HB2 Strikes Again

[TheTwinAndreBen]

Wasn't sure where to put this, but since this thread loosely tracks dumb redneck NC legislators and their actions, might as well be here:

http://www.vocativ.com/falsestart/405828/nc-bill-parents-put-concussed-kids-back-into-games/

North Carolina lawmakers hope to allow parents to choose when their concussed kids can return to the field, instead of requiring approval from a qualified medical professional. Seriously.

Right now, North Carolina law requires immediate removal of any student displaying concussion symptoms during a game. House Bill 116, should it pass, will give parents the power to decide when their concussed child can resume playing. It is perhaps worth noting that most parents are not qualified medical professionals.

Dr. Katie Flanagan, Director of Athletic Training at East Carolina University, told Vocativ that she appreciated the intent of the bill’s authors, but does see significant areas for improvement. “I don’t want to bash anything that supports student safety in athletics,” Flanagan said, “However, our state has a very robust concussion law.”

Flanagan is referring to the Gfeller-Waller Concussion Awareness Act. Signed into law in 2011, Gfeller-Waller supports North Carolina safety initiatives in numerous ways that overlap with HB116, including regular concussion safety training for school staff. However, Section 3b of the law protects our nation’s concussed middle and high schoolers from overzealous Buddy Garrity-wannabes by requiring clearance from a physician, neuropsychologist, nurse practitioner, or athletic trainer before being allowed to compete again.

Gfeller-Waller, unsurprisingly, was drafted in consultation with a variety of state medical associations, including the Brain Injury Association of North Carolina and the North Carolina Medical Society. In other words, they asked doctors.

House Bill 116 has its merits, as Flanagan is quick to reiterate. For example, the bill supports creation of a database collecting catastrophic injuries, including concussions. Even still, stronger bills have seen some momentum in recent years.

Flanagan cites House Resolution 112, also known as the Student Safety Bill of Rights, as a national bill that combines the “power of Congress” and the knowledge of national organizations that currently work on student athlete safety. Beyond having the backing of the National Athletic Trainer’s Association, instead of, say, your mom, it provides a level of rigor that keeps kids safe.

Unfortunately, though HR-112 had bipartisan support from over 54 sponsors and passed through the House, it didn’t make it through the Senate before the 114th Congress closed. “Now, we have to start over,” Flanagan said.

“I’ll preface by saying I’m not a parent, but I don’t believe HB 116 is in the best interest of the athletes,” said Flanagan, who has over 37 years of medical experience. Further, she emphasized that even the most well-trained parent has biases that can compromise their child’s health.

Regardless, Flanagan is hopeful that she can work with legislatures that want to hear her counsel: “If these gentlemen and women wanted to get on some sort of national bill working with the health and safety people that are already in place, that would be amazing.”


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[HailToTheDeacons]

The clock is ticking

 

[HailToTheDeacons]

The day the coliseum stood quiet

The first game tips off at 1:30 p.m. today.

Three more NCAA Tournament games will follow on the same court, including one with No. 1 seed North Carolina and then one featuring Duke.

The last game between South Carolina and Marquette won’t end until long after dark, a dizzying day of college basketball.

In Greenville, S.C.

Instead of Greensboro.

The NCAA moved the host site for first- and second-round games of its signature event out of the Greensboro Coliseum in September as part of its championship boycott of North Carolina while House Bill 2 remains the law of the land in this state.

The law, passed last March, requires transgender people to use public restrooms and locker rooms that correspond to the gender on their birth certificates. It also prevents local governments from enacting their own anti-discrimination rules that include lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

And so there’s an eerie quiet in Greensboro this weekend where there should be a bustle of activity.

While eight teams practiced Thursday in Greenville, where their fans bought meals at restaurants and slept in hotel beds, the only noise along Gate City Boulevard came from the jackhammers of road crews and a cluster of HB2 protesters in front of the ACC Hall of Champions.

“There’s no question it’s painful,” said Matt Brown, the coliseum’s managing director. “You look at how much we respect and regard the value of top NCAA basketball. And we would have the ACC relationship with Duke and Carolina. This kind of basketball is what Greensboro lives and breathes. We all take it personal. It means a great deal to us. It’s in the fabric of our community.”

