Rob Cell Phones

Nearly 400 people crammed into an auditorium at the Chinese 6 Theatres in the Hollywood Highland shopping center to watch “One Day on Earth,” a documentary made by thousands of volunteer filmmakers around the world to promote awareness about climate change and other global issues.

The sold-out screening Sunday afternoon was organized not by the theater or a major studio, but by filmmakers who promoted the movie to their fans through a new service called Tugg Inc. The Austin, Texas, start-up has launched a grass-roots movie distribution business that enables consumers to select the movies they want to see at local theaters.

Since its formal launch last month, Tugg has formed partnerships with several major theater circuits, including AMC, Regal, Cinemark and Rave Cinemas. It has hosted more than 50 “Tugg events” nationwide, filling auditoriums with specialty films — movies like Fox Searchlight’s “The Tree of Life” and the Stanley Kubrick classic “Dr. Strangelove” and documentaries such as “One Day on Earth” and Morgan Spurlock’s “Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope.”

“In the past, movie theaters have been forced to be somewhat narrow in their programming,” said Nicolas Gonda, chief executive and co-founder of Tugg. “Now, with Tugg, they can be as diverse as the interests and the imaginations of the people in their communities.”

As more theaters convert from film to digital, there is growing interest in using services like Tugg to program so-called alternative content and attract new customers to the multiplex at a time when long-term attendance in the U.S. has been on the decline, in part because consumers have more entertainment options.

The subject of how theaters can marshal the forces of social media to grow their business will be a hot topic this week at CinemaCon, the annual trade show in Las Vegas hosted by the National Assn. of Theatre Owners. Tugg will be among the participants at a panel discussion Thursday called Social Networking and Marketing in the Digital Age.

“It really seems like they have an innovative platform to reach people through social media in a way that we haven’t done before as exhibitors,” said Spencer Klein, senior vice president for alternative content at Rave and Bow Tie Cinemas.

Klein said was he particularly surprised when a group of architecture students at the University of Pennsylvania organized a sold-out Thursday night screening of “The Pruitt-Igoe Myth,” a new and relatively unknown documentary about the decline of American cities.

“It was pretty eye-opening,” he said.

AMC has hosted Tugg events in cities across the country, including one in Austin for a film called “Crazy Wisdom” about the Buddhist leader Chogyam Trungpa, which was organized by the Austin Shambhala Meditation Center. The tickets were sold out within a few hours and AMC had to move to a larger auditorium for the screening, held at 10 a.m. on a Thursday.

“It showed that there are guests out there who want to see some of this content that is not accessible through normal channels and who will mobilize if given the opportunity,” said Robert Lenihan, president of programming for AMC Theatres.

Each Tugg event is promoted by an “organizer” — which can be anyone, including a director, film blogger, film festival director, schoolteacher, church group leader or environmental activist — who chooses a film he or she would like to see in the local community. The organizers draw from a list of more than 300 titles on Tugg’s website, which includes independent, foreign and specialty films as well as repertory titles.

The organizer selects a local theater, locks in a date and then aggressively promotes the event using Facebook, Twitter or other social media. If people reserve enough tickets — a screening typically requires a minimum of 50 advance ticket purchases —- Tugg then books the film in one of the theaters that have signed up for its service.

Because tickets are purchased in advance, theater owners have a guarantee that they won’t be left holding the bag if no one shows up to see the film.

“It eliminates a huge question mark” for theater owners, said Gonda, whose company receives a fee for each ticket sold.

A film producer, Gonda got the idea for Tugg several years ago while working with filmmakers Steven Soderbergh and Terrence Malick. Gonda grew frustrated that many small communities around the country never had an opportunity to watch Malick’s “The New World” or “The Tree of Life” in their local theaters. Malick is among a group of advisors to Tugg, along with Ben Affleck and writer-director Richard Linklater, who serve on the company’s board.

“The genesis was asking the question: What is keeping films that people want to see in their local theaters from being seen in their local theaters?” Gonda said.

Tugg holds particular appeal in smaller, regional markets where it has become harder to screen independent or special films in theaters in recent years.

Spencer Howard, a 25-year-old college student who writes a movie blog in Columbus, Ga., is organizing a Tugg screening this Thursday of “Comic-Con Episode IV.” He posted a notice on his Facebook page encouraging people to reserve seats and handed out fliers at a local bookstore. Within a few days he had sold 57 tickets. He expects to have a nearly full house for the screening at a Carmike theater in Columbus.

“The feedback I’ve gotten is that people are delighted because they feel like they are part of creating this event,” said Howard, who already is organizing his next Tugg screening — for “Rocky” and a Spanish sci-fi movie. “The attitude is, ‘We don’t get anything cool here.’ By doing an event like this we can prove that wrong.”

richard.verrier@latimes.com

Since 2009, ATT has invested over 50 million dollars in its
South Dakota networks. Now, the mobile internet provider is
pushing a new campaign to prevent texting and driving, as well as
continuing to expand service in the state.

“It all boils down to really two things: coverage and speed,”
said Hardmon Williams, Vice President of the Northern Plains
ATT.

That’s what officials with ATT wanted to increase by
converting Alltel’s old network, and adding 16 new towers across
the state.  In part, to speed up service for customers.

“If you think about a highway for example, as it gets congested,
if you add a lane to the highway it allows cars to access it
faster and to travel faster as it’s on that highway. It’s the
same for our towers,” said Williams.

Plus, customers in several communities now get 4-G service.
According to state lawmakers, that type of technology can even
spur growth.

