Black agents Black Patent Lillian 120mm compete for blue Black Patent Leather Love Me 100mm chip athletes More black agents are negotiating contracts for superstar athletes. But the real money is in cutting endorsement deals and providing financial services.Their clients read like a who’s in professional team sports. Michael Jordan and Patrick Ewing. Bobby Bonilla and Dwight Gooden. Herschel Walker and Randall Cunningham. Pick a player, any player, among the 10 highest paid black athletes in the National Basketball Association (NBA), the National Football League (NFL) or Major Legue Baseball, and 29 out of 30 have an agent who is anything but black.In basketball, total rejection: not David Robinson, not even Hakeem Olajuwon. In baseball, a complete shut out: not Barry Bonds, not Cecil Fielder. Throw in football and except for 1988 Heisman Trophy winner Barry Sanders, black sports agents would be 0 for 30 in their bid to represent the cream of the crop.But oh, the times are changing. Just ask Los Angeles based sports agents Leigh Steinberg and Marvin Demoff, who in the past three years have lost out to black agents in the race to represent Sanders, whose estimated $700,000 in annual endorsements makes him one of the hottest properties in the NFL, and Raghib "Rocket" Ismail, the kick return specialist from Notre Dame who now pulls in a guaranteed $4.55 million per year with the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League. Or try asking Chicago based agent Steve Zucker and Orange Country based agent Barry Axelrod, who last year received word that their services would no longer be needed by two sports star Deion Sanders of the Atlanta Braves and Falcons, the heir apparent to Bo Jackson.Go ahead and bet the bank on this one: More black sports agents are negotiating contracts and providing financial services for the superstars of sports, where the real pot of gold is in endorsement packages. But it remains an uphill battle despite the fact that team sports are dominated by black athletes. Of the roughly 3,000 athletes in professional team sports, 50% are black, but less than 15% are represented exclusively by black sports agents."Unfortunately, some of the star black players have swallowed the line that you’ve got to have a white agent and maybe a white, Jewish agent to get the very best deal," says Raymond E. Anderson of five year old Anderson Reynolds (AR) Sports Inc."For the most part, they’re indoctrinated from the time they’re in high school," adds R. David Ware, a partner with Atlanta based Thomas, Kennedy, Sampson, Edwards Patterson, who co negotiated Barry Sanders contracts with agent Charles Lamont Smith and also represents Mark Clayton of the Miami Dolphins. "They’re pretty much told it’s the white agent and white attorney who can get you the most money," he says. "Like all black business people, we not only have to be good to get a client, we have to be great."Despite these and other obstacles, the profit motive has inspired more blacks to dare to be great. "As long as the sports industry itself is thriving, the opportunity is going to be there for black sports agents," says Fort Wayne, Ind. based Eugene E. Parker, 36, whose clients include Tim Brown of the Los Angeles Raiders, Rod Woodson of the Pittsburgh Steelers and "Prime Time" himself, Deion Sanders.And boy, is the industry thriving thanks in no small part to black athletes. However, even as they excel on the courts, diamonds and gridirons of the world, African Americans continue to be largely excluded from the executive suites and boardrooms of the multi billion dollar sports industry. Thus, African Americans still do not enjoy an ownership stake that is representative of their contributions as loyal consumers and reliable, often highly specialized laborers in the industry. In this, first installment of a special report examining black progress in the business of sports, BLACK ENTERPRISE looks at the gains made by African American sports agents.Getting A Piece Of The ActionIn 1990, sports related companies, stadiums and performers produced over $60 billion in revenues, making sports the nation’s 22nd largest industry, according to Martin J. Approximately $580 million came from professional athletes’ endorsement contracts, of which agents typically get 20% to 25% as much as $145 million annually in commissions. Throw in the 3% to 5% (potentially $70 million a year) in commissions that represents the agents cut of the $1.4 billion in salaries that team sport athletes earned in 1991, and it’s