, she said.

When the Roten Gallery left, Lesley began asking local artists to show their work in the gallery.

The gallery got the name The Attic Gallery because of its location in the Versils attic.

Fast forward to 1997. Leslie and Mike divorced; she married Daniel Boone, and they had just bought the building at 1101 Washington St., the location of the former Delchoffs Restaurant.

The art was transferred from the former gallery location to the attic of the coffee house on the summer solstice in 1997.

There were about 75 people, and everybody picked up something, and we all put a piece of art in this building, she said. The next day, everybody went to the old place and they got stuff out, and we never closed for a day. The community was just so supportive and important to us.

The gallerys collection is a mix of artists who are in museums, artists who have been homeless, and artists of every ethnicity. It is also a gallery for local artists a distinction that earned Leslie the 2014 Mississippi Arts Commissions Governors Award for Art in the Community in part for her work helping local artists find a market for their work.

The gallery, she said, Has been my life and it has changed my life, and it has changed the direction of my life.

Its kept me rooted in Vicksburg because I believe strongly and people come from all over the world, and they come back and I just like it to be a touchstone when they come. Ive seen so many people come in. Ive seen it change because of the generations and Ive seen it spill over into the next generation and the next generation, she said.

Im honored Im allowed to still be on Washington Street after 50 years showing peoples art.

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Vicksburg's Attic Gallery history is one of spreading the love of art - The Vicksburg Post - Vicksburg Post

By Staff | on October 01, 2021

It was just 70 years ago today, October 1, 1951, when the last of all black units of the US 8th Army stationed in Korea were either disbanded or had white soldiers added, ending military segregation during the war. Desegregation of the United States Armed Forces began in 1948 on orders from President Truman. (Editors Note) After establishing the Presidents Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, President Harry S. Truman faced harsh opposition from southern senators who threatened to filibuster. Using his executive powers, Truman signed Executive Order 9981 and committed the government to end immediately all discrimination and segregation based on race, color, creed, or national origin, in the organization and activities of all branches of the Armed Services.

The last of these segregated types of units were at the front line in Korea.

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This Day In History, October 1st, 2021 - "Desegregation Of The Armed Forces" - Signals AZ

During the second quarter of Missouris game against Boston College, Tigers wide receiver Dominic Lovett hit the ground and was rolling following a 4-yard reception.

Eagles linebacker Isaiah Graham-Mobley collided with him, knees hitting the ground before his right shoulder and upper arm impacted Lovetts head. The hit was so hard it moved Lovetts body nearly 180 degrees and knocked his helmet off his chin.

Missouri fans, of course, were livid on Twitter, even though Lovett was unhurt. As the play went to review for targeting, many were certain Graham-Mobley would be ejected from the game.

But when the referees returned, there was no targeting call. Graham-Mobley was charged with a personal foul, and the Tigers queued up first and goal from Bostons 7-yard line.

What prompts a targeting call and what doesnt is often a confusing matter to college football fans. The rule has been in place more than a decade, with the goal of protecting players from substantial injuries, especially to the head and neck. Despite slight changes over the years, that objective hasnt changed.

The diligence of identifying targeting and reviewing targeting is just the same as it was last year, which is the same as five years ago, which is the same as when we first instituted the rule, John McDaid, coordinator of football officials for the SEC, said.

In the first three weeks of the 2021 season, according to data compiled by Sports Illustrated, referees called targeting 105 times and 45 calls were overturned upon review. Thats about one targeting call every four games, which is comparable to last seasons average.

Four players were ejected in the first half of the Ole Miss-Louisville game Sept. 6. The penalties reignited debate over the targeting rule, specifically its consequences for players and how inconsistent calls can be.

History of the rule

The NCAA created the targeting rule in 2008, when it became a foul for a player to initiate contact on an opponent with the crown of their helmet. Players were also prohibited from making contact with a defenseless opponent above the shoulders. Targeting was thus added as a personal-foul penalty resulting in a 15-yard loss.

Defenseless players include one in the act of or having just thrown a pass, a player on the ground and a kick returner attempting to receive a kick, among others. Theres also a list of indicators to help referees determine intent of the player making the tackle: launching into an upward, forward tackle, crouching or lowering the head are all included on the list.

