David William Cowens is an American retired professional basketball player and NBA head coach. At 6'9", he played the center position and played power forward. Cowens spent most of his playing career with the Boston Celtics, he was the 1971 NBA Rookie of the 1973 NBA Most Valuable Player. Cowens won NBA championships as a member of the Celtics in 1974 and 1976, he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1991. Cowens has held numerous NBA head coaching positions. Most Cowens served as an assistant coach and as a special assistant to Detroit Pistons President of Basketball Operations Joe Dumars. After starring in high school at Newport Catholic High in his hometown of Newport, Cowens played his collegiate basketball at Florida State University from 1967 to 1970, he scored 1,479 points in 78 games at Florida State, at 19.0 points per game, ranks among Florida State's top 10 all-time scoring leaders. He is the all-time Florida State leading rebounder with 1,340 rebounds, he holds the team record for best seasonal rebound average.
He once grabbed 31 rebounds against LSU in the 1968–69 season. He was named The Sporting News All-America second team in 1970, his number now hangs in the rafters of the Donald L. Tucker Center. Despite some critics who felt Cowens was too small to play center, Cowens was selected as the fourth overall pick by the Boston Celtics during the 1970 NBA draft at the recommendation of former Celtics center Bill Russell. "No one is going to tell that kid he can't play center," Russell said of Cowens. During his rookie year, Cowens averaged 15.0 rebounds per game. He was named to the NBA All-Rookie First Team and shared the NBA's Rookie of the Year honors with Portland's Geoff Petrie, he led the league in personal fouls that same year. In 1973, Cowens averaged 20.5 ppg, 16.2 rpg and 4.1 apg while helping the Celtics to a league-best 68–14 record. In that season Cowens scored 20 points, grabbed a career-high 32 rebounds and dished out 9 assists in a home win over the Houston Rockets, he carried the Celtics to the semifinals.
They won Game 1 of that best-of-7 series after Cowens recorded 18 rebounds. However, they bowed out to the Knicks in Game 7, he was chosen the NBA MVP as well as MVP of the All-Star Game that same season. Cowens and fellow Celtic Bill Russell both have the distinction of being named MVP of the league but not being included on the All-NBA First Team; the next season, Cowens averaged 19.0 PPG, 15.7 RPG, 4.4 APG and 1.3 BPG while guiding the Celtics to a record of 56-26. Cowens was instrumental in bringing the Celtics into the playoffs, where they defeated the Buffalo Braves in six games and the New York Knicks in five. In the finals, the Celtics faced the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks; the teams split the first six games, with each team winning at least once on their home court. This led to a decisive Game 7; the Celtics prevailed thanks to a strong performance by Dave Cowens, who recorded 28 points and 14 rebounds as the Celtics took their 12th NBA championship. John Havlicek was named the NBA Finals MVP.
As a testament to his all-around ability, Cowens is one of only five players to lead his team in all five major statistical categories for a season: points, assists and steals. He accomplished the feat in the 1977–78 season, averaging 18.6 points, 14.0 rebounds, 4.6 assists, 0.9 blocks and 1.3 steals as Boston finished 32-50. In his final Boston season, 1979–80, Cowens helped the Celtics improve to 61–21, after finishing 29–53 the season before. Cowens had served as player-coach for the remainder of the 1978–79 season after Satch Sanders was fired after a poor start. Alongside rookie Larry Bird in 1979-1980, Cowens averaged 14.2 points, 8.1 rebounds and 3.1 assists under coach Bill Fitch. Along with Bird, Tiny Archibald, Cedric Maxwell, Pete Maravich, Chris Ford, M. L. Carr and Rick Robey and the Celtics defeated the Houston Rockets 4-0 in the Eastern Conference playoffs, before losing to the Philadelphia 76ers with Julius Erving 4–1 in the Eastern Conference finals. Cowens averaged 13.2 points and 8.8 rebounds in the 76ers series.