“We need to be at the forefront of technology. If we get kicked
to the dust bin in technology, we’re going to fall behind on
economic development, healthcare and education. So, it’s an
integral part of what we’re trying to do,” said State
Representative David Lust.

But ATT has another message, one of responsibility, which is
why the company has given a $5,000 grant to the South Dakota
Safety Council. In order to prevent texting and driving in young
people. Part of the “It Can Wait” campaign.

“‘It Can Wait’ basically has an important message of: 
texting, don’t text and drive. It’s a really important message to
get through to young South Dakota drivers,” said Cheryl Riley,
External Affairs Director for South Dakota ATT.

“Teenagers are new drivers to the road. It’s important for them
to be focused on the road when they are doing that driving, and
any distraction whether that be texting, talking on their phone,
punching things into their iPhone, listening to their iPod,
fiddling with their radio, or just messing around with other
teens in their car, other people.  I think it’s important
that we gave them every opportunity to focus on the job they need
to be doing and doing well which is driving safely,” said Colonel
Craig Price, Superintendent of the South Dakota Highway Patrol.

Trying to keep the dangers of texting and driving off of the
roadway, while expanding coverage to the community. The 4G
coverage is being provided in Rapid City and Sioux Falls along
with other western portions of the state.

The iPhone is a hot seller, but that doesn’t mean it’s a growth driver for the industry.

(Credit:
CNET)

ATT remains the king of the
iPhone, but that distinction means less with each passing quarter.

The Dallas telecommunications giant sold 4.3 million iPhones in the first quarter, more than 1 million more than Verizon Wireless, and almost certainly more than Sprint Nextel, which sold 1.8 million in the fourth quarter at the height of the iPhone 4S buzz.

So why did ATT only add a fraction of the contract customers that Verizon nabbed in the same period?

The results highlight an increasingly alarming trend with the wireless carriers: the decreasing benefit that the iPhone brings to customer growth. With the iPhone on virtually every carrier in the country — including small regional ones — it no longer has the cachet of being a hard-to-get exclusive device. Instead, it’s become the minimal offering every carrier needs just to compete, a disturbing turn considering the high cost of its subsidy.

“Most iPhone sales go to existing subscribers, so it isn’t a good proxy for growth,” said Craig Moffett, an analyst for Sanford Bernstein.

In fact, despite selling more iPhones in the period, ATT actually added fewer new customers than Verizon. Kevin Smithen, an analyst at Macquarie Securities, estimated that Verizon added 2.5 million new iPhone subscribers in the period, while ATT just added 903,000 (ATT said it’s closer to 1 million).

“We view margins as unsustainable and (expect) share losses to Verizon to accelerate,” Smithen said in a research note today.

In total, ATT added a net 187,000 postpaid subscribers, or customers willing to sign a two-year contract in exchange for a subsidized device. But Apple’s other product may have actually contributed more to growth, with 180,000 net new
tablets sold in the period. Apple’s new
iPad launched on ATT in March.

Apple iPad (March 2012, 16GB, Wi-Fi, black) (photos)

In comparison, Verizon added 501,000 postpaid subscribers in the same period.

That’s despite the fact that ATT has all three models of the iPhone available, including the 99-cent iPhone 3GS.

Much of ATT’s growth may have come from 180,000 net new tablets sold in the period — a vast majority of which likely came from the new iPad.

The minimal growth from the iPhone is why ATT is pushing so hard to diversify its product portfolio. Last year, the company tried to go aggressive with Android, but its customers continued to snap up iPhones. It recently embarked on a massive campaign with Nokia and Microsoft to push the Lumia 900 as its newest flagship product, and early response has been positive.

But in the first quarter, sales largely came from the iPhone. The 4.3 million iPhones represented a bulk of the 5.5 million total smartphones sold, which the company notes is a record for the period.

Verizon has actually been able to diversify its sales a bit more largely due to the work that it previously did to build up its own Droid franchise. Even when ATT had the exclusive lock on the iPhone, Verizon was able to weather the storm by offering up a strong lineup of Android devices.

ATT actually reported decent financial results in the first quarter, showing revenue growth and higher profitability. Much of that profitability came as a result of fewer iPhone upgrades, analysts noted.

ATT executives struck an optimistic tone on the conference call, highlighting a 20 percent jump in mobile data revenue and strong smartphone sales.

“Smartphone sales set a new record despite more iPhone competition,” said Ralph de la Vega, head of the company’s mobile business.

And while the iPhone isn’t bringing in as many new customers anymore, it is helping to retain existing ones. The turnover rate for iPhone customers was at the lowest point in more than a year, De la Vega noted. That’s largely because many of its customers are on family or business plans.

Those financial benefits are the ones that the iPhone have long promised, and ATT is starting to see them. But those benefits are tarnished in part by concerns that the company may not be able to keep the flow of new customers coming in.

While Verizon showed the ability to keep adding new customers, analysts note that it too is starting to feel the effects of slower growth, something the other carriers will likely see as well.

“We think this will be a common theme for the industry this quarter,” said Jonathan Chaplin, an analyst at Credit Suisse.

It’s unclear what the next catalyst for growth will be for the wireless industry, perhaps different data plans, connected devices, or some other new venture. But with the iPhone available nearly everywhere, it probably won’t be it.

Enrolling at Stanford may have been the best decision Andrew Luck ever made.

Not enrolling at Stanford seems to have worked out equally well for Robert Griffin III.