Home and away

This year that fabric is torn. In the last 20 years, a North Carolina city has hosted first- and second-round basketball games in the Division I men’s NCAA tournament 17 times. Greensboro hosted in 1998, 2001, 2006, 2009 and 2012.

Greensboro was supposed to host this year. Charlotte is scheduled to host next year, but that won’t happen if HB2 remains law.

And that irks the Hall of Fame coaches in Greenville this weekend.

Games in Greensboro are de facto home games for North Carolina’s Roy Williams and Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski.

“I’m conscious of it being here (in Greenville) because I’m afraid what’s going to happen in the next few years,” said Williams, an outspoken critic of HB2. “I hope to coach a little bit longer. I hope this is not my last hoorah kind of thing. I’m very sad, very disappointed about the whole thing, what apparently is something that’s really, really hard to change. ... It bothers me.”

Williams called the situation “sad.”

“The people in the state of North Carolina,” Williams said, “and the kids in the state of North Carolina aren’t getting the opportunities that we’ve had in the past. And I think that’s the biggest thing with me right there. It’s not the way I’d like for it to be.”

Krzyzewski said he didn’t want to talk politics. But he did, anyway.

“Look, it’s a stupid thing,” Krzyzewski said. “That’s my political statement. If I was president or governor I’d get rid of it. And I’d back up my promises, as unusual as that might seem. Anyway, I don’t want to get too political.”

But playing in Greenville instead of Greensboro is a big deal for Duke, which faces a possible second-round game against South Carolina in the Gamecocks’ backyard.

“This is a great town,” Krzyzewski said. “... It would be nice if our state got as smart and also would host not just basketball tournaments but concerts and other NCAA events. But maybe we’ll get there in the next century, I don’t know. We’ll see.”

Loss and gain

Greensboro’s loss is Greenville’s gain.

Greensboro will miss out on an event with an estimated economic impact of $14.5 million, said Henri Fourrier, president of the Greensboro Area Convention & Visitors Bureau.

“There’s no way to replace that sort of loss,” Fourrier said. “There’s an intangible, too, when you talk about the national television exposure that we’ll lose. And that’s residual, goes beyond just the weekend, as teams move on in the bracket there are replays of when they were in Greensboro. The talk of it all, the buzz it generates — I don’t begin to know how to quantify all that.”

Fourrier’s counterpart in Greenville, Chris Stone, said his city estimates the NCAA games require 6,000 hotel room nights.

And Stone understands Greensboro’s trouble. The NCAA held no neutral-site championships in South Carolina while the Confederate battle flag flew on the statehouse grounds. The flag came down in July 2015.

“It’s been 15 years since we’ve had the opportunity to hold one of these NCAA tournaments,” Stone said. “Any organization like mine — and it’s the same in Greensboro — you just want the chance to compete. You don’t want to have that opportunity taken away for any particular reason. For us, this was a chance to get back in the game.”

The value of the games goes beyond the economics.

“You can’t put a number on the prestige,” Stone said. “You put that in two different camps. One is the exposure you get on TV and people from all over seeing ‘Greenville’ on the sideline. Two, and maybe more important, is what it does within the community. To be selected to have one of sport’s premium events says it all. It’s a stamp of approval, a real booster for a community that already feels good about itself.”

And what is Greensboro feeling? Loss of the games. And loss of the prestige Stone talked about.

“You see the excitement created, and you imagine what we could do in the coliseum,” Brown said. “It’s hard to not feel a tremendous sense of loss. ... We want to host these major events. Now it’s relocated to South Carolina. I think of the pain they paid for many years with their own controversial issue. And now we lower ourselves because of a challenging political issue that unfortunately leads to a decision to remove the games from us. ...

“You don’t want a break from the notoriety of hosting. You don’t want to be out-of-sight, out-of-mind.”

Local impact

So what’s left? With the NCAA games out of town, what’s going on at the coliseum complex this weekend?

The big event is a four-day swim meet, the Eastern Section Southern Zone Age-Group Championships, that opened Thursday evening at the Greensboro Aquatic Center. More than 1,100 swimmers ages 14 and younger are expected to compete.