Cowens retired as a player in 1980, as Boston drafted Kevin McHale and traded for Robert Parish to replace him at center. Boston won the 1981 NBA Championship. "I have sprained my ankle at least 30 times over the duration of my career, broken both legs and fractured a foot," Cowens said upon retiring. "Two years ago, a team of foot and bone specialists said they were amazed that I could play up to that point without sustaining serious injuries."However, in 1982–83, Cowens felt the itch to play again and talked to the Celtics about trading him, as they still held his rights. "I think that would be best," he said of a trade. "The Celtics are set up front. They could work something out. No disrespect to Bill Fitch. I'd advise any younger players to play for him, but I'd be better off somewhere else." After first negotiating with the Phoenix Suns, the Celtics traded Cowens to the Milwaukee Bucks, coached by former Celtic teammate Don Nelson. The Celtics received Quinn Buckner from Milwaukee as compensation.
Cowens averaged 8.1 points, 6.9 rebounds and 2.1 assists in 25 minutes per game with the Bucks, playing alongside Bob Lanier, Marques Johnson, Sidney Moncrief and Junior Bridgeman. The Bucks finished 51-31 and defeated Cowens' old team, the Boston Celtics, 4–0 in the Eastern Conference playoffs; the Bucks lost 4–1 to
William McClellan "Mac" Thornberry is an American politician serving as a U. S. Representative from the Texas Panhandle, he has served since 1995, when the House seated its first Republican majority in 40 years, signed the "Contract with America" authored by Speaker Newt Gingrich. A Republican, Thornberry represents Texas's 13th congressional district, the most Republican district in the United States by partisan voting index; the district stretches between the New Mexico borders. In September 2019, Thornberry announced that he will not run for reelection in 2020. In the 1880s, Thornberry's great-great-grandfather Amos Thornberry, a Union Army veteran, moved to Clay County, just east of Wichita Falls. Thornberry is a lifelong resident of Clarendon, 60 miles east of Amarillo in the heart of the 13th, his family has operated a ranch in the area since 1881. He received his Bachelor of Arts in history from Texas Tech University in Lubbock, he obtained his Juris Doctor from the University of Texas School of Law in Austin.
He served as a staffer to two other Texas Republican congressmen, Tom Loeffler and Larry Combest, as deputy assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs under Ronald Reagan before joining his brothers on the family ranch. Thornberry has called President Reagan "...a great man and a great president, ranking in the top tier of all of our chief executives." He practiced law in Amarillo. Thornberry is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Committee on Armed Services Republican Study CommitteeThornberry serves as Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, the first Texan of either party to hold this position; the committee oversees the Pentagon, all military services, all Department of Defense agencies, including agency budgets and policies. Thornberry lost his 2009 bid to chair the full Armed Services Committee to Buck McKeon, R-Calif. Who had more seniority, he served as vice chair of the full committee during McKeon's time as chairman. Since taking the committee gavel at the beginning of the 114th Congress, Thornberry has spearheaded a major Department of Defense acquisition reform effort that has received bipartisan and bicameral support from House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Adam Smith and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain.
Thornberry served on the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. On September 30, 2019 it was announced that Thornberry would not seek reelection in 2020. According to the National Journal Congressional Almanac, "In the House, Thornberry has compiled a solidly conservative voting record, though he has a pragmatic streak and is hardly the most ideological Republican in the Texas delegation. In keeping with his scholarly nature, his official website includes an essay explaining his philosophy and explaining his interest'in continuing to push government to work smarter and more efficiently.'"From January 1995 to July 2017, Thornberry missed 140 of 15,276 roll call votes, or 0.9%, fewer than the median of 2.2% among the lifetime records of representatives serving. Thornberry was critical of President Obama's 2010 arms control deal with Russia for precluding the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear nations, but he has been more pragmatic than other defense hawks. He served on a bipartisan commission in 2007 that drew up recommendations for winning the war in Iraq with both lethal and non-lethal approaches, such as diplomacy and foreign aid.
On domestic issues, Thornberry has pressed for repeal of the estate tax and for tax credits to encourage production of oil in marginal wells. In 2010 Thornberry sponsored a bill to expand access to state veterans' homes to parents whose children died while serving in the military; that bill became law. In January 2011 he introduced a bill to help states set up special health care courts staffed by judges with expertise in the subject; the judges would serve as an alternative to juries that Republicans say are inclined to award unnecessarily large damage amounts in malpractice cases. Thornberry has voted for term limits for U. S. Representatives, but does not intend to term-limit himself until a constitutional amendment is passed that imposes term limits on all members of Congress. Thornberry has pressed the house to pass a farm bill every five years in order to give farmers and ranchers more stability. In 2013 he voted for the five-year Farm Bill, which included annual cuts of $2 billion from food stamps, which would have been the largest change to food policy since 1996.
