aubiefifty

once a crook always a crook.

rollingstone.com Trump Ordered to Pay $355 Million in New York Fraud Case Nikki McCann Ramirez, Asawin Suebsaeng 11–14 minutes Skip to main content Trump Ordered to Pay $355 Million in New York Fraud Case The former president has also been barred from running a company in the state for three years Donald Trump sits in New York State Supreme Court during the civil fraud trial against the Trump Organization, in New York City on Jan. 11, 2024. PETER FOLEY/POOL/AFP/Getty Images Donald Trump has been ordered to pay $355 million in damages and barred the former president “from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation or other legal entity in New York for a period of three years.” Judge Arthur Engoron handed the ruling down on Friday in the wake of Trump and the Trump Organization being found liable for financial fraud. Engoron also ordered Trump’s adult sons, Don Jr. and Eric, to pay $4 million each Trump is expected to appeal the ruling. The scathing decision concludes a contentious, high-profile lawsuit that New York Attorney General Letitia James brought against Trump in September of 2022. James accused the former president, his adult children, and several of his associates, of committing widespread fraud through his real estate empire. Engoron had already ruled last September that Trump was liable for fraud. The trial that followed was meant exclusively to determine the punishment — which turned out to be stiff. Trump was not happy. In a Truth Social posting spree, the former president wrote that the “Justice System in New York State, and America as a whole, is under assault by partisan, deluded, biased Judges and Prosecutors.” He wrote in separate post. that James is “racist” and that the judgement is” illegal” and “unAmerican” and not fair to him, his family, or his “tremendous business.” The ruling comes just weeks after a jury ordered Trump to pay E. Jean Carroll, whom he sexually assaulted in the ‘90s, over $83 million in defamation-related damages. Trump had already been ordered to pay Carroll $5 million last year, and the fine Engoron handed down on Friday means the frontrunner to land the Republican nomination for president now owes over $440 million in civil litigation penalties. The weight of all of this, on top of the financial costs of paying for lawyers handling Trump’s vast array of criminal prosecution and other matters, has led to exploding legal bills and a gigantic money drain in the middle of Trump’s campaign to retake the White House. Trump’s team is gearing up for a protracted conflict over Engoron’s judgment. In conversations with lawyers and other advisers in recent months, Trump has indicated he expects to be fighting for his business empire’s survival for quite a while, and maybe even into a potential second presidential term. In these discussions, according to a person with knowledge of the matter and another source briefed on it, Trump has agreed that he should expect an appeals process in the New York civil fraud case to go on potentially for years. “He is aware this could take a … [while] to resolve,” says the source familiar with the situation. Trump, this person adds, “feels good about his chances” at appeal. Indeed, the heavily chaotic approach that Trump and his legal team brought to this trial since last year was built off of an internal assumption that defeat in this trial was a foregone conclusion, and that appealing was their only hope. The fact that Trump and his lawyers are buckling in for possibly years of this — not to mention all the other cases piled up against Trump, including federal and criminal ones — reflects a broader sentiment that has consumed the former president since the deadly Jan. 6 riot. During the weeks immediately following the Capitol assault that Trump instigated, he began complaining to aides and other close associates that his enemies are going to be investigating and ”suing me for the rest of my life” after his presidency. Trump, as it were, was likely on to something, given all of the legal and criminal exposure that he and his inner orbit have enjoyed in recent years. Engoron penalized Trump for overvaluing his properties and inflating his net worth over several years, thus deceiving banks, investors, and insurers. In his September liability ruling, the judge agreed with New York prosecutors who argued that the former president had exaggerated the value of his assets by hundreds of millions — and even billions — of dollars, with the largest discrepancy being an over-valuation of more than $2.2 billion in 2014. The outsized valuations were then used by Trump and his organization to secure favorable loans and business deals from financial institutions and lenders. Regardless of whether the appeal process stretches on for years, Trump and his allies are hoping it at least does so into his second White House term — under their assumption of Trump beating Biden in the November election. The twice-impeached, repeatedly indicted former president and his MAGA policy braintrust has sprawling plans and blueprints ready to go for the start of a potential new administration, in which they’d enact massive programs aimed at revenge and score-settling. Late last year, according to a Trump adviser, the former president began asking people close to him if a future DOJ could explore ways to go after Engoron and the New York attorney general. Some of his counselors have told him that though it’s worth looking into, actually doing so would present its own unique hurdles and challenges for Justice Department lawyers. (For instance, New York has its own state agency that specializes in probing misconduct allegations against sitting judges.) Trump has been attacking Engron and others involved in the case as much as he can in the meantime, continuously raging at the judge and prosecutors, accusing them of committing election interference by not simply letting him get away with fraud. He wrote on Truth Social last month that the “case should have been dismissed long ago. It is a Political Persecution. The State should get No Damages whatsoever!” The post was one in a long chain of harassment Trump has leveled against Engoron and his staff, both in and out of court. Over the course of the trial, Trump was fined twice, and threatened with jail time, for violating a narrowly tailored gag order put in place by Engoron after he attacked one of the judge’s clerks on social media. The clashes between Trump and Engoron came to a head in November when the former president took the witness stand and repeatedly attempted to rant at the court about his political grievances. At one point during Trump’s testimony, the judge threatened to have him removed from the witness stand if his lawyers couldn’t get him under control. “This is not a political rally,” Engoron told Trump’s attorneys. “I beseech you to control him if you can … if you can’t, I will. I will excuse him and draw every negative inference that I can.” Trump seemed to relish in the judge’s attempts to maintain order in the court, regularly complaining to his followers and supporters about Engoron’s treatment of him. In November, the New York court system reported that Engoron and his clerk, Allison Greenfield, had received a “deluge [in] the court’s chambers phone and the law clerk’s personal cell phone, personal emails and social media accounts [of] hundreds of threatening, harassing, disparaging and antisemitic messages.” The court noted that it considers the threats “to be serious and credible and not hypothetical or speculative.” Hours before the trial’s closing arguments were scheduled to begin last month, the judge was the target of a swatting attempt at his home in Long Island. Trump planned to personally deliver his closing argument, with Rolling Stone reporting that he spent days rehearsing his remarks. Trump never got the chance to deliver what would have surely been a rage-filled, vengeful screed against the court, however, with Engoron denying the former president after his legal team refused to agree to conditions that would restrict him from going off-topic or attacking individuals involved in the trial. Regardless of Engoron’s denial, the former president attempted to deliver his remarks without permission, calling the trial a “political witch hunt,” and demanding that he and his co-defendants “should receive damages for what we went through.” It seems Engoron was not swayed.