An example of a situation where a player might hit an opponents helmet without targeting would be when a receiver and defensive player collide midair while trying to make a bona fide football move.

Theres not an indicator there, because a defensive player is making a play on the ball and the player is making a play on the ball. Almost without exception, that players not dipping his helmet or otherwise showing intent to attack, McDaid said.

An increased focus on player safety and heightened concern surrounding traumatic brain injuries were motivating factors behind the implementation of the rule.

It was around the time that chronic traumatic encephalopathy, more commonly known as CTE, came into the spotlight and concussions and player safety in football became prime topics. In 2007, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell called the leagues first Concussion Summit and issued a concussion pamphlet.

The college football targeting rule was amended in 2013 so that players charged with the penalty would be immediately ejected from the game. If the penalty occurred in the second half, players would be forced to sit out the first half of their next game as well. Replay officials had the power to overturn the penalty ejection, but it wasnt until 2014 that the penalty being recalled also meant there was no 15-yard loss for the offending team.

In 2019, it became required for referees to confirm or deny a targeting penalty using video review. The rule also was updated to state that players with three targeting penalties in one season may be prone to an additional one-game suspension. Most recently, the rule was changed to allow ejected players to remain on the sideline instead of mandating that they leave the stadium.

How it protects players

Player safety is the No. 1 goal of the targeting rule. Preventing concussions and long-term brain injuries is the main goal, but targeting can cause other injuries as well.

Dr. Clayton Nuelle, an orthopedic surgeon with a focus on sports medicine, is a team doctor for Missouri. Not only can leading with the helmet result in head and neck injuries, he said, but it can cause large contusions and bruises on the upper body and potentially even tendon or ligament injuries.

When youre talking about hitting with the helmet, thats the hardest piece of protective equipment that they have, Nuelle said. So hitting with a helmet versus hitting with a shoulder or tackling with an arm or something is going to be a much larger blow, a much larger impactful force to the opposing player than if they hit him with their shoulder pad or their shoulder or their arm or something like that.

When a defensive player going for a tackle leads with their head, its known as spearing an opponent. The action has more drastic consequences for the player making the tackle than it does the recipient. Hitting the crown of the head against a blunt object like a player in motion can impact the spinal cord and cause serious damage.

If you do that, you can cause fractures within the cervical spine or within the neck, Nuelle said, or you can potentially even damage the spinal cord, which certainly can, in the worst-case scenario, potentially even lead to paralysis and, even in less-worse-case or a milder scenario, still cause spinal cord damage or nerve damage and lead to other neurologic type of issues or problems.

In 2017, Robert Grays, a cornerback at Midwestern State in Texas, died after suffering a neck injury in a game. He was 19.

The previous year, Sterling Thomas, a defensive back at Lindenwood, was paralyzed because of a serious spinal cord injury. Sports account for 10% of spinal cord injuries, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Another big concern for doctors is the second-hit phenomenon. Nuelle said the most severe brain injuries are often a result of this phenomenon when a player suffers a second concussion before their brain has fully healed from its first. The more serious iteration, second-impact syndrome, occurs when the brain swells because of a second concussion in close proximity to a first.

It usually results in death.

Theres no set number of concussions an athlete can have before they are pulled out of a sport. Instead, it depends more on frequency of concussions and severity of symptoms. A player who suffers multiple concussions in one season could be more prone to long-term effects than one who is diagnosed a couple times across several years.

The old kind of adage was, Oh, like you know, hes fine. He can count to two. Let him go back in. Hell be all right, Nuelle said. Nobody does that now, thankfully, because we worry about the second-hit phenomenon, which results in potentially more long-term damage.

The future of the rule

Undoubtedly, the NCAAs targeting rule will continue to evolve, and there could be changes coming as early as 2022. A group of NCAA, conference and school officials are calling for an amendment to the rules punishment, one of the harshest in the game.

However, theres currently no agreed-upon plan for change.