The quarterbacks will be the No. 1 and No. 2 picks in the NFL draft on Thursday night, with Luck going first to the Indianapolis Colts, then Griffin – the Heisman Trophy winner from Baylor – set to be picked by the Washington Redskins. So again, as they have plenty of times in recent months, Luck and Griffin will share the spotlight.

Just think – they almost shared a locker room, too.

And if they had, then maybe none of this would be happening.

“Looking back on it, it worked out really well for both those youngsters,” said Jim Harbaugh, the coach who tried to pull it off.

The story starts in 2007, when Griffin got a tantalizing offer from Stanford. In short, if he committed to the Cardinal, then the Cardinal would commit to trying a two-quarterback system with him and Luck. Harbaugh – now the coach of the San Francisco 49ers – was Stanford’s coach at the time, and after spending about an hour in his office chatting with Griffin came away with a strong inkling that he would win that recruiting battle.

A month later, the phone rang. It was Griffin. He apologized and said he was planning to enroll at Houston, where coach Art Briles was recruiting him. (When Briles went to Baylor, Griffin followed.)

“Thought we were really doing well with Robert,” Harbaugh said. “Loved looking at his transcript. He was a 4.0 student in high school. His test scores were extremely high. I mean, this to me was a Stanford guy. This was a Stanford kid. And then … he was going to go to Houston. That left a bruise. I really liked Robert. I really wanted Robert on our team. And I’ve been a big fan of his ever since.”

Griffin had offers from plenty of schools, from Harvard to Texas and countless spots in between. Stanford, he said, was tempting.

“I thought about it, but when you look at it, two-quarterback systems hardly ever work,” Griffin said a few weeks ago. “So I had to make the right call for myself at that time.”

A good call for both players, as it turned out.

Luck went 31-7 at Stanford, winning more games in those three years than the Cardinal won in the previous seven combined. Griffin threw for 59 touchdowns in his final two seasons at Baylor, completing 72 percent of his passes as a senior and winning the Heisman. And although no one can say for certain how the Luck-Griffin pairing with the Cardinal might have worked, no one can dispute the quarterbacks did just fine on their own as well.

“They were two of the best kids I ever recruited,” Harbaugh said. “We got one, one we didn’t. Certainly Andrew came in and did everything that we expected and more and led his team, led Stanford to heights that the school has never seen before. I mean, compare the won-loss record of Stanford before Andrew Luck got there and while he was there. It’s a pretty big contrast. Same with RG3. Look at him at Baylor. He did the same thing there.”

It will be the first time since 1999 that quarterbacks will be both the No. 1 and No. 2 picks in the draft, so it’s clear that a pairing like Luck and Griffin doesn’t come around every day.

If both went to Stanford, it almost certainly would have played out much differently, of course.

“There’s only one ball out there at a time,” Harbaugh said.

Luck is considered the prototypical quarterback type – 6-foot-4, 235 pounds, son of former NFL quarterback Oliver Luck. Griffin was a state champion sprinter in high school, and opponents may fear his legs as much as his arm at the pro level, just as teams did in the college ranks.

Their styles seem wildly different.

That’s not even close, Harbaugh insists.

“Really, the perception isn’t that relevant,” Harbaugh said. “But they’re both great athletes. I wouldn’t even compare them. They’re both great. They’re both extremely smart. They’re both extremely athletic. Both, great arm strength. Both throw the ball accurately. They’re both really good.”

For at least another year, Harbaugh can keep rooting for both from afar. Barring a postseason matchup, his 49ers won’t be seeing the Colts or the Redskins in the 2012 season.

And come draft night, he will be watching.

“Neat to be a small part of it,” Harbaugh said.

—

Follow Tim Reynolds on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/ByTimReynolds

NEW YORK (AP) — George Stephanopoulos doesn’t really get days off. He gets hours.

The co-host of ABC’s “Good Morning America” during the week and host of the Sunday political talk show “This Week” has both shows at such competitive crossroads this spring that his bosses are reluctant to give him time off.

“GMA” snapped the “Today” show’s 852-week winning streak the week before last, an event that set off parties at ABC (and a congratulatory steak and chocolate cake at the Stephanopoulos household). “This Week” is also slowly gaining ground lost in the ratings when Stephanopoulos was replaced at that show by Christiane Amanpour in 2010.

“For him, it’s a win-win,” said one of those bosses, ABC News executive Jon Banner. “He gets a lot of experiences and is able to dig into what he loves in bits and pieces every day of the week. And try to see his family at some points in between.”

It’s not a schedule built for the long term, but it’s made him the man of the moment at ABC News.

Stephanopoulos compartmentalizes. He’s in before dawn on weekdays to prepare for “Good Morning America,” and is on the air between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. Then he takes some time off, maybe goes to the gym. His afternoons are spent on political reporting for “World News” and lining up Sunday guests. Friday afternoon is his time of intense study for “This Week,” although that usually spills into Saturdays. Sunday is the show.

Oddly enough, only a small number of ABC viewers are aware of this schedule.

“In the last three months, I’ve had all these people come up to me on the street and say, ‘I’m so glad you’re back at ABC,’” Stephanopoulos said. “That’s the Sunday audience. My (weekday) morning audience has no idea that I’m on on Sunday. It’s just different worlds. The overlap is very small.”

He freely admits he would not be able to handle both jobs if “This Week” hadn’t moved the bulk of its operations from Washington to New York since he took over in January.