i try but i am mentally ill jj............i have papers............

dang ol jj has left me hanging............he must not have enjoyed the joke.

as long as i am on top and not a pivot man.....grins

247sports.com PMARSHONAU A different kind of challenge is ahead for the Tigers Phillip Marshall 3–4 minutes If there is one thing we have learned in the SEC this basketball season, it is that what happened in your last game doesn’t mean much in you next game. Auburn looked like an unstoppable force in smashing No. 11 South Carolina 101-61 on Wednesday night. Four days earlier it looked shaky in losing 81-65 at Florida three days after blowing out Alabama. Tennessee hammered Kentucky in Lexington and then was hammered at Texas A&M. It beat Alabama at home and then lost at home to South Carolina. What Auburn did against South Carolina won’t likely be repeated. Saturday, back at Auburn Arena, the Tigers will face a Kentucky team that is bigger, more athletic, more talented and extremely hungry for a statement win. I look for Bruce Pearl’s Tigers to have their hands full. I believe he looks for that, too. For all the criticism aimed at Kentucky, the Wildcats are one game behind Auburn and South Carolina and two games behind first-place Alabama. Yes, they have struggled mightily on the defensive end, but it’s not because they lack talent. Winning at Neville Arena is a massive challenge, one not many SEC teams have been able to meet in recent seasons. Since Bruce Pearl arrived, that has included Kentucky and head coach John Calipari. Kentucky is 1-5 against Pearl-coached Auburn teams at Neville Arena. Pearl pointed out after the game that so much depends on matchups. South Carolina is one of best stories in college basketball this season, but it did not present the kinds of matchup challenges that Saturday’s game will. Auburn probably will not shoot 61 percent from the field. Johni Broome and Jaylin Williams probably won’t combine to make nine 3-point shots. Pearl said he doesn’t expect Auburn’s defensive style to disrupt Kentucky in the same way it disrupted South Carolina. For Pearl, keeping his players focused on the task at hand amid the excitement on campus as College Gameday comes to town might be a challenge of its own. Kentucky’s 75-63 victory over Ole Miss that broke a three-game Rupp Arena losing streak on Tuesday was impressive in a few ways. Most impressive was Ugonna Onyenso’s 10 blocked shots. The Wildcats actually played decent defense, though Ole Miss missed a bunch of open shots. One thing that stood out to me was the Wildcats’ pace. They didn’t just run on misses. They grabbed the ball out of the net and ran on makes, too. It seemed like Ole Miss got tired. Whether they will do that against Auburn and its depth, I don’t know. The moral of this story is that Kentucky can create matchup problems that Alabama couldn’t and that South Carolina couldn’t. I expect the Tigers to win, but I also expect it to be difficult. If that happens, if the Tigers win the game, I expect them to be in the race for the regular-season championship until the last day.