easy to see why sports agents outnumber athletes virtually two to one. "It can be a lucrative field because you’re taking a piece of the player’s income, a piece of his action," Greenberg observes. "If you represent a guy who’s making $5 million over four years, that’s $200,000 in commissions. Fifty thousand dollars a year is a living for a lot of people."That fact has not gone unnoticed by African Americans. For example, C. Lamont Smith, 35, founder, CEO and president of All Pro Sports and Entertainment Inc., a black owned, full service sports management company, grossed an estimated $2 million in revenues in 1991. With a staff of nine people, the Denver based company’s client portfolio includes Denver Broncos safety Steve Atwater, Cincinnati Bengals defensive end Alfred Williams and Detroit running back Barry Sanders, whose $1.9 million a year contract and endorsement deals with Wheaties breakfast cereal and Nintendo home video games, among others, make him the firm’s crown jewel.And Alameda, California based AR Sports, which specializes solely in contract negotiations under the watchful eye of co founder and President Raymond Anderson, grossed $500,000 last year with such clients as Jose Oquendo of the St. Louis Cardinals, Minnesota Vikings head coach Dennis Green and Harold Reynolds, second baseman with the Seattle Mariners (and the brother of Anderson’s partner, Larry D. Reynolds). Strickland recently left ProServe to become president of basketball operations for Cleveland based, sports management industry king International Management Group (IMG), taking with him such prized clients as Mitch Richmond of the Sacramento Kings and Pervis Ellison of the Washington Bullets. Ellison was the first overall No. 1 draft pick in the NBA to have black representation. Fred L. Slaughter, a self employed, Santa Monica, Calif based, 22 year veteran sports agent who represents not only athletes such as the Indiana Pacers’ LaSalle Thompson, but also the 53 member National Association of Basketball Referees. Edward Abram, the Oakland based agent and 50% partner with Morcom Sports Enterprises, negotiated Raghib Ismail’s four year, $18.2 million contract, the largest first year contract in sports history.Black sports agents are beginning to get a bigger piece of the action in the wake of skyrocketing player salaries and marketing opportunities that have more than doubled during the past three years. In 1989, the average player salary was $750,000 in basketball, $497,000 in baseball and $299,000 in football. Today, it’s a whopping $1 million in basketball, $851,492 in baseball and $420,000 in football, according to the major sports leagues’ respective players associations. Also, three years ago, the top three highest paid black athletes combined raked Black Leather Lillian 120mm in less than $12 million in endorsement income. In 1991, Chicago Bulls guard Michael Jordan pulled in $13.2 million alone, making him king of the nation’s sports endorsers.Traditionally, that crown has been reserved for golfers like Arnold Palmer and Greg Norman or tennis players like Boris Becker and Steffi Graf, athletes whose professions lend themselves to more international visibility and therefore more appeal. And since golf and tennis pros are also less likely to rely on agents, given that tournament purses and appearance fees drive their markets, the majority of sports agents are forced to vie for a share of the crowded team sports market, where the competition can be tough, especially if you’re black.Of the 200 registered baseball agents at the start of the 1992 season, only 150 had active clients. And of those 150 base ball agents only five, or 3.3%, were black. Of the 675 registered NFL agents in 1991, only 320 had active clients. And of those agents, only 45, or 14%, were black. "It’s a tough field to break into," says Kenneth L. "Maybe 5% of the people that call themselves agents are doing it full time. It’s sort of like playing the lottery: If you do get that $5 million a year player, you’re on your way to a career. If not."Then you’d better not quit that day job.Actually, becoming an agent isn’t that difficult which is a major flaw with the system according to some basketball agents who find it hard to accept that boxing promoter Don King is now registered with the NBA. At last count, 24 states require agent registration. Six others are considering legislation in the wake of widespread corruption by sports agents who attempted to contract with players before their college eligibility expired. Of