Ohio State brings home Urban Meyer to rebuild program

From USA Today
Urban Meyer says he was convinced a year ago he was through with coaching. He didn't like the sordid state of college football. He wanted to spend more time with his family, watch his three kids play sports and get a handle on his health issues.
A year after resigning from Florida, after promising his children he would find balance between football and family, after saying his health was fantastic and resolving not to try to solve all of college football ills, Meyer says he's back where he belongs.
Ohio State athletics director Gene Smith welcomed Meyer home when he introduced the Ohio native as the Buckeyes' new coach Monday. But the program Meyer comes home to is one that has come to symbolize what's wrong with big-time college sports…(full story)

Barney Frank, a Top Liberal, Won't Seek Re-election

From New York Times
Simply put, Barney Frank has had enough.
Speaking from his district office here on Monday after announcing his plan to retire from the House of Representatives, Mr. Frank said he was tired of the scorching partisan battles that did not exist when he first won office three decades ago, tired of campaigning, which he detests, and, at 71, just plain tired.
“By the end of next year, I will have been doing this for 45 years with one six-month sabbatical,” Mr. Frank said in an interview, referring to his career in politics, which started as an aide to former Mayor Kevin White of Boston. “It’s been a privilege to fight for the quality of people’s lives, but I’m ready to put a little more quality into my own life.”
Earlier in the day, Mr. Frank announced at a news conference that he had decided to retire at the end of next year after his Massachusetts district was recently redrawn and it became clear that he would have to fight harder than he wanted for re-election.
Mr. Frank said he had intended to serve one more term but that after seeing his redrawn district, which would give him more than 300,000 new constituents and would not include blue-collar New Bedford, one of his strongholds, he changed his mind.
In the interview at his office, the wry and often cantankerous Mr. Frank — who has been among the nation’s most prominent gay elected officials, as well as a frequent target for conservatives in Congress — was relaxed and full of one-liners as he discussed the mood on Capitol Hill and his reasons for leaving. When he arrived in the House in 1981, he said, “you had Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan talking about how they were friends after 5 o’clock — although if you knew Reagan’s work habits it was really, like, after about 2:30.”
Now, Mr. Frank said, the notion that wrangling between Democrats and Republicans is “a competition between people of good will with different views on public policy” has vanished. For that, he blames Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker and current Republican presidential candidate with whom he has a tense history...(full story)