auburnwire.usatoday.com Tale of the Tape: Examining Auburn and Kentucky ahead of Saturday's game Taylor Jones ~3 minutes The No. 12 Auburn Tigers passed its first test of the week on Wednesday by blasting No. 11 South Carolina, 101-61. Can the Tigers earn another crucial win on Saturday by taking down No. 20 Kentucky? The game has plenty of pageantry surrounding it. Students are camping in front of Neville Arena, College Gameday will be on the Plains, and ticket prices are through the roof. A win would be valuable to its NCAA Tournament resume, and all of the pieces appear to be on the table. Kentucky has not lived up to the hype to this point in the season, as they enter the game with a 17-7 record with a 7-4 mark in SEC play. They have also had a rough time playing in Neville Arena recently as losers of three-straight games in the venue. Despite the rough patch, Auburn will still need to play its best game on Saturday to earn a win. Can they get it done? Here’s a look at how Auburn stacks up with Kentucky ahead of Saturday’s showdown. Zach Bland/Auburn Tigers AUBURN KENTUCKY 20-5 (9-3) Record (SEC) 17-7 (7-4) No. 12 Coaches Poll No. 20 No. 13 AP Poll No. 22 No. 3 SEC No. 6 No. 6 NET No. 24 No. 4 KenPom No. 26 No. 5 ESPN BPI No. 24 John Reed-USA TODAY Sports AUBURN KENTUCKY 83.1 Points per game 88.9 66.9 Points allowed per game 78.1 38.9 Rebounds per game 38.7 18.0 Assists per game 17.7 Johni Broome (16.2) Leading scorer Antonio Reeves (19.4) Johni Broome (8.4) Leading rebounder Tre Mitchell (7.5) Tre Donaldson (3.5) Leading assists Reed Sheppard (4.2) John Reed-USA TODAY Sports AUBURN KENTUCKY 2-4 Quad 1 2-5 7-1 Quad 2 4-1 6-0 Quad 3 5-1 5-0 Quad 4 6-0 12-0 Home record 13-1 7-5 Away/Neutral record 8-2 Alabama (No. 5 in NET) Best win North Carolina (No. 11 in NET) Zach Bland/Auburn Tigers Auburn has proven time and time again that they are at their best when Jaylin Williams and Johni Broome are playing at a high level. It is a given that Brome will score 10 or more points per game, no matter the circumstance. However, the Tigers’ potential climbs when Williams reaches double-figures. Auburn is 5-4 this season when Williams is held to less than 10 points in a game and is 8-0 when Williams scores more than 20. In a game where Auburn must match with Kentucky every step of the way, it will be important for Broome and Williams to play a “typical game” and grab control of the game early.

saturdaydownsouth.com Bruce Pearl previews Kentucky game from ‘Jungleville,’ says Cats will always be gold standard of SEC Keith Farner | 2 hours ago 2–3 minutes Bruce Pearl is ready for a showdown from Kentucky on Saturday, a game expected to showcase Neville Arena’s raucous home-court environment in “The Jungle.” The game, set for 6 p.m. ET will pit the No. 13 Tigers against the No. 22 Wildcats. Auburn is 20-5 and 9-3 in the SEC, tied for second, while UK is 17-7 and 7-4 in the league, 2 games behind Alabama, which sits at 9-2. Here are some of Pearl’s comments from his Friday media availability: “You can feel the energy on campus,” he said. “Kentucky is still the gold standard in our league,” Pearl said. “They always will be. That’ll never change.” “Kentucky is really good. They are one of the best offensive teams in the country. … We struggled against Florida’s length and we’re going to have to find a way to not let Kentucky’s length have the same effect Florida’s did.” This Kentucky team is John Calipari’s best 3-point-shooting team. “There’s about four or five guys out there who, if they can see it, they can make it.” Bruce Pearl on Kentucky’s Rob Dillingham: “He scores like I breathe.” “A lot of pressure on Kentucky to win, as a result they’ve done well on the road,” Pearl said. H/T Justin Hokanson, Adam Cole and Richard Silva.