The idea of moving one of the Sunday public affairs shows out of Washington would have once seemed highly controversial, yet ABC achieved it with hardly anyone noticing. Competitors “Meet the Press” on NBC and “Face the Nation” on CBS remain in Washington. The “This Week” discussion roundtable, which on Sunday included Keith Olbermann, is done in New York. Technology enables Stephanopoulos to conduct interviews remotely. “It doesn’t matter where you do the show,” Banner said.

ABC’s Sunday viewership is up 11 percent over last year, the Nielsen company said. In an election year, “Meet the Press” (9 percent) and “Face the Nation” (7 percent) are up, too.

If Stephanopoulos experienced any buyer’s remorse about “Good Morning America,” he doesn’t say so. He extracted a promise from then-ABC News President David Westin when named co-host with Robin Roberts in December 2009 that the show would toughen up and become more newsy.

Since then, “GMA” has arguably gone in the opposite direction, particularly during the second hour. With the audience by then more than 70 percent female, Lara Spencer, Josh Elliott and Sam Champion take a larger role with a looser format focused more on pop culture.

“I was expecting different, there’s no question about that,” Stephanopoulos said. “I wasn’t sure how it was going to go. You never can be. But I’ve been pleasantly surprised that we’ve been able to make as much progress as we have. It was actually less difficult than I expected it to be to find my comfort zone inside all of it, in part because going in I got to keep on doing the other things I liked doing.”

With a looser format, Stephanopoulos said that if he thinks a story is silly he can readily say so on the air.

“George wants to win in the morning, like we all do and George understands that a morning television show has different parts at different times in the morning,” said Tom Cibrowski, senior executive producer of “Good Morning America.” ”I would contend that the program is just as newsy as it always has been. George has had the opportunity to interview countless presidents and newsmakers since he’s been there. There’s nothing he likes more than being able to drive the news cycle with his interviews.”

Doing both shows makes it easier to do each one, Stephanopoulos said.

“The great thing about ‘GMA’ is it’s a lot of broadcasting,” he said. “You get better by doing it. You learn the rhythms and you’re up on everything — even things you never thought you’d be up on. That makes it more fun to dive deep on the ‘This Week’ stuff. I can relax and have fun with the other stuff on ‘GMA.’”

Given the trends, Stephanopoulos said he’d been expecting ABC to end the “Today” winning streak this spring, but he had anticipated that moment would come in May.

His political instincts were at play last Monday, when preliminary Nielsen numbers indicated ABC had won the previous week. ABC News leaders were cautious in their reaction, waiting for the release of more definitive ratings on Thursday. But Stephanopoulos noticed that “Today” executive producer Jim Bell had issued a congratulatory quote — effectively a losing candidate’s concession speech — and issued his own celebratory Tweet that made most stories about the achievement.

Stephanopoulos now generally takes one weekend off from “This Week” a month. But if he anticipated one week’s win on “Good Morning America” would allow him to begin regularly taking a day off during the week, he may have to think again.

“You win one week of something,” Banner said, “it makes you want to win more.”

___

David Bauder is on email at dbauder(at)ap.org or Twitter (at)dbauder.

NEW YORK — Hidden in ATT Inc.’s financial statements is a story that runs counter to its optimistic profit projections: The company is generating less rjevenue from each new smartphone subscriber.

Calculations by the Associated Press, based on ATT’s public statements, indicate that the average monthly bill for its smartphone subscribers has fallen from $88 to $80 in the space of a year.

That number should be of great concern to Dallas-based ATT, because like most big phone companies, it is struggling with a slowdown in new subscribers. Nearly all adults —and many kids— in the U.S. already have cellphones. ATT’s executives have been touting smartphones as the solution, since the devices require consumers to pay for data use in addition to voice calls. Smartphone subscribers, therefore, pay more. So moving customers from regular phones to smartphones will keep boosting revenue, ATT has said.

But an analysis of ATT’s own figures indicates that smartphone bills have shrunk by 9 percent over a year, challenging the company’s picture of long-term revenue growth.

The Associated Press’ calculations are based on various figures ATT makes public —and a bit of basic algebra. The company doesn’t disclose the average smartphone bill, but says it’s 90 percent higher than the average non-smartphone bill. ATT reveals the number of smartphone and non-smartphone subscribers, and the average monthly bill for a contract-based plan, which is $64.46. Together, these numbers allow for an approximate calculation of the average smartphone bill.

ATT did not explicitly confirm the calculations, but its chief financial officer, John Stephens, said that the composition of new smartphone customers is changing. The early smartphone adopters were business people and others willing and able to pay high monthly fees. Now, ATT and other phone companies are going after people who can’t pay as much.

“We go after the biggest spenders at the start, that’s natural economics,” he said.

But even these lower-paying customers are profitable, he said, because they use the network less.

In a more typical projection, Ralph de la Vega, the head of ATT’s wireless division, told analysts Tuesday that demand for wireless data is going to continue to drive an increase in monthly bills.

“Quite frankly, it’s hard for us to see a cap on that,” de la Vega said.

Bills for non-smartphone subscribers on contract-based plans are shrinking at about the same rate. Only by shifting these subscribers to smartphone contracts has ATT been able to keep its average monthly bill for all contract-based plans rising, by 1.7 percent from a year ago.

ATT, the country’s largest telecommunications company, reported first-quarter results Tuesday morning, showing that it essentially gained no phone subscribers on contract-based plans in the first quarter. That’s only happened once before: A year ago, when Verizon launched its version of the iPhone.