The House did not pass the bill. In 2012 Thornberry introduced the Smith-Mundt Modernation Act of 2012 to amend the 1948 Smith-Mundt Act prohibiting the domestic dissemination of propaganda produced for foreign audiences. In 2013 Thornberry introduced H. R. 2081, legislation to encourage production of all forms of domestic energy, including oil and gas and alternative energy and fuels. Thornberry has voted to open the Outer Continental Shelf to oil drilling, he has voted to bar the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases. He has voted against tax credits for renewable electricity. In July 2015, the President signed highway funding extension legislation into law, it included a provision based on a liquefied natural gas excise tax bill, H. R. 905, that Thornberry introduced with Rep. John Larson; the federal excise tax on LNG and diesel has been set at 24.3 cents per gallon. Because it takes 1.7 gallons of LNG to produce the same amount of energy as a gallon of diesel fuel, LNG is being taxed 70 percent higher than diesel.
The new law "levels the playing field" by applying the excise tax to LNG and diesel based on the amount of energy each produces, how it is applied to Compressed Natural Gas and gasoline. In 2011, House Spe
Ringen is the German language term for grappling. In the context of the German school of historical European martial arts during the Late Middle Ages and the German Renaissance, ringen refers to unarmed combat in general, including grappling techniques used as part of swordsmanship; the German tradition has records of a number of master-Ringer of the 15th to 16th centuries specializing in unarmed combat, such as Ott Jud. Medieval and early Renaissance wrestling treatises present both sport and combat techniques together as one art; the distinction is made more by modern practitioners than is present in historical sources, but in a select few examples the terms for sportive grappling or geselliges ringen and earnest unarmed combat or kampfringen were used to describe specific techniques which were only suitable for one scenario or the other. There are no known sources describing medieval rulesets for Ringen competition. However, many living folk wrestling styles in Europe are fought; the lack of detailed ground wrestling in the medieval wrestling treatises supports the theory that in both competition and combat the throw was more important than extended ground wrestling.
While sportive grappling had fixed rules that prohibited dangerous techniques starting in grappling hold and ending with a throw or submission, kampfringen can be considered a system of unarmed self-defense including punches, joint-locks, elbow strikes, chokeholds and kicks. The German tradition of ringen was eclipsed during the 17th century as the modern Baroque understanding of nobility precluded the participation of the higher classes in wrestling matches. Wrestling continued to be practiced among the lower classes, giving rise to the various traditional styles of folk wrestling. One of the primary men to have shaped Ringen at the dawning of the Renaissance appears to have been Austrian master Ott Jud. Ott was a master of the early 15th century, he is credited in multiple medieval combat treatises with a series of wrestling techniques, including joint breaks, arm locks and throws. No treatise from Ott's own hand has survived, but his system is taught by several fencing masters of the 15th century, including Hans Talhoffer, Peter von Danzig and Jud Lew.
Paulus Kal counts him among the "society of Liechtenauer", saying that he was wrestling teacher to the "lords of Austria". According to both Talhoffer and Lew, Ott was a baptized Jew. Other treatises that contain material both on ringen and on swordsmanship include those of Fiore dei Liberi, Fabian von Auerswald, Pietro Monte, Hans Wurm. Wrestling fell out of fashion among the upper classes with the beginning Baroque period. A late treatise on ringen is that by Johann Georg Passchen, published in 1659. Maybe the last book which deals with Ringen as a deadly martial art, is "Leib-beschirmende und Feinden Trotz-bietende Fecht-Kunst" from Johann Andreas Schmidt, published in Weigel, Nürnberg in 1713. Many manuals combine fencing and wrestling into a specialized branch of kampfringen called ringen am schwert, designed to be used during armed combat; this included closing techniques, weapon-seizures, pommel-strikes, weapon-aided joint-locks. Grappling techniques are central to the discipline of armoured fighting.
Several manuscripts detail grappling techniques for mounted rossfechten. Historical European Martial Arts German school of fencing Academic fencing History of wrestling Grappling Hand-to-hand combat Rainer Welle, "--und wisse das alle hobischeit kompt von deme ringen": Der Ringkampf als adelige Kunst im 15. Und 16. Jahrhundert, 1993, ISBN 3-89085-755-8