Twitter has become a sounding board not just for frustrations about targeting calls but potential solutions to make the rule more fair while also maintaining player safety. Following the Ole Miss-Lousville game, Fox Sports analyst Joel Klatt said on Twitter that ejections for targeting should only happen in egregious and malicious circumstances.

Klatt then gave a solution thats become common: Break down the penalty into Targeting 1 and Targeting 2. The former results only in a 15-yard penalty, the second in the same penalty plus an ejection for the offending player.

This amendment would make the rule similar to flagrant-1 and flagrant-2 fouls in basketball. A similar proposal would mimic yellow and red cards in soccer, where a player would get a warning on their first targeting offense in a game and an ejection after their second.

McDaid confirmed that there are people talking about those potential changes to the rule but couldnt comment further on how the discussions surrounding them would go in the offseason.

But both solutions present their own sets of issues. Turning targeting into something like a flagrant foul means more pressure on refs to determine the intent of players, an incredibly high burden. Allowing a player two targeting offenses per game increases chance of injuries.

McDaid, whos been involved with football officiating at the FBS level since 2001, has seen the change in player behavior because of the targeting rule. There are fewer pointless late tackles on wide receivers whove already caught the ball.

Its trying to create the safest environment by creating a deterrent, McDaid said. I think thats important to know. The penalty thats associated with targeting is there as a deterrent to get the behaviors of the student-athletes on the football field to change.

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Targeting: The history, the current backlash and the future - Columbia Missourian

September 30 is Orange Shirt Day, also known as the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in Canada.The holiday, which was celebrated across Canada for the first time this year, was created to remember the indigenous children who endured unspeakable cruelty and evenlost their lives at Indian residential schools across North America during the 19th and 20th centuries. Although the holiday is not officially celebratedin the United States, many Native American tribes hold events and wear orange in remembrance of the children who were sent to these boarding schools. According to the Boarding School Healing Project, seven of the 367 Indian boarding schools in the United States were in Kansas. Here is the story of four of those schools, one of which is still open today.

Osage Manual Labor School, Neosho County

The Osage Manual Labor School for Boys was opened in May of 1847 by a group of Jesuits lead by Father John Schoenmakers. In October of that year, a group of nunsfrom Kentucky called the Sisters of Loretto opened the Osage Manual Labor School for Girls. As the number of students from the local Osage tribe increased, additional buildings were added to the campus, including a blacksmith shop, flour mill, tool-house, and bakery. Eventually, asthe Osage people moved to Indian territory, the schools' populations became predominantly white. In 1870, the boy's school was renamed the St. Francis Institute for Boys, and the girl's school became St. Ann's Academy. St. Francis closed in 1891 and St. Ann's was destroyed by a fire in 1895.

Pottawatomie Baptist Manual Labor Training School, Topeka

The Pottawatomi people came to Kansas in the 1830s after being forced off their land in the Great Lakes region. Missionaries believed they could "civilize" the Native people by enrolling their children in manual labor schools, like the Baptist Manual Labor Training School near present-day Topeka. According to the Kansas Historical Society, children's experiences at the school weretraumatic. Theirtraditional clothing was switched out forWesternized uniforms, and the Pottawatomi names their parents had given them were replaced by Christian ones. Because the missionaries didn't want the students to be re-exposed to the culture they were working to erase, most children went for long periods without seeing their families.At the school, students adhered to a strict schedule of prayer, studying, and chores. Boys worked in the fields, learned blacksmithing, and took care of livestock. Girls learned domestic skills like cooking, sewing, and laundry.The Pottawatomie School closed in 1861after 13 years of operation.

Shawnee Methodist IndianManual Labor School, Fairway

The Shawnee Manual Labor School was created as a result of an 1838 agreement between the United States Office of Indian Affairs and the Methodist Episcopal Church to operate a school at the Shawnee Methodist Indian Mission. The Shawnee Methodist Labor School was founded by Thomas Johnson in 1839 in what is now the Kansas City, Kansassuburb of Fairway. The 200-acre campus included 16 buildings and housed over 200 children during its peak. Studentslearned English, agriculture, and Western religion during their time at the Shawnee Labor School. According to Kevin Abing of Marquette University, Johnson made use of slave laborat the school, much to the ire of local abolitionists. Johnson's engagement in pro-slavery politics during the Bleeding Kansas conflicteventually resulted in the school's closure in 1862,at the beginning of the Civil War.