those 24 states with laws on the books, Oklahoma has the most stringent upfront requirements a $1,000 registration fee and a $100,000 surety bond. Indiana has the toughest penalties a maximum $50,000 fine and two years in jail. In order to represent a player on a professional team, an agent has to be certified by the repective sports’ players associations. For the NFL, compliance, which is voluntary, entails filling out an application, paying a $400 application fee and $200 in annual dues. The NBA has no application fee but charges $800 annual dues. Major League Baseball has no application fee and no dues.A few years ago, agents locked players into long term contracts and threatened to initiate costly court battles if the athlete wanted out. But the players unions now require that the player agent agreements be contractually binding for no longer than one year and that all disputes be handled by arbitration. Also, agents were once able to charge clients whatever commission they could get. The players unions now limit commissions to no more than 4% to 5%.It’s almost imperative though, to have some kind of legal or financial training. "If you’re White Leather Lillian 120mm going to deal with contract law and labor law, you’ve got to have some legal know how and ability," says Fred Slaughter, who represented Dennis Johnson and Norm Nixon during their playing days. and MBA from the University of California at Los Angeles. "If you’re not an attorney," he says, "you will limit yourself severely."That’s the advice that Clark Atlanta University graudate Charles Lamont Smith got from former Atlanta Hawks general manager Lewis Schaffel back in 1979, when Smith first considered sports representation while working as a production assistant with WATL TV in Atlanta and ushering at Hawks basketball games. Says Smith: "He said to me, "You’re bright and articulate, but there’s one problem. You’re black. And for some reason, blacks have not gravitated to or trusted black representatives. Don’t try to do it as an agent. Go back to law school and have something else to offer."No sooner had Smith graduated from Howard University Law School, when the Denver law firm of Gorsuch, Kirgis, Campbell, Walker Grover hired him at the same time it was creating a sports marketing branch. Three years later Smith started All Pro Sports and Entertainment with $10,000 of his own money and a $100,000 commitment from a white investor (a $90,000 loan at 10% and $10,000 to purchase 10% equity in the firm). Smith is calling on the next wave of black sports agents to be daring enough to take a similar path. "I learned how the business was done, how to speak the language, and I used it to my benefit," says Smith. "That has to be the mission of this next wave of blacks. Learn how to do it, start your own, and then you don’t have to have your hand out."

7 Secrets Only Two Living People Know For Some ReasonIt’s no surprise that one of most profitable companies ever would want to keep their formula a secret. Even with hundreds of imitators, Coke still dominates world wide sales of caramel colored drinks. But doesn’t that stuff only have, like, four ingredients? Fizzy water, high fructose corn syrup, caffeine and Brown Dye 4? There isn’t exactly a vibrant symphony of flavors in each can.Yet, the formula is so fiercely protected that the company even pulled out of India in the 1970s because they would have been legally required to divulge their ingredient list to Cheap Michael Kors Outlet their government.It even managed to stall a divorce case. When one of the Coke heirs ended his marriage to his wife, she demanded some of his great grandfather’s (the founder of Coca Cola) original notes as part of her settlement. The company had to get involved and put a stop to it out of fear the notes could contain information on the formula.Only two Coke executives know it. Urban legend says they each only know half, but that’s false that part was invented for an old ad campaign.The original copy of the formula is kept in an undisclosed SunTrust Bank in Atlanta. To keep SunTrust on the side, Coke gave them some 48.3 million shares of stock as well as having executives from each company sit on the other’s board of directors.The company has policies surrounding the secret that range from the paranoid (the two executives who knew the formula could not fly on the same plane) to the bizarre (no one could view the formula without God, Jesus and Elvis present or something to that extent).All of this is pointless in the end. Coca Cola