Contract-based plans are by far the most lucrative for a phone company, and the number of new customers is an important measure of growth.

ATT gained a net 187,000 customers on contract-based plans in the January to March period, but these were almost all tablet computer users, brought in by the launch of the new iPad in March.

By contrast, Verizon last week reported adding 501,000 subscribers on contract-based plans, of which about half were tablet users.

Over the last five quarters, Verizon has added nearly three times as many contract subscribers as ATT. Over the previous two years, the rivals split new subscribers nearly evenly.

ATT gained a net 726,000 subscribers of all kinds in the first quarter, counting ones on no-contract plans and ones on non-phone devices like e-readers and tablet computers. That was the lowest figure in eight years, and less than a third of the number of subscribers added in the same period last year.

The head of ATT’s wireless business, Ralph de la Vega, said a drop in sales of e-readers that connect to ATT’s network was behind much of the smaller increase in overall subscribers.

Amazon.com Inc. has been selling Kindle e-readers that use ATT’s network, but its new flagship device, the Kindle Fire, only uses Wi-Fi.

Weak subscriber figures are usually good for a phone company’s earnings in the short term because it doesn’t have to subsidize new devices.

The Dallas-based company’s net income for the January-March period was $3.6 billion, or 60 cents per share, up 5 percent from $3.4 billion, or 57 cents per share, a year earlier.

Analysts polled by FactSet were on average expecting earnings of 57 cents per share for the latest quarter.

In particular, ATT saved money by selling fewer iPhones than analysts expected. ATT subsidizes each new iPhone by hundreds of dollars, hoping to make the money back over time in the form of service fees.

ATT said it activated 4.3 million iPhones in the first quarter. That was down from 7.6 million in the fourth quarter, when ATT began selling the iPhone 4S. However, the number was still up from the 3.6 million iPhones ATT sold in the same quarter a year ago.

Revenue was $31.8 billion, up 2 percent from a year earlier. It matched analyst expectations.

DALLAS (AP) Larry Brown has returned to college coaching.

Brown was formally introduced Monday as the men’s basketball coach at SMU, his first college job in nearly a quarter century.

The 71-year-old Hall of Famer joked about his age and said he looked forward to coaching ”quality basketball with quality student-athletes” at a school that has long struggled to be relevant in Dallas and nationally. SMU has not won an NCAA tournament game since 1988 – the same year Brown won a national title at Kansas in his last season in college.

Brown brushed off questions about how long he would stay at SMU, saying he thought the Mustangs had the resources to compete in the Big East when it joins the conference in 2013.

”When I look in the mirror, I get kind of scared,” Brown said. ”But inside, I feel like I can do this forever.”

[ Related: Larry Brown loses cool line on résumé with SMU job ]

Brown is the only coach to win both an NCAA championship and an NBA title. He hasn’t coached since leaving the Charlotte Bobcats in December 2010.

Brown is taking over a program that has revamped its facilities and has lots of top high school talent nearby. Standing outside the half-century-old Moody Coliseum, which is set to undergo $40 million in renovations, Brown said he saw the arena as ”the same kind of facility” as Cameron Indoor Stadium, Duke’s home court.

”Walking around this campus, if we can get a kid to visit here, I can’t imagine him going anywhere else,” Brown said.

Brown replaces Matt Doherty, who was fired after six seasons. Doherty attended the news conference at Brown’s invitation, as did Kansas coach Bill Self. Brown and Doherty – both of whom have ties to North Carolina and legendary coach Dean Smith – met the team together after the hiring.

”My biggest concern in this process was that they hire a good coach and a good person for my players and my recruits, because I care about those kids,” Doherty said. ”And they did it.”

Brown embraced the generations separating him and his players, saying he long ago wanted to coach basketball at a strong academic school.

He told his players about two Hall of Fame coaches, Frank McGuire and Henry Iba. When the players didn’t know who either man was, Brown joked that he didn’t want to ask about James Naismith, who invented basketball more than a century ago.

When Brown on called out, ”I’m talking about practice” – referencing Allen Iverson’s famous 2002 rant when Brown coached the Philadelphia 76ers – he pointed to several players and asked, ”Do you guys know what I’m talking about?”

Guard London Giles said he did.

”Larry Brown, he has a lot of history under his belt,” Giles said afterward. ”We’re eager to learn from him.”

Details of Brown’s deal with SMU, a private school, were not disclosed. Brown declined to talk about his contract, other than to say, ”I’ve always been overpaid and this is no exception.”

The hire came as SMU’s search was going into its sixth week. Among other candidates were Marquette’s Buzz Williams, Long Beach State’s Dan Monson and Rick Majerus from Saint Louis.

Brown said he didn’t mind if he wasn’t the first choice and suggested he would have a longer tenure than many people expect.

”I don’t want people to think I’m just doing this for a little while,” Brown said. ”I don’t feel like, you know, one, two, three, four years. I want to be in this for the long haul.”

Brown has a reputation for impressive turnarounds and often messy departures from teams. HIs first coaching job was at Davidson in 1972, though he didn’t coach a game there before going to the ABA and then the NBA. He coached at UCLA (1979-81) and Kansas (1983-88) and was the coach of the 2004 U.S. Olympic team that had a disappointing bronze-medal finish.

He has held a record nine NBA jobs and was 1,098-904 (.548 winning percentage) with Denver, New Jersey, San Antonio, the Los Angeles Clippers, Indiana, Philadelphia, Detroit, the New York Knicks and Charlotte. He took all of those teams but the Knicks to the playoffs.