i hope they need a deeper shade of blue when we get through with them.

al.com Joe Whitt Jr.: ‘He’s just the man I’m trying to aim to be’ Updated: Feb. 16, 2024, 9:11 a.m.|Published: Feb. 16, 2024, 9:00 a.m. ~4 minutes Washington Commanders defensive coordinator Joe Whitt Jr. speaks during a press conference on Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024, at Commanders Park in Ashburn, Va.(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta) By Mark Inabinett | minabinett@al.com When the Washington Commanders introduced Joe Whitt Jr. as their defensive coordinator during a press conference on Thursday, the new coach said the NFL team had hired “a country boy from Alabama.” More important to Washington coach Dan Quinn: He’d hired “a coach’s kid” for his first staff with the Commanders. Alabama alumni top NFL in touchdowns in 2023 New Commanders coaches take note of former Alabama defensive tackles Chicago Bears cut former All-Pro from Alabama “He grew up a coach’s kid,” Quinn said. “Joe’s father was an exceptional coach at Auburn for a really long time. You know you’re a good coach when you don’t coach there anymore and you still have a locker in the coaches’ locker room. That’s Joe Whitt Sr. “So coming up as a coach’s kid, Joe’s been on practice fields since he was this tall, and so he knew what good looked like along the way, and he’s been more than ready for this opportunity to do it. … “He’s got a fantastic football background.” Joe Whitt Sr. worked as a defensive assistant at Auburn for 25 seasons, serving on the staffs of Pat Dye, Terry Bowden and Tommy Tuberville. “The first thing that I learned from my dad was this is a people’s business and to treat people fairly,” Joe Whitt Jr. said on Thursday. “My dad was a hard, hard coach, man. He’s a hard man to play for. But his players played a certain style. They ran and hit. They were fundamentally sound, and that’s what I got from him. I know I’m a backend guy, not a linebacker coach like he was, but he’s what I’m trying to be. “I know he never reached to become a head coach and all that, but the respect that he has whenever he walks into a building – everybody respects him. If he walked in here right now, you would know he was in here because he has that type of command of a room. He’s just the man I’m always trying to aim to be.” The Auburn High School graduate also coached at Auburn. A walk-on wide receiver, Whitt became a student assistant working with the Tigers’ pass-catchers after injuries ended his playing days. Over the past 22 seasons, Whitt has coached at The Citadel and Louisville in college and the Atlanta Falcons, Green Bay Packers, Cleveland Browns and Dallas Cowboys in the NFL. A former Super Bowl coach with the Falcons, Quinn took the Commanders’ top job after three seasons as the defensive coordinator for the Cowboys. During those three seasons, Whitt worked as Dallas’ secondary coach and pass-game coordinator. Washington preceded its new coaching staff with a 4-13 record in 2023. The Commanders gave up more points and more yards than any other team in the NFL. FOR MORE OF AL.COM’S COVERAGE OF THE NFL, GO TO OUR NFL PAGE Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.

al.com Scarbinsky: No-name OC fits DeBoer’s curious first Alabama staff Published: Feb. 15, 2024, 8:00 a.m. ~2 minutes By Kevin Scarbinsky | Special to AL.com This is an opinion column. Everyone who didn’t have to Google the name Nick Sheridan in the last month/week/24 hours, raise your hand. Liars. Put your hands down and listen up. When Alabama hired Kalen DeBoer to follow Nick Saban, the odds were good that DeBoer would bring an offensive coordinator with him from Washington. The odds were astronomical that, in the end, it would not be his offensive coordinator or offensive line coach at UW but instead would be the man who coached the tight ends. That is, if the reports are true, and the Sheridan promotion happens and sticks. The way DeBoer’s hires have come and gone, stay tuned. So what do we know about the 35-year-old Sheridan, who apparently will be charged with helping Jalen Milroe and the Alabama offense get to another level in 2024? He has OC experience. He followed DeBoer in that role at Indiana when DeBoer left to become the head coach at Fresno State. If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