still derives some of its flavor from the coca plant; the same place that cocaine comes from. Due to the obvious drug related issues that would arise from importing lots of coca plant into America legally, only one company has government permission to do it. That company is Coca Cola. So even if someone broke into the bank and managed to take the formula, they would never be able to produce an exact Coke rip off.And if another company did somehow get permission to import coca, hell, there is at least one better way to make money with it.The secret KFC recipe dates back to the 1930s when Harland Sanders served chicken to people who stopped at his gas station in North Corbin, Kentucky. It was an amazing success. And while he never joined the military, in 1936, he was given the title of honorary Kentucky Colonel by the governor in recognition of his contribution to the state’s cuisine.Other contributions to Kentucky’s cuisine.Eventually, Sanders expanded his restaurant into a chain. While KFC has diversified its menu over the years, the main thing that sets the restaurant apart is still its special blend of 11 herbs and spices. And boy do they know it.As with Coke, only two executives have access to the recipe for KFC’s 11 herbs and spices. Man, wouldn’t it be weird if it was the same two guys?The recipe is at KFC’s headquarters. But unless you are Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible, you have no chance of getting it.We’ll let security expert Bo Dietl speak for himself:"We fortified the ceiling and the floor around here with concrete bricks two feet thick," Dietl said. "We put in motion sensors also CCTV that’s hooked up to security downstairs. They have 24/7 armed guys downstairs, so in the amount of 30 seconds you’ll have somebody up here. Once in here, you have to have two people with two keys and two different PIN numbers, and that’s what you have to have.This is chicken we’re talking about. CHICKEN! Fast food chicken. See, we’re going to share a little secret with you vibram five fingers outlet guys who’re risking your lives to protect that recipe: no one eats at KFC because they have the best chicken in the world. People eat it because it’s a pain in the ass to make at home and the line was too long at Popeye’s.5. The Location of Oliver Cromwell’s HeadOliver Cromwell an Englishman from the 1600s who pretty much singlehandedly ended the monarchy and took over ruling the country himself. After he died of natural causes and the monarchy was restored, King Charles II ordered his body dug up so it could be "killed" again.Because why let God getting there first stand in the way of your revenge?After hanging from a scaffold for over 12 hours (hey, if you are going to kill someone who’s already dead you need to put in the extra effort) the body was cut down and the head placed on a spike. Eventually it fell off and was passed around museums and private collectors. Yes, apparently there are collectors of decapitated heads. Their conventions must be awesome.When the last owner, who sometimes showed the head to school children, died in 1957, his son decided not to continue the illustrious family tradition of being a head collecting weirdo. He tried to give it a proper burial, but it took him over three years to find a place that would accept it.Why? Because even 300 years after Cromwell died, there was a very real fear that royalists, who should Wholesale Cheap Sunglasses really just let it fucking go already, would dig up the head and do unspeakable things to it.Let your imagination run wild.Seem a little paranoid? Only 60 years before, a proposed statue of Cromwell led to fierce debate in Parliament and the threat of riots. Finally, the college Cromwell had attended for one year decided to take their chances with the damn head.Two professors at Cambridge University’s Sidney Sussex college.Only a small group of people was present at the internment. There is no marker, only a plaque on a wall saying that the head was buried "nearby." Worrying even this wasn’t super secret enough, there was no announcement of the burial for another two years.Since then, only a handful of people other than the original group have known the location. The currently accepted system is that when a clued up professor retires he or she tells another professor precisely where the head is located.Everyone knows that if they should ever let the location slip, somebody’s going to be rubbing that skull in dog poop within the hour. Or at least posing it in some kind of ridiculous hat.