SMU last went to the NCAA tournament in 1993. Doherty was fired March 13 with one year left on his contract after going 80-109 in six seasons.

Brown’s hiring was welcomed by Dallas Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle, who was fired by the Pistons in 2003 and replaced by Brown. Brown won a championship in his first season and took the Pistons to the NBA finals again before leaving to join the Knicks.

”It’s a big-time hire,” Carlisle said. ”He’s a guy that I know well, he’s a friend. To get a guy in that stature and status to the city of Dallas to coach at SMU, it’s a big deal. It’s a big deal. He’ll do a great job.”

—-

AP Basketball Writer Stephen Hawkins contributed to this report.

Other popular content on Yahoo! Sports:

• Pat Forde: Arkansas hit a home run hiring John L. Smith as football coach

• NFL veteran Brian Dawkins announces his retirement on Twitter

• Young boy tosses gifted ball back to Kansas City Royals

Almost three years after it began,
the U.S. recovery may strengthen as autos and housing begin to
reemerge as mainstays of growth.

“The traditional engines that tend to give you a recovery
are kicking in now,” Joseph Carson, director of global economic
research at AllianceBernstein LP in New York, said in an
interview. “We’re seeing confirmation of sustainability from
all sides. That’s a real business cycle.”

Over the past two quarters, measures normally associated
with early stages of lasting rebounds, including hours worked,
employment, consumer and business sentiment, household spending
on durable goods and residential investment, have picked up in
tandem, said Carson. Ian Shepherdson at High Frequency Economics
Ltd. is betting the comeback from the worst financial crisis
since the Great Depression will be rooted in a thawing of
lending, an area that usually lags behind.

Household spending led by durable goods like automobiles,
as well as gains in homebuilding, may account for more than half
of the first-quarter advance in gross domestic product,
according to Carson. Those two areas contributed 1.7 percentage
points to the 3 percent gain in gross domestic product at an
annual rate in the fourth quarter and probably made a similar
contribution in the past three months, he said.

That marks a shift from the period following the recession.
Exports and business investment accounted for about 70 percent
of the 2.4 percent growth seen in the first nine quarters of the
recovery, compared with a historical contribution of about 20
percent in rebounds spanning the past five decades, according to
Carson, who worked as an economist at the Commerce Department.

Shares Fall

U.S. stocks joined a global selloff today as political
uncertainty in France and the Netherlands intensified concern
about Europe’s sovereign debt crisis. The Standard Poor’s 500
Index fell 0.8 percent to 1,366.94 at the 4 p.m. close in New
York. So far this year, the SP 500 is up 8.7 percent amid signs
the U.S. is gaining strength.

The world’s largest economy grew at a 2.5 percent pace from
January through March, according to the median estimate of
economists surveyed by Bloomberg News before the Commerce
Department’s report on April 27. Carson projects the gain will
be 3.5 percent. Consumer spending rose at a 2.3 percent rate,
the best performance in more than a year, the Bloomberg survey
showed.

One stand-out in the rebound for consumer durable goods is
automobiles, typical of the early stages of a lasting expansion,
Carson said. Cars and light trucks sold in the first quarter at
the strongest pace in four years, according to Ward’s Automotive
Group. The pickup is linked to job gains, according to Mark Fields, president of the Americas at Ford Motor Co. (F) (F)

Auto Sales

“Bolstered by a recent strengthening in the economy and
the improving employment situation, U.S. industry sales have
surged in the early months of 2012,” Fields said in a
conference presentation telecast on April 4.

Ford this month raised its 2012 forecast for total U.S.
vehicle sales to as much as 15 million. If Ford’s prediction is
on the mark, industrywide vehicle purchases would rise by about
2 million this year from 12.7 million in 2011, according to
Carson. Such an increase has occurred only three times in the
past 40 years, and in each of those cases — 1971, 1976 and 1984
– an economic recovery was taking hold, he said.

“We’re starting to see improvement in consumer confidence
and, combined with rising fuel prices and aging vehicles, the
market is starting to move,” Bob Carter, Toyota Motor Corp.’s
group vice president for U.S. sales, told reporters on April 5
at the New York auto show. “It’s happening quicker than anyone
thought.”

Credit Easing

Consumers won’t be the only ones buying more vehicles,
predicts Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at Valhalla, New
York-based High Frequency Economics. Credit is starting to
become more readily available, which will make it possible for
small- and medium-sized companies to replace aging delivery
trucks, he said. That means business investment probably won’t
slow much this year, according to Shepherdson.

“We are seeing a real recovery in bank credit,” he said
in an interview. “In an economic cycle that has been defined by
a credit event, credit is not a lagging indicator, it’s a
missing link.”

Bank loans to commercial and industrial companies have
climbed 14 percent in the 52 weeks ended April 11, the biggest
year-to-year gain since November 2008, according to Federal
Reserve data.

‘Easier’ Credit

“The credit situation couldn’t be described as easy, but
it can be described as easier,” said Shepherdson. “The economy
will therefore take off properly.” Shepherdson and Carson both
forecast the economy will grow 3 percent this year, compared
with a 2.3 percent median estimate of economists surveyed by
Bloomberg this month.

Steve Latin-Kasper, director of market data and research at
the Detroit-based National Truck Equipment Association, is among
those with first-hand knowledge of the improvement.