al.com Scott Cochran no longer on Georgia football staff Updated: Feb. 14, 2024, 10:13 a.m.|Published: Feb. 14, 2024, 10:09 a.m. 2–3 minutes Scott Cochran, shown here in 2019 while at Alabama, is no longer on the football staff at Georgia. (AP Photo/Vasha Hunt)ASSOCIATED PRESS By Creg Stephenson | cstephenson@al.com Scott Cochran is no longer a member of the football staff at Georgia, school officials confirmed Wednesday. The popular former Alabama strength & conditioning coach joined long-time friend Kirby Smart’s staff as special teams coordinator in 2020. He worked in various capacities with the Bulldogs the last four seasons, helping them win two national championships. Rivals.com reported Wednesday that Cochran’s office inside the Georgia football building was empty. The Georgia athletics department issued a brief statement saying that Cochran and offensive analyst Darrell Dickey had left the staff to “pursue other opportunities,” with analyst Kirk Benedict promoted to special teams coordinator. The 44-year-old Cochran was part of Nick Saban’s original staff as head strength coach at Alabama in 2007, and stayed with the Crimson Tide through the 2019 season. His outsized persona made him a favorite among fans and players alike, and many regarded him as the second-most-important person to Alabama’s success after Saban during a time in which the Crimson Tide won five national championships. Cochran battled addiction during his time at Georgia, and took leave from the team prior to the 2021 season to enter rehab. He posted on social media this past July that he was celebrating two years of sobriety. Prior to his time at Alabama, Cochran worked on the strength staff under Saban at LSU (his alma mater) from 2001-04 (winning the first of his eight national championship rings in 2003). He then spent two years in his home town with the NBA’s New Orleans Hornets. If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