4 Things Politicians Will Never Understand About Poor PeopleOff the top of your head, how many of your friends can you think of make less than $11,000 a year? Maybe they work some mind numbing part time job, taking cover charges and stamping hands at a strip club. Or if you’re a bit older, how many families do you know of who have one person working, bringing in less than $23,000 to support a spouse and a couple of kids? There’s nothing wrong with either of those things .Poverty is a hot topic for politicians, but it seems like every time they open their mouths about the subject, stupid falls out. There’s a huge part of me that wants to grab them by their orphan skin lapels and scream reason into their preciously oblivious brains, but the logical side of me knows it won’t matter. There are some things they will just never understand. Things like .Not long ago, Newt Gingrich had his famous "janitor" idea, where he proposed that we pay impoverished students to clean up vomit and strewn feces part time at their schools. It sprung up a lot of debate, which I had little to no interest in beyond this key phrase: "Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and have nobody around them who works. [.] They have no habit of ’I do this and you give me cash,’ unless it’s illegal." Not to be out douched, Mitt Romney’s now famous video hit the ’net, showing him calling 47 percent of the country "entitled" and saying that they believe they’re victims and they want the government to hand them everything:I realize these are both republicans, but that’s actually not my point here. This isn’t about philosophy, it’s about pure numbers: A big ol’ chunk of people living below the poverty line actually work. About 10.5 million of them, in fact, or a third of the people living in poverty. Of the households below the poverty line, 84 percent have somebody in the house who is working. So that whole bit about how these kids have no concept of what work is? That’s a bunch of, uh, horse pucky. Two thirds of poor children are in working households.That’s a far mother frumpled cry from Gingrich’s pretty broad statement. It’s such a dramatic misunderstanding of what "poor" actually is, and it’s dangerous because it paints a grossly inaccurate picture of people laying around their house, watching Family Guy and enjoying their "free money." Yes, those people do Wholesale NFL Jerseys exist I’ve met them in person. I’ve drank their beer and dodged their roaches in their living rooms. At one point, my parents were those people.This is how I remember my mom through most of my adolescence.But of all the poor people I’ve known over the years and I have known a lot I have come across very few able bodied, able minded people who didn’t do something to bring in some money. Even the ones who didn’t have so much as a part time job still managed to at least find temporary seasonal work mowing lawns, shoveling snow, or standing on street corners and playing the guitar with their penis.So if the issue is that these people are watching reruns and collecting government checks, guess what: . Not a typo 91 percent. You’re free to speculate that some of those people could try harder or are faking their disability or whatever, but there’s no way the reality lines up with this politician fantasy of the lazy masses who just greedily rub their hands together while leeching their unfathomable riches from the always generous American populace."Here’s all the crap I hate. Now don’t bother me for another year."Oh, while we’re on that subject . wholesale jerseys3. Poor People Are Not Mindless LeechesLet me give you a quote from then Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer of South Carolina that will make you step away from your computer so you can have adequate room to perform a full on Hadoken at your monitor:"My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don’t think too much further than that. And so what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to curtail that type of behavior. They don’t know any better.""Look at it. All it does is eat, sleep, and crap. Same with that dog."Oh, Andre. You crazy piece of sh . work. Honestly, I was going to give you some major crap about that, but why bother? You’re just one guy spouting off some insane piece of extremist drivel. It’s not like you compared poor people to raccoons eating beetles out of the carcasses of dead rats. Wait, Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning actually did that?Yep. He was telling a story about a road project being disrupted by biologists who placed buckets of dead rats on the side of the highway to collect an endangered species of beetle, because sometimes science is weird. But at night, raccoons would come up and eat the beetles out of the rats. Then he went on to say, "They’re not stupid. They’re going to do the easy way, if we make it easy for them, just like welfare recipients all Cheap Jerseys across America. If we don’t incent them to work, they’re going to take the easy route."Right, the "easy route." Like spending money you don’t have in order