“We’re seeing demand not just for consumer durables, but
for capital equipment as well,” he said in an interview.
“We’ll continue to see steady growth in spending.” Latin-
Kasper projects the economy will grow about 3 percent this year
and is not ruling out a 4 percent gain in 2013.

Not everyone is as optimistic. Household finances and the
job market aren’t robust enough to encourage consumers to
splurge, cooling global growth will restrain exports, and
housing “is going nowhere,” said Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S.
economist at Maria Fiorini Ramirez Inc. in New York. Monetary
and fiscal policy are also limited in their ability to spur
growth.

No ‘Breakaway’

“The economy has not yet reached a breakaway momentum,”
Shapiro, who forecasts GDP will rise 1.9 percent this year, said
in an interview. “We’re still muddling through. Consumers
aren’t ready to open their wallet in any grand manner” and
“are increasingly aware they’re going to have to fend for
themselves as there will be less government largesse.”

Housing will play a bigger role as employment improves,
consumers repair balance sheets and more people move away from
their families and gain confidence to strike out on their own,
according to Shepherdson and Carson.

Rising home sales ripple through the economy by spurring
demand for everything from building materials like paints to
furniture and electronics, said Shepherdson.

Purchases of building materials jumped 22 percent in the
first quarter from the prior three months, after rising 10
percent, according to Carson’s calculations.

While unseasonably mild temperatures probably boosted
demand, “there is no way that that entire increase is a weather
effect,” said Shepherdson. “Some of the rebound is real and
sustainable.”

To contact the reporter on this story:
Shobhana Chandra in Washington at
schandra1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Christopher Wellisz at
cwellisz@bloomberg.net

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) It seemed as if Denny Hamlin was out for a Sunday afternoon drive at Kansas Speedway, hanging around the leaders most of the day but never really giving anybody too much reason to worry.

Turned out that Hamlin was playing possum, just as he did at Phoenix earlier this year.

His team kept making slight adjustments on every stop and had his Toyota dialed in late in the race when Hamlin charged past Martin Truex Jr. for the lead. He then held off Truex’s last-ditch move with two laps remaining to win for the second time this season.

”It felt a lot like Phoenix in the sense of we kind of hung around the top five all day,” said Hamlin, whose best finish at Kansas had been third last year.

”At the end we just kind of make our charge, make our run, and there were some things that had to happen the last run really for us to work out, and those things happened.”

The victory gave his Joe Gibbs Racing team some momentum heading to Richmond, where the Virginia driver has won twice before – and where he certainly won’t sneak up on anybody.

”We’ve had good cars, we got the win at Phoenix, and we’ve had consistent good performances,” crew chief Darian Grubb said. ”All these details are starting to add up.”

Jimmie Johnson was third for Hendrick Motorsports, which has failed in 14 tries to win the team’s milestone 200th race. Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kasey Kahne also finished in the top 10.

”I was just watching from the third spot, hoping those guys would give me an opportunity,” Johnson said. ”I just wish I was closer to those guys to race for it.”

Long green-flag runs on Sunday gave Hamlin the chance to sit back and watch as the race unfolded, never pressing for the lead until it mattered. When that happened, his team had made enough right decisions that he powered to the front as the sun finally broke through.

”They didn’t panic,” team owner J.D. Gibbs said. ”They paced themselves, and I’m glad the sun stayed out a little at the end.”

Truex dominated most of the afternoon, leading a race-high 173 laps, but had to settle for second place. It was his third top-five finish of the season, but he’s yet to win in 175 races.

”Sorry guys, I lost this one for you,” a despondent Truex radioed to his team.

”Hey man, you did a great job,” came the reply. ”They know we were here.”

Truex said his final set of tires cost him. He was the loosest he’d been all race, and that allowed Hamlin to charge into the lead. Truex rallied within a car length, but he couldn’t make a final move on the bottom side stick, allowing Hamlin to pull away.

”I guess if we can be this frustrated with second, it tells you how close we are as a team,” said Truex, who hasn’t won since Dover in 2007. ”The race car was really good. I’m just not really sure what to think about that last set of tires. I was just wrecking-loose that last set.”

Truex called the performance a statement moment for Michael Waltrip Racing.

Hamlin is starting to have a statement season.

He won this year at Phoenix, started on the pole at California, and led 31 laps a couple weeks ago at Martinsville before finishing sixth. He was 12th last week at Texas.

”It’s hard to analyze your program by a one-week performance,” he said. ”There are always areas that we need to work in. We feel like we’ve identified those areas and we’ve gone to work on them. So right now I feel like we’re bringing better race cars to the track.”

Matt Kenseth finished fourth despite having a wild afternoon trying to get into the pits, often sliding across the line at the start of pit road. Greg Biffle followed up his victory last week at Texas with a fifth-place run, though he didn’t have the car to contend at Kansas.

”It was a tough day,” Biffle said. ”We were back and forth all day, and we were off just a bit. When the track had a lot of grip the car was unbelievable.”

Kevin Harvick was sixth, followed by Earnhardt and Kahne, giving Hendrick Motorsports at least three cars in the top-10 for the second straight week.

Jeff Gordon had engine trouble late in the race and finished 21st.

The 14-race drought for Hendrick is its longest since going 15 races without a win during the 2002 and ’03 seasons. The streak began after Johnson’s win last October at Kansas.

”Everybody here needs a win for one reason or another,” Earnhardt said. ”We’re all working really hard, but I’m not really focusing on homing in on that too heavily. You’ve got to think about what your car’s doing and what you need to do to help your car.

”Make your car faster, then the wins eventually take care of themselves.”