Haskell Industrial Training School (Now Haskell Indian Nations University), Lawrence

Haskell is unique because unlike the other schools on this list, it's still open today, albeit as a university rather than a boarding school. Then called the United States Indian Industrial Training School, Haskell opened its doors to first through fifth graders in 1884. The school's population quickly grew from 22 students to over 400 in just one semester. Children were made to wear uniforms to enforce conformity, and the boys' long hair, seen as sacred by Native tribes, was cut short.Corporal punishment was often used on students who disobeyed the rules. Boys studied things like wagon making, farming and blacksmithing, while girls learned to cook and sew. In 1887, the school was renamed Haskell Institute after Dudley Haskell, a US Representative from Kansas's Second District. Eight years later, what was called "normal school" classes were incorporated into the curriculum, including what is believed to be the first typewriting class in the state.High schoolers began attending Haskell in 1927, and its football team became one of the best in Kansas through the 1930s. The last high school class graduated from Haskell in 1965, and in 1970 the school was renamed Haskell Indian Junior College. The final name change came in 1992, when it was rebranded Haskell Indian Nations University. Haskell currently enrolls about 1,000 students each semester representing over 140 tribes and is the nation's oldest continually operating federal school for Native Americans.

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On Canada's Day of Truth & Reconciliation, a history of Indian Boarding Schools in Kansas - The Ottawa Herald

Last week, starter Frankie Montas became just the fifth pitcher in over a half-century of Oakland As history to reach 200 strikeouts in a season. After making his final start of the year on Wednesday, he took one more small step up the clubs record books.

Montas fanned seven batters against the Seattle Mariners, putting him at 207 for the summer. Thats the second-highest total ever by an Oakland pitcher in a single season, trailing just Vida Blue, who struck out 301 hitters in 1971.

Making Montas achievement even more impressive is that it took him only 187 innings. No one else in the teams 200 Strikeout Club got there in fewer than 200 frames, and Blue tossed 312 innings in his MVP season, during an era of larger workloads when that enormous number didnt even lead the league. These days starters get shorter leashes, but strikeout rates are higher than ever Montas finished with 10 K/9 in just under six innings per game.

Extend to all of franchise history, including the Philadelphia and Kansas City years, and Montas ranks 10th.

Half the list is Waddell alone, and he, Plank, and Coombs played at a time when pitchers routinely topped 300 innings. Grove appeared in 50 games in his big year, including 18 out of the bullpen, retroactively credited with a league-leading nine saves a few decades before the stat was invented. Waddell, Plank, and Grove are in the Hall of Fame.

Thats great company for Montas, and his performance should earn him some national recognition. He wont win the Cy Young, but hell get some votes. He ranks fourth in the AL in strikeouts, and among the league leaders in ERA and WAR.

Its been a long journey for the big right-hander. He dealt with injuries early in his career, then when he found his groove in the majors as a budding star in 2019 he was halted by a PED suspension. He struggled through a 5.60 ERA in the abbreviated 2020, and that continued with a 5.27 ERA this April.

But he finally settled back in the rest of this year, getting better and better as the summer went along until he was dealing like the ace wed seen glimpses of before. The end result is a season line that gets a spot in the Oakland record books.

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Frankie Montas finishes season with 2nd-most strikeouts in Oakland As history - Athletics Nation

Big 12 teams have never had to muster enthusiasm to take on Texas or Oklahoma. The Sooners have won 14 Big 12 titles in the league's 24 years, including the past six. The Longhorns won the first Big 12 title in 1996 before adding two more in 2005 and 2009, and Texas' self-assuredness (school motto: "What Starts Here Changes The World") and standing in college football history elicits strong emotions from rivals.

But on Saturday, the Big 12's departing heavyweights will play their first conference road games since opting for the greener pastures of the SEC, which means the Sooners and Longhorns can expect even more hostility than usual.