to attend college for four years, and then flail around, grasping for any job whatsoever in order to enjoy the frills and luxury of basic survival. Or does he mean taking "the easy route" by accepting government assistance and living the next year straddling the line between homelessness and malnutrition? The major problem I have with this isn’t so much the ignorance as it is the insinuation that the poor are blithering genital heads (seriously, how does Prince do it?), who are constantly on the search for loopholes, allowing them to do as little as possible in life."I have a master’s in ’Bring me a beer.’"In reality, 47 percent of the impoverished 18 to 26 age group have actually been to college. Now, that doesn’t mean they all graduated, but that’s not the point. I don’t know many people who had the motivation and presence of mind to enter into college and didn’t also have a desire to do something special with their lives. Most people don’t go to college because they were bored, though I will concede that it’s why many people teach at colleges. OHHHHH, eat it, teachers!See, it’s not about intelligence, it’s about trying. Politicians can’t get past the idea that the only possible way to fail in America is if you sit back and do nothing. The idea that someone can put out the effort, yet not gain ground is inconceivable to them. Again, that doesn’t mean that human leeches don’t exist. I grew up doggone poor, myself. I’ve seen, firsthand, people who were content to cash their government check and then go back to sleep. But I know overwhelmingly more people who didn’t want to be on assistance and busted their lovely lady lumps to escape. Some succeeded and some did not, but it sure as pickles wasn’t for lack of trying."I am exhausted. But I’m exhausted with awesome shoes."But, hey, if we don’t let up on the poor, how are we going to flush all of the moochers and drug addicts from the system? Wait, did I just say "drug addicts"? That reminds me .

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The state of Missouri honors a fallen soldier today. Pfc. Jonathon Hostetter, 20, of Humphreys, Mo., died on Aug. 23 while serving in Afghanistan. Gov. The educational program Don’t Meth with Missouri is getting national attention and could soon get Black Patent Leather Mad 140mm $10,000 in funding to further its mission. Sponsors of Don’t Meth with Missouri are teaching students the dangers of methamphetamine and the power of making positive choices. The course is one of 16 nationwide finalist Community Hero programs up for the cash prize being awarded by Safeco Insurance. 5, 2012) State Auditor Tom Schweich announced today that his office has started an audit of the City of Bolivar. Local citizens circulated a petition requesting an audit of the city. Petitioners submitted 657 valid signatures, 35 more than the 622 needed to trigger a petition audit. Schweich’s audit will review city operations from fiscal year 2012. Gov. Jay Nixon on Monday named Paul C. Wilson as the newest member of theMissouri Supreme Court. Wilson, who has practiced law in both the public and private sectors and served as a judge on the Cole County Circuit Court, will fill a vacancy created by the retirement of the Hon. William Ray Price Jr. Wilson is a member of the law firm of Van Matre, Harrison, Hollis, Taylor Bacon in Columbia. Prior to that, he served as a circuit judge after being appointed to the bench for the 19thJudicial Circuit in Cole County by Gov. Nixon in 2010. From 1996 to 2008, Wilson was with the Missouri Attorney General’s Office, first as an assistant attorney general and then as deputy chief of staff for litigation. Attorney General Chris Koster has filed a lawsuit against Bryan Weldon and Weldon Contractors and Construction, LLC, for violations of the Missouri Solid Waste Management Law and the Cave Resources Act. Jay Nixon today announced the appointment of James H. Vaughn , of Versailles , as the new Presiding Commissioner for Morgan County. He will fill the term of the late Jay Fisher, who passed away in November. Vaughn, a Democrat, is a lifelong resident of Morgan County who currently works for the Morgan County Eastern District Road Department and who worked with the Ford vehicle dealership in Versailles for 20 years. He also has coached several local youth athletic teams. "James Vaughn grew up here in Morgan County, and has been active in the community for many years," Gov. ranks high in number of poor bridges
by the Accociated Press September Leather Maggie 140mm 15, 2013
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) Missouri has made progress in improving its bridges in recent years. But the state still ranks near the top in the number of bridges that are in poor condition and lack structural redundancies to guard against collapse. Federal figures show Missouri had 687 bridges that were both structurally deficient and "fracture critical," meaning they are designed in a Leather Luly Nappa 140mm way that could risk collapse if a single, vital component fails.

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