al.com How Auburn baseball’s Mississippi State ties are shaping Plainsman Park’s new look Published: Feb. 16, 2024, 6:50 a.m. 11–14 minutes It’s a windy Friday afternoon in Starkville, Mississippi, as Rhett Hobart — wearing orange and blue — returned to the proclaimed “Carnegie Hall of College Baseball” he’d helped build. It’s January, almost baseball season, and the Mississippi State team is taking batting practice on the field before a scrimmage that day. In an Auburn athletic department now led with deep ties to Mississippi State, Hobart was one of several Auburn representatives in town before Auburn’s basketball team faced Mississippi State the next day at Humphrey Coliseum. On this day — exactly three weeks before Auburn’s 2024 opening day — Hobart, now Auburn’s deputy athletic director for external affairs and the administrator directly in charge of baseball, showed off what he’d built. And he showed how Dudy Noble Field inspired what he’s trying to create four hours east at his new job —the facility he’s about unveil now with those three weeks gone by and opening day here, set for 6 p.m. Friday against Eastern Kentucky. Auburn’s ties to the Mississippi State baseball team start right at the top. Auburn athletic director John Cohen played baseball as a student at Mississippi State. He was the head coach there from 2009-2016. He was then the Mississippi State athletic director from 2016 until moving to Auburn in 2022. Mississippi State coach John Cohen speaks as UCLA coach John Savage looks on during a news conference at TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha, Neb., Sunday, June 23, 2013, ahead of the NCAA College World Series best-of-three baseball finals. Mississippi State and UCLA will play in Game 1 of the finals on Monday. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)AP Hobart is another Mississippi State alum who has spent more than eight years working in the Bulldogs athletic department with a focus on baseball. Auburn head baseball coach Butch Thompson was an assistant coach on Cohen’s staff in Starkville from 2009-2015. Scott Foxhall, Auburn’s director of player development, won a national championship in 2021 as the pitching coach at Mississippi State. Auburn’s director of baseball operation Greg Dyre spent 11 seasons at Mississippi State in an administrative role before coming to Auburn in 2016. Cohen and Hobart led an enormous rebuild of Dudy Noble Field that began in 2017, finished in 2019 and cost more than $60 million. It now is the largest on-campus baseball stadium in the country. When Hobart walked around his alma mater’s home field in January, he showed the stadium’s Triple Crown Club behind home plate and the Omaha Club on the upper level — with legendary coach Ron Polk’s tobacco-stained table right outside. He walked through the unique outfield lounges to create a tailgate atmosphere inside the stadium and pointed out his family’s own beach-themed setup. Hobart described the meticulous planning that went into the jewel of the Mississippi State athletic complex. He discussed that while much of this staff’s experience is mostly in baseball, he and Cohen emphasize that Cohen doesn’t want to be viewed as a baseball-only athletic director. They inherited an already-approved $30 million Plainsman Park renovation when he arrived at Auburn, and they were just going to put their touch on it. An overview of the 70+ seat common eating area in the new Hall of Fame Club set to open Feb. 16 for Auburn's first game of the 2024 season. Auburn gave local reporters a tour of the new facility on Feb. 15, 2024.Matt Cohen | mcohen@al.com This group now leading Auburn saw the highs of a national championship in 2021 at one of the sport’s most historic and winningest programs. But the goal, Hobart said, is not to copy and paste the Mississippi State project, but instead carry over some successful aspects and build a new Plainsman Park in an image that fits in with what Auburn already had. To take on this project from a different perspective, Cohen, Hobart and Auburn’s staff looked back at their project at Dudy Noble Field, but also flew to Chicago to see the Maker’s Mark Barrell Room premium club at the Chicago Cubs’ Wrigley Field. It is one of several Major League Baseball stadiums where Auburn took inspiration when crafting its newest premium seating option. Auburn's new Hall of Fame Club is set to open Feb. 16 for Auburn's first game of the 2024 season. Auburn gave local reporters a tour of the new facility on Feb. 15, 2024.Matt Cohen | mcohen@al.com And that brings Cohen and Hobart to the opening of the first major facilities construction project since they came to Auburn. Auburn’s new Hall of Fame Club is set to open Friday for Auburn’s season-opening game against Eastern Kentucky. Auburn legend and Major League Baseball Hall of Famer Frank Thomas will be there for the ribbon cutting. The newly constructed area is underneath the first baseline stands that used to be indoor batting cages. It’s the first step in an ongoing renovation for years to come at Plainsman Park. The club features one main bar dubbed “Frank’s Favorites” and another smaller bar near a collection of common area tables. The main bar will sell Thomas’ own line of vodka and several of Thomas’ favorite drinks. There are about 70 first-come-first-serve seats inside the club, Hobart said. Hobart said the area near the Frank Thomas bar is meant to resemble a “speakeasy,” or a “Chicago steakhouse.” Whereas the table area is meant to resemble a brewery. Farnk's Favorites will be the full bar in the new Hall of Fame Club set to open Feb. 16 for Auburn's first game of the 2024 season. Auburn gave local reporters a tour of the new facility on Feb. 15, 2024.Matt Cohen | mcohen@al.com The whole club is Thomas-themed. Doors are branded with his No. 35. A plaque on the wall is