AUSTIN, Texas (AP) â" As a radio college football researcher for ESPN, Craig James is beamed into vital bedrooms and sports bars opposite a nation each week.
Back home in Texas, he's a polarizing figure who was inextricable in Texas Tech University's preference to glow football manager Mike Leach in 2009 and was a member of a record-setting Southern Methodist University football group in a early 1980s when a module entered a array of scandals that eventually forced a NCAA to close it down.
As James weighs either to run for Senate as a Republican, his football resume could harm him as most as assistance in a state preoccupied by a game.
ESPN pronounced Friday James asked to be authorised to not work subsequent Tuesday night's Beef O'Brady's bowl, fueling conjecture that he will enter a competition to fill a chair vacated by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. The deadline to enter a competition had been Monday, yet a sovereign justice on Friday changed a deadline to Feb. 1.
Telephone and email messages to James were not immediately returned Friday. James' friend, Roy Bailey, a Dallas word executive who has been one of Texas Gov. Rick Perry's tip fundraisers, pronounced James is still undecided.
"He's very, really severely considering this," Bailey said. "He is usually sick, as a lot of people are, during what's going on in Washington D.C. ... If he gets in, I'm all in with him."
James, a former actor during Southern Methodist University and in a NFL, is a obvious sports figure both in Texas and around a country. But his name approval could harm him, quite behind home.
James played during SMU from 1979-1982 and was a vital partial of a record-setting "Pony Express" backfield with Eric Dickerson. Though a Mustangs won Southwest Conference championships in 1981 and 1982, a group was also inextricable in several NCAA investigations.
In 1987, a NCAA strike SMU with a supposed "death penalty" for steady infractions, shutting down a module for a year after anticipating SMU had continued to compensate players after earnest in 1985 it would stop. SMU also chose not to play in 1988 since a NCAA would have singular a Mustangs to usually 7 games, nothing during home.
The liaison is generally deliberate among a misfortune in college sports history. The sanctions intended by a NCAA decimated a Mustangs module and SMU stays a usually propagandize to be given a "death penalty."
James was never directly concerned in a NCAA transgressions and he has consistently denied any involvement.
Two years ago, James was concerned in a banishment of Leach, a winningest manager in Texas Tech history, after James complained to propagandize administrators that Leach mistreated his son, Adam James, by twice grouping him to mount for hours cramped in a dim place after he got a concussion.
Leach denies mistreating a younger James and has pronounced Craig James had called coaches perplexing to get his son some-more personification time. Leach also pronounced he suspects an $800,000 reward he was due on Dec. 31, 2009, was a reason he was fired.
Leach sued a university and named Craig James as a defendant. The box is tentative before a Texas Supreme Court. Many Red Raiders fans sojourn indignant that Leach was dismissed and some censure James for his ouster.
Austin domestic consultant and lobbyist Bill Miller pronounced a discuss won't indispensably be bad for James if it keeps him alive in a domestic conversation.
"It puts him in a center of a open discuss about a flattering critical issue," Miller said. "That's good for a candidate."
As a college football researcher and tone commentator, partial of James' pursuit during ESPN is to take clever positions on that teams merit tip play bids or that players merit inhabitant awards.
That can win fans or remove them each week depending on what he says about their favorite teams and players.
James also is a domestic beginner who has never hold inaugurated office. He would be fasten a primary already swarming with wealthy, absolute and gifted candidates.
"Late starts are usually killers," Miller said. "If we wish to attain in this business, you've got to give yourself time to debate and lift money. He's finished conjunction of those."
But James has friends among pivotal Texas Republicans and could organise a group of heavyweight fundraisers to assistance him locate up.
Bailey has worked with former New York mayor and former Republican presidential claimant Rudy Guliani.
Jim Lee, a Houston financier who was Gov. Rick Perry's debate financial authority in 2010 and is assisting lift income for Perry's presidential campaign, is one of 3 first partners on Texans for a Better America, a nonprofit James set adult in Apr to foster regressive policies.
Lee, who did not lapse write messages seeking criticism Friday, has already sent intensity James supporters an email perplexing to drum adult financial commitments.
James also is a house member during a Texas Public Policy Foundation, a regressive consider tank that is rarely successful with Texas Republicans.
He will need those connectors and inhabitant fundraising flesh to compete. He will expected find it formidable to lift adequate income in Texas alone to effectively contest with Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and his $200 million personal fortune, former Dallas mayor Tom Leppert and former Texas barrister ubiquitous Ted Cruz, all of whom have spent months campaigning, lifting income and collecting endorsements.
That means James will have bank on his contacts and fans outward a state to financial his campaign, something that his luminary and name approval should make easier.
After college, James was drafted by a Washington Federals in a USFL and sealed with a Patriots before a 1985 season. He late from football in 1989.
As a businessman, James has been concerned in ventures providing video calm for a Internet as good as genuine estate land and development, according to a Texans for a Better America website.
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Associated Press contributor Danny Robbins in Dallas contributed to this report.
News referensi http://news.yahoo.com/craigs-gop-connections-could-help-senate-run-223344467--spt.html
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7:02 PM Friday, December 16, 2011