The pressure will continue to mount on the four-car team, though. And when Johnson was asked whether he’ll be relieved when someone gets the win, his reply came through unvarnished: ”More than you could ever imagine,” he said.

Other popular content on Yahoo! Sports:
• Metta World Peace throws anything but a peaceful elbow at James Harden’s head
• Video: Ex-NBA center Matt Geiger does best Steve Bartman impression at Rays game
• Roundtable: Which players will live up to their NFL draft hype – and which won’t?

Six years later, Kent resident and former Kent State University standout Ben Curtis is a PGA Tour champion again.

His victory Sunday in the Texas Open didn’t come easy. Neither did his words describing the redemption of nearly a decade spent falling from British Open champion to, this year, waiting by the phone simply for a chance to play.

His voice quivered, and his eyes welled up.

“It’s been a tough couple years just fighting through it,” Curtis said.

Holding off Matt Every and John Huh in a tense back-nine finish, Curtis finished with flourish by holing a 12-footer for birdie on the par-5 18th, sealing a two-stroke victory and his fourth PGA Tour title. His even-par 72 put him at 9 under and triggered a wave of emotions that Curtis said he didn’t know were in him.

Curtis won $1,116,000 and a two-year tour exemption — a more meaningful reward after being relegated to a status so low that this victory came in just the fourth PGA Tour event he managed to get into this year.

“You think you’re just staying positive and not worried about it, but I think deep down, you realize all the hard work you put in that, you know, finally paid off,” Curtis said.

It was 2003 when Curtis kissed the Claret Jug at Royal St. George’s with a square jawline and closely cropped black hair. This time, he was handed a pair of cowboy boots, smiling with a rounder face and a better appreciation of the journey.

“When you come out here and win one, well, if I win one every year I have a great career. That would be true,” Curtis said. “But, you know, to get to three, four, five wins — you’re a solid player. I just feel like you get yourself into contention and just have that belief, and anything can happen.”

Every had a 71 and lost a chance at his first tour win with a shaky putter. Huh roared back with a 69, but the Mayakoba Classic winner fell just short of completing what would have been a remarkable comeback.

Huh nearly withdrew Thursday when he plunged to 5 over through only his first three holes and finished with a 77. But he rebounded with rounds of 68 and 67 to give Curtis and Every another player to worry about Sunday.

“I didn’t really expect too much, final round,” Huh said.

While Huh’s first round was ultimately too big of a hole to overcome, Every couldn’t close the deal after starting the tournament with a course-record 63. Four blown putts from 9 feet or closer — including a 6-footer for birdie — kept Every a stroke back until Curtis birdied No. 18.

It was nonetheless a validating week for the 28-year-old Floridian, whose only name recognition in three winless years on the tour was a misdemeanor marijuana arrest as a rookie in 2010. That earned a PGA Tour suspension, and even now, Every’s official biography lists regaining his tour privileges as his biggest achievement.

“A little bummed out,” Every said. “Kind of a pillow fight there for a while between the three of us.”

If missing one badly needed putt after another was a learning experience, Every didn’t want to hear it.

“Been hearing that for about 15 years,” Every said. “But I don’t know, man. I mean they got to go in sometimes and it didn’t today, but maybe it will one day. Saving for something bigger, maybe.”

Defending champion Brendan Steele, a distant afterthought for three rounds, made himself known again at TPC San Antonio with a bogey-free 67 to finish an impressive weekend climb from 56th. He tied for fourth with Bob Estes (69), Brian Gay (70), and Charlie Wi (71) at 5 under.

Curtis wasn’t the only emotional player on No. 18. Scott Piercy walked to the final hole tied for fourth at 5 under but walked off snapping his putter in half with two furious strikes over his knee. That was after the tour journeyman quadruple-bogeyed in a meltdown that started with a penalty stroke and ended with him tossing his glove in disgust after two-putting.

Piercy finished the round at par and eight back. Matt Kuchar, the tournament’s top-ranked player at No. 15, had a 73 to finish at 2 under.

Legends of Golf

David Frost and Michael Allen won the Champions Tour’s Legends of Golf, shooting a 10-under 62 for a one-stroke victory over John Cook and Joey Sindelar in the better-ball event in Savannah, Ga.

Front and Allen, coming off a victory last week at TPC Tampa Bay, finished at 29-under 187 at The Club at Savannah Harbor. Cook and Sindelar, former Ohio State teammates, closed with a 61.

Andy Bean and Chien Soon Lu (62), Jeff Sluman and Brad Faxon (63), and Tom Purtzer and Brad Bryant (64) tied for third at 27 under.

China Open

Branden Grace won the China Open for his third European Tour victory of the year, closing with a 3-under 69 to hold off 2011 winner Nicolas Colsaerts by three strokes in Tianjin, China.

The 23-year-old Grace, from South Africa, finished at 21-under 267 at Binhai Lake. He won the Joburg Open and Volvo Champions in consecutive weeks in South Africa in January.

Colsaerts, the winner last year at Luxehills, also shot a 69.

The event also was sanctioned by the OneAsia Tour and China Golf Association.

Indonesian Masters

Third-ranked Lee Westwood successfully defended his Indonesian Masters title, shooting a 2-over 74 for a two-stroke victory over Thailand’s Thaworn Wiratchant in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Westwood played 32 holes Sunday, finishing off a 65 in the rain-delayed third round. He had a 16-under 272 total. Thaworn finished with a 67 in the Asian Tour event.