made to look like Thomas’ MLB Hall of Fame plaque, just with more Auburn-catered history written on it. Auburn created a Hall of Fame replica plaque for legendary Tiger and MLB Hall of Famer Frank Thomas as part of the new Hall of Fame Club set to open Feb. 16 for Auburn's first game of the 2024 season. Auburn gave local reporters a tour of the new facility on Feb. 15, 2024.Matt Cohen | mcohen@al.com There will be a merchandise stand selling Hall of Fame Club-specific gear, sold exclusively to fans with a ticket to the club. The design is laden with brick to blend in with the existing stadium and campus architecture. Whereas the renovation at Dudy Noble Field was meant to handle record crowds, the now-completed portions of Auburn’s upgrades are more intimate and opulent — aware of the stark differences between programs in Starkville and Auburn. “This has more detail on the project,” Hobart said compared to the Dudy Noble Field renovations. Yet Auburn’s Hall of Fame Club will accommodate 45 more seats than Mississippi State’s Triple Crown Club, Hobart said. Fans can buy two types of tickets to enter the club. The cheaper option is to get an access pass which can range between $25 and $90 depending on the game. That ticket gets access to the club and covers the cost of all food and non-alcoholic drinks. Those passes do not guarantee a seat, but do give access to standing room areas behind home plate. There are other seating options set up including couches underneath the home plate stands. Couches set up underneath the home plate stands at Plainsman Park as part of the new Hall of Fame Club set to open Feb. 16 for Auburn's first game of the 2024 season. Auburn gave local reporters a tour of the new facility on Feb. 15, 2024.Matt Cohen | mcohen@al.com Hobart said if, by the third inning, a ticketed fan has not occupied their reserved seat then fans with just an access pass can take the available chair. Auburn hopes to sell around 175 of these passes early on as a test phase for what number of standing-room tickets makes sense and fits comfortably. There are 107 seats behind home plate, with tickets for a reserved seat ranging between $50-$150 depending on the game. The seats behind home plate, Hobart said, are the exact same chairs that the Atlanta Braves used for fans behind home plate at their home stadium, Truist Park. The only difference? The chairs in Atlanta are green and the ones at Auburn are navy blue. Every seat has a personal power outlet. The home plate area seating is the most visually similar part of the new Plainsman Park to what Cohen and Hobart built at Dudy Noble Field. The renovation in Starkville packed as many people as possible behind home plate giving a visually appealing look to the crowd with a low backstop, rows of reserved seating and significant space for standing-room tickets as part of its Triple Crown Club. Auburn deputy athletic director Rhett Hobart shows new seats behind home plate at Plainsmark Park's new Hall of Fame Club set to open Feb. 16 for Auburn's first game of the 2024 season. Auburn gave local reporters a tour of the new facility on Feb. 15, 2024.Matt Cohen | mcohen@al.com The high backstop of past seasons at Plainsman Park is now gone, replaced by a similar low wall but instead of the padding at Dudy Noble Field, Auburn’s is fully brick with no pads at all. That could be a significant factor in games this season as any wild throws or pitches will quickly ricochet back. The renovation also drastically shrinks the space between home plate and the backstop wall. It is now the smallest backstop in the SEC. Plainsman Park's new Hall of Fame Club is set to open Feb. 16 for Auburn's first game of the 2024 season. Auburn gave local reporters a tour of the new facility on Feb. 15, 2024.Matt Cohen | mcohen@al.com The key difference from Starkville is the seating arrangement. Hobart said the seats at Dudy Noble Field are centered around home plate. They did not do that at Auburn. After the Mississippi State project, Hobart said he realized they could have made the stadium more intimidating. So, the 107 Auburn seats behind home plate are shifted toward the visitor’s dugout. It means there is a chair and standing room area directly next to the visitor’s dugout with no net or separation between stands and an opposing team. Auburn positioned seats in its new Hall of Fame Club directly next to the visitor's dugout to create an uncomfortable atmosphere for opponents. The Club is set to open Feb. 16 for Auburn's first game of the 2024 season.Matt Cohen | mcohen@al.com “Butch talks about how much teams love to play here,” Hobart said. “We want them to love to come play here, but we also want it to make it a hard place to play. There’s a balance to that. You want to create a good, fun environment. But a place also they don’t want to come play because of how hard it is to play. We’re trying to make the stadium a little more intimidating.” That shows in the seating design behind home plate. It shows in building a student section in right-center field where the rowdiest students will be peering directly into the visiting team’s bullpen. Hobart finished the Plainsman Park tour back inside, in front of the “Frank’s Favorites” bar. He spoke to local Auburn reporters there, three weeks after showing AL.com around Dudy Noble and just over 24 hours before the first pitch of the season and the first drinks are sold. It’s one step down in a continuing series of renovations completely modernizing and expanding Plainsman Park. For an athletic department quite in tune with its Starkville ties and baseball expertise, this first phase was done with self-awareness to do something different. To take what’s worked before and make it well, uniquely Auburn. Matt Cohen covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @Matt_Cohen_ or email him at mcohen@al.com