There are also two NBA D-League home games for the Greensboro Swarm at the Fieldhouse. The Special Events Center hosts a three-day jewelry and accessories expo, right next door to the N.C. Rabbit Breeders Association convention.

“Our life goes on,” Brown said.

But the main arena sits idle, no hardwood basketball court atop the concrete floor.

And that hurts the surrounding businesses.

Across the street at Stamey’s Barbecue, the lunchtime business is steady, the restaurant better than half full.

But general manager Wan Pao has worked there for 10 years, and he has experienced the surge of NCAA Tournament business.

“The line would be out the door and stretch all the way to the sidewalk out there (along Gate City Boulevard),” Pao said, waving a hand toward the coliseum. “The drive-through would be busy and there would be a line there, too. It’s a really, really busy time for us when there’s basketball across the street. But not this year.”

Pao said the last crowds like that came earlier this basketball season, when North Carolina moved its home game against Notre Dame to Greensboro because of a water emergency in Chapel Hill.

“That was just one game, and it was crazy busy,” Pao said. “... Times change, and we’ve got to adapt. We would like the NCAA Tournament to come back. You see a lot of people protesting that HB2 law because it hurts everybody. It hurts business. It hurts the city. It hurts the whole state of North Carolina.”

Contact Jeff Mills at (336) 373-7024, and follow @JeffMillsNR on Twitter.

 

[bobknightfan]

The day the coliseum stood quiet


The law, passed last March, requires transgender people to use public restrooms and locker rooms that correspond to the gender on their birth certificates.

This is exactly as it should be....and it should never be changed for any reason, and certainly not due to something as trivial as a threat to move a damned sports event out of the state.

 

[Deacfreak07]

The day the coliseum stood quiet


The law, passed last March, requires transgender people to use public restrooms and locker rooms that correspond to the gender on their birth certificates.

This is exactly as it should be....and it should never be changed for any reason, and certainly not due to something as trivial as a threat to move a damned sports event out of the state.

Have you seen this law enforced anywhere?

 

[DistrictDeacon]

This is exactly as it should be....and it should never be changed for any reason, and certainly not due to something as trivial as a threat to move a damned sports event out of the state.

Much better to let small business owners suffer, eh?

 

[Deacfreak07]

Much better to let small business owners suffer, eh?

Only the ones in the cities are suffering. The Rotary Club still gets their pancakes every week in REAL America.

 

[Deacs9394]

The day the coliseum stood quiet


The law, passed last March, requires transgender people to use public restrooms and locker rooms that correspond to the gender on their birth certificates.

This is exactly as it should be....and it should never be changed for any reason, and certainly not due to something as trivial as a threat to move a damned sports event out of the state.

Completely unnecessary law...is never enforced. The number of transgender folks using the bathroom of the gender they identify with is exactly the same as it was before the law. And likely in public restrooms you've been in and you were none the wiser. And you conveniently leave out the additional parts of the law that limit the rights of our fellow citizens. The focus on the "bathroom" only part of it is such a canard.

Unnecessary law costing the state millions...and continued embarrassment.

 

[bobknightfan]

Completely unnecessary law...is never enforced. The number of transgender folks using the bathroom of the gender they identify with is exactly the same as it was before the law. And likely in public restrooms you've been in and you were none the wiser. And you conveniently leave out the additional parts of the law that limit the rights of our fellow citizens. The focus on the "bathroom" only part of it is such a canard.

Unnecessary law costing the state millions...and continued embarrassment.

Have opponents of HB2 ever offered to support a bill to repeal HB2 other than the bathroom part of the bill? I would probably support that effort. So if the bathroom part of the bill is relatively unimportant, why won't HB2 opponents offer that small compromise?

 

[Deacfreak07]

Have opponents of HB2 ever offered to support a bill to repeal HB2 other than the bathroom part of the bill? I would probably support that effort. So if the bathroom part of the bill is relatively unimportant, why won't HB2 opponents offer that small compromise?

Opponents offered their compromise last year when Charlotte repealed the ordinance that HB2 was created in response to. The NCGOP couldn't get the votes to keep their word on that compromise.