"When you go on a trip, you just expect to arrive with the respect of who you are and what you represent," said Jack Crowe, who coached against the Longhorns as a coordinator and head coach at Arkansas and later as an assistant at Baylor. "Good luck on that one, boys. When they line up to boo you from between the bus and the door, you'll know things have changed."

Crowe would know. He was the Arkansas head coach in 1990 and 1991 when the Razorbacks were in the same boat. Crowe didn't know the Hogs would be leaving the Southwest Conference for the SEC when he took the job. Even further, he said he didn't know athletic director Frank Broyles would announce on Aug. 1, 1990, that the Razorbacks were departing, just three days before the Southwest Conference's annual media event.

Arkansas' experience three decades ago -- as well as a handful of others since -- could be a preview of what Texas and Oklahoma can expect.

In the recent history of college football realignment, Arkansas' move is probably the closest comparison to the Big 12's predicament, leaving a football-driven conference that was already facing questions about its future viability.

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Maryland was a founding member of the ACC in 1953 and announced its departure for the Big Ten in 2012, but it had won just one conference title in football since 1985, and basketball coaches in the league were most vocal about the switch. Miami and Virginia Tech left the Big East in 2004, but both had been in the league a relatively short time and were the two best football programs in a legendary basketball league. Colorado left the Big 12 for the Pac-12 in 2010 and Nebraska went to the Big Ten in 2011, both dealing blows to the conference, but big-market star power still remained.

But the Razorbacks weren't just leaving a conference. They were the only Southwest Conference school outside the Texas state lines, and their departure signaled the alarm that the conference could be in trouble.

If that sounds familiar, perhaps it's because it's a similar thought that's been whispered about the fate of the Big 12 after losing its two most prominent members.

So how hostile can Texas and Oklahoma expect it to get?

At that media day in 1990, emotions ran so high that Baylor coach Grant Teaff compared the Hogs' move to that week's invasion of Kuwait.

"I'm now thoroughly convinced that the Southeastern Conference is the Iraq of the college football scene in America," Teaff said.

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Then-Texas A&M coach R.C. Slocum said that teams would be geared up to "get their last licks on Arkansas," adding, "The fans will probably be more emotionally involved than the players."

The players, for their part, were more insulated from it. They were already accustomed to fans taunting them. But the 1990 and 1991 seasons added a new wrinkle on the field.

"Players would hit you and say, 'Take that to the SEC with you,'" said Quinn Grovey, Crowe's quarterback in 1990. "There was a lot of trash talk."

In the Big 12, fans are already looking for their chance to make themselves heard. On Sept. 11, during the only College GameDay appearance at a Big 12 site this year for the Iowa-Iowa State game in Ames, there were several "HORNS DOWN" signs in the crowd and another that said "TRAITORS" with the Texas and Oklahoma logos.

Fans tailgating in the Jack Trice Stadium parking lots took aim at Texas in particular.

"We brought them in [to join the former Big Eight] and they've been chaos with other schools," said Joel Farley of Okoboji, Iowa. "I think we would still probably have an A&M in the conference, we would still have a Missouri, we would have a Colorado and even a Nebraska. We're like, 'Man, we just took everybody else's problem.'"

On a day Cyclones fans were facing their biggest rival, they were already ready for Texas. What happens when the Longhorns actually have to go to Ames on Nov. 6?

"The booing might be deafening," Crowe said. "The students will get their point across."

Longhorns coach Steve Sarkisian has acknowledged the SEC move could stir up opponents.

"Our bull's-eye got a little bit bigger," Sarkisian said in August. "We can't be naive to that. Whether it's crowd noise, whether it's yelling at us on the bench, whether it's the 'Horns Down' signal, all those things are really irrelevant to our ability to execute and succeed at a really high level."

Former Nebraska coach Bo Pelini wasn't just worried about the fans heading into the Cornhuskers' lame-duck season in the Big 12 in 2010. He was already convinced the Cornhuskers were getting a raw deal from the league.

The season before, Nebraska celebrated on the field after Colt McCoy threw an incomplete pass as the final seconds ticked off the clock in the Big 12 championship game. But following a booth review, officials put a second back on the clock, and Texas kicked the game-winning field goal.