just more lies from some on the right.....

al.com Joel Osteen Lakewood megachurch shooter was not transgender, despite fake online claims Updated: Feb. 16, 2024, 1:55 p.m.|Published: Feb. 16, 2024, 1:52 p.m. 4–6 minutes Houston Police officers watch over displaced churchgoers outside Lakewood Church, Sunday, Feb. 11, 2024, in Houston, after a reported shooting during a Spanish church service. (Karen Warren/Houston Chronicle via AP)AP The shooter who carried out an attack injuring two people at a Texas megachurch on Sunday was not transgender, despite claims online. Houston police said on Monday that its investigation has thus far determined that the shooter, Genesse Ivonne Moreno, identified as female despite using multiple aliases, including the name Jeffery — or Jeffrey — Escalante. Multiple court records identify Moreno as female, most recently in 2022. Amid the aftermath of the Sunday, Feb. 11, shooting at Lakewood Church, which is led by televangelist pastor Joel Osteen, social media users spread false claims about Moreno’s gender identity. “BREAKING: Lakewood Church shooter identified as transgender, legal name Genesse Moreno but went by the name ‘Jeffrey,’” reads one post on X, formerly Twitter, that had received approximately 9,300 likes and 6,200 shares as of Friday. Others claimed that Moreno, who was fatally shot in an exchange of gunfire, had been born as Jeffery, but went by Genesse as part of her transition. Officials have not found any evidence that Moreno was transgender. Police said she used male and female aliases, but that investigators who looked at past police reports determined she identified as female. “We do have reports she used multiple aliases, including Jeffery Escalante,” Houston Police Commander Chris Hassig said about 19 minutes into a press conference on Monday. “So she has utilized both male and female names, but through all of our investigation to this point, talking with individuals, interviews, documents, Houston Police Department reports, she has been identified this entire time as female, she, her. And so we are identifying her as Genesse Moreno, Hispanic female. Records in Harris County, where Houston is located, show that Moreno, under the names Jeffery G. Escalante-Moreno or Jeffery G. Escalante, was charged in six criminal cases from 2005 to 2011. She is identified asfemaleinallofthem. A case filed in nearby Katy County after Moreno’s latest arrest in April 2022 also lists her as female, but with the name Genesse Ivonne Moreno. William Capasso, an attorney in Houston who represented Moreno for a portion of her divorce proceedings in 2021 to 2022, told The Associated Press that she went by Jeffrey Moreno-Carranza at the time. He said Carranza was her married name and noted that at that time “there was no indication that she was transgender.” “It is my understanding that although her birth name was Jeffrey Moreno, she was born female and identified as a female,” he wrote in an email. “She did use Genesse and may have changed her name to Genesse Moreno after I represented her.” Capasso added that Moreno used the name “Jeffrey Genesse Escalante Moreno” on her son’s birth certificate. He said he withdrew as Moreno’s attorney in the proceedings because he was not able to communicate with her effectively. Many social media posts used claims about Moreno’s gender identity to advance a baseless narrative that there has been a rise in transgender or nonbinary mass shooters in recent years. This narrative previously spread widely in March 2023, after an assailant who identified as transgender killed six people at a Nashville private school. Gender and criminology experts told The Associated Press at the time that mass casualty shootings perpetrated by someone identifying as transgender or nonbinary are rare and that those groups are far more likely to be the victims of violence. Authorities said on Monday that Moreno used a legally purchased AR-15 style rifle to carry out the attack at Lakewood Church, one of the biggest megachurches in the U.S. She was shot and killed by two off-duty officers working security at the building. Two other people were shot and wounded, including Moreno’s young son, who she brought with her to the church. If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

i have a crush on you jj..................

i take a third and it tears me up. i have smoke over fifty years with no problem. moderation sometimes is your friend.

i had to go to the grocery store and i do not drive high so i am NOT high but i will be. i am calling all i was aroundfor the covid thing.

i gave a friend a valentines gift wednesday and i just got a call she has covid. i feel fine but i am not sure about my docs appointment monday. i would feel bad if i ever got someone else sick. i lost several friends to that crap. they say five days and you are gold but i am not sure if i should go or not. lol when it rains it pours.

you would think trump would be sharper with all that adderall folks claims he takes..........

i stay in trouble and you are very welcome!

if you have not read some of the mantle books you missed some epic stories golf. killing cows, crawling around a highrise on a ledge drunk and had to crawl all the way around because the ledge was too narrow to turn around or crawl backwards. i have a ton of his stuff as far as memorabilia goes. a great movie to watch is 61. i still watch that every year or so.

Welcome to the board! i had not noticed you before. i am nobody on the board i just wanted to say hello.

come by the house big shooter and i will give you a gummy. and i am stingy with my hoobie........

you are welcome to call me lunatic anytime.................