 

[Beachdeac82]

Opponents offered their compromise last year when Charlotte repealed the ordinance that HB2 was created in response to. The NCGOP couldn't get the votes to keep their word on that compromise.

Sorry Deacfreak, but this was a political ploy-- they only did it to repeal the bill so they could pass it again-- many articles talked about this. This is all POLITICS-- and no matter where you come down, it has no place in sports! The whole response by ACC and NCAA is a political fiasco. "I disagree with your politics so I am going to punish you" does not belong in sports. If it did, we should boycott every Olympics where many countries who murder people for no other reason than you have a different religion or different _________-- you fill in the blank. This whole action by the ACC and NCAA is so hypocritical on their part...

 

[DistrictDeacon]

Sorry Deacfreak, but this was a political ploy-- they only did it to repeal the bill so they could pass it again-- many articles talked about this. This is all POLITICS-- and no matter where you come down, it has no place in sports! The whole response by ACC and NCAA is a political fiasco. "I disagree with your politics so I am going to punish you" does not belong in sports. If it did, we should boycott every Olympics where many countries who murder people for no other reason than you have a different religion or different _________-- you fill in the blank. This whole action by the ACC and NCAA is so hypocritical on their part...

Agreed.

 

[Tobacco Road]

But we have boycotted Olympics for political reasons. I think boycotting for human rights reasons seems much more justified. You disagree that we should boycott countries that "murder people for no other reason than you have a different religion or different _________"?

 

[HailToTheDeacons]

Are transgender individuals human? Do they deserve rights?

 

[Deacfreak07]

Sorry Deacfreak, but this was a political ploy-- they only did it to repeal the bill so they could pass it again-- many articles talked about this. This is all POLITICS-- and no matter where you come down, it has no place in sports! The whole response by ACC and NCAA is a political fiasco. "I disagree with your politics so I am going to punish you" does not belong in sports. If it did, we should boycott every Olympics where many countries who murder people for no other reason than you have a different religion or different _________-- you fill in the blank. This whole action by the ACC and NCAA is so hypocritical on their part...

Interesting argument. It's a bad piece of legislation. If Charlotte didn't honor their agreement, then the NCGOP could just cry foul and pass HB2 again. They didn't do that. Charlotte has still held up their end of the bargain. At the end of the day, it's the cities that are hit hardest by this, and the rural parts of NC have control of the legislature, so they don't give a single straight, marital, missionary, for the sole purpose of procreation, female left unsatisfied fuck about the consequences. If you are willing to give the NCGOP any benefit of the doubt on this issue, I just don't know what to tell you. Especially on the heels of Amendment 1.

 

[BarcaDeac]

jhmd, I finally learned a lesson from the election: never trust Republicans. I thought enough would have a sense to not vote for Trump, but was wrong. just like the NC Dems thought the NC Republicans would hold up their end of the bargain after Charlotte repealed the ordinance.

 

[dartsndeacs]

Stop trying to make transgender equality happen, Libs. It's not gonna happen.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[BarcaDeac]

Stop trying to make transgender equality happen, Libs. It's not gonna happen.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yes. It's as TheReff has so eloquently put it time and time again, "God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve."

 

[bobknightfan]

Are transgender individuals human? Do they deserve rights?

Certainly, transgenders are human and deserve rights.....but you do not take away rights from 99.8% of people who are engaging in normal behavior to provide rights for 0.2% of people who are engaging in deviant behavior.

And before you lose your mind over that last statement, there can be no doubt that transgenders are exhibiting deviant behavior. Here is a definition of the word:

de·vi·ant  (dē′vē-ənt)
adj.
Differing from a norm or from the accepted standards of a society.
n.
One that differs from a norm, especially a person whose behavior and attitudes differ from accepted social standards.

deviant (ˈdiːvɪənt)
adj
(Sociology) deviating, as from what is considered acceptable behaviour
n
(Sociology) a person whose behaviour, esp sexual behaviour, deviates from what is considered to be acceptable

 

[Louis Gossett Jr]

If you want to have laws like HB2 that is fine i don't give a shit but to turn around and complain about the consequences of those laws is asinine. You chose the law live with the consequence, in this case an organization disagreeing with it and responding accordingly.