Now the Huskers were spurning the league and heading north.

"The league office was not happy and now you've got to play a whole year like that," he said. "I remember telling the team, 'Don't expect any help from the referees. We're changing conferences and that's just the way it is.' That's the way it turned out to be."

Late in the season, the 9-1 Huskers, ranked No. 8, traveled to Texas A&M for a big game against the No. 19 Aggies. Nebraska was penalized 16 times for 145 yards. Texas A&M had two penalties for 10 yards. The Aggies won 9-6.

Pelini cited several calls he considered puzzling. A pass interference call on A&M was waved off by officials. A player got called for what he considered an errant late hit. Another was flagged for targeting when Pelini said the film showed the player hitting the quarterback in the middle of his back.

"We didn't get any breaks from the referees, I tell you that," he said. "In my opinion, we got ripped off. It was a joke."

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And getting to and from the games could be a little less hospitable, Crowe said.

"You depend on a lot of people when you go on the road that aren't your people, and it's gonna be different," he said. "And you're gonna feel it."

He recalled walking into Texas' Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium and being left at the entrance by the state troopers who normally escort coaches before and after games.

"The highway patrolmen walked out of the locker room and sort of stopped there for a second. One of them looked at me and said, 'Well, this is as far as we go, Coach,'" Crowe said. "Literally, they didn't want to be seen with me."

Grovey, the quarterback, said fans were even more animated than usual.

"It was already difficult for us when we went to go play in Texas but [the impending move] intensified it a little bit more," he said.

Both Pelini and Crowe don't believe it's sustainable for Texas and Oklahoma to remain in the conference until their grant of rights are up in 2025, as officials at both schools have indicated so far.

Pelini said even a 2023 departure would be tough.

"Two years of it?" he said. "That's crazy. You're dealing with bad blood. You have to answer questions all the time about 'This is gonna be the last time of this and the last time of that.' It gets old."

Pelini said it affected his focus in recruiting, too. Some players he was recruiting in Texas or California, two places Nebraska typically had fared well, didn't want to play in the Big Ten.

That's not likely a problem for either Texas or Oklahoma since their regional rivalries will remain intact, but there's still the issue of trying to explain when and if the current players or recruits will play in a different league. Crowe just thinks that two of the sport's blue bloods won't want to deal with the tension if they don't have to.

"I don't think either one of them's egos can stand to go down that path," Crowe said. "It ain't that much money [relative to the programs' finances] and when you put it in the hands of people that can make big things happen ... they won't let that go long."

Still, Crowe said it might be worth hastening the exit strategy for competitive reasons. Crowe was fired just one game into his third season after Arkansas joined the SEC. He took a job at Baylor and said it didn't just feel like all of Texas was plotting against him at Arkansas, but it could have actually been a coordinated effort.

"I was told by a Southwest Conference coach, 'Jack, it was sort of an unwritten rule that whenever you played Arkansas, every other school would help you with their information to put their game plan together,'" he said. "Normally, conference people don't do that. But you're not in the conference. They wanted to make sure every week you played every school."

Texas will head to Fort Worth on Saturday to face TCU, which is 7-2 against the Longhorns since joining the Big 12. The Horned Frogs already had a chip on their shoulder after being left behind when the Southwest Conference dissolved and had to claw to get back to equal standing, working their way through Conference USA, the WAC and the Mountain West to earn a Big 12 invite.

Oklahoma has its own challenges, facing Kansas State in Manhattan, Kansas, where the Wildcats stunned the Sooners two years ago 48-41 before beating OU again last year in Norman 38-35.

While both Texas and OU are favored this weekend, Crowe preached caution.

"You've drawn a line with every other state [in the Big 12] that you're about to throw 'em out," he said. "You can be their undoing. You're taking some of their pride with you, because it won't be the same. Those other teams know it's never gonna be any better than it was.

"Good luck, Texas and Oklahoma."

ESPN's Adam Rittenberg contributed to this report.

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The history of college football conference lame ducks, and what it means for Texas and Oklahoma - ESPN