The year of the girl dawns in China
The Tsinghua University first-year student Mia Wang has confidence to spare.
Asked what her home city of Benxi in China's far north-eastern tip is famous for, she flashes a cool smile and says: "Producing excellence. Like me."
A Communist Youth League member at one of China's top science universities, she possesses enviable skills in calligraphy, piano, flute and ping pong.
Such gifted young women are increasingly common in China's cities and make up the most educated generation of women in Chinese history. Never have so many been in college or graduate school, and never has their ratio to male students been more balanced.
To thank for this, experts say, is three decades of steady Chinese economic growth, heavy government spending on education and a third, surprising, factor: the one-child policy.
In 1978, women made up only 24.2 per cent of the student population at Chinese colleges and universities. By 2009, nearly half of China's full-time undergraduates were women, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
Since 1979, China's family planning rules have barred nearly all urban families from having a second child in a bid to stem population growth. With no male heir competing for resources, parents have spent more on their daughters' education and well-being, a groundbreaking shift after centuries of discrimination.
"They've basically gotten everything that used to only go to the boys," said Vanessa Fong, a Harvard University professor and expert on China's family planning policy.
Ms Mia and many of her female classmates grew up with tutors and allowances, after-school classes and laptop computers. Though she is just one generation off the farm, she carries an iPad and a debit card.
Ms Mia's all-girls dorm used to be jokingly called a "Panda House", because women were so rarely seen on campus. They now make up a third of the student body, up from one-fifth a decade ago.
Ms Fong says today's urban Chinese parents "perceive their daughters as the family's sole hope for the future", and try to help them to outperform their classmates, regardless of gender.
Crediting the one-child policy with improving the lives of women is, however, jarring for some. Facing pressure to stay under population quotas, overzealous family planning officials have resorted to forced sterilisations and late-term abortions, sometimes within weeks of delivery, although such practices are illegal.
The birth limits are also often criticised for encouraging sex-selective abortions in a society that favours sons. Chinese traditionally prefer boys because they carry on the family name and are considered better earners.
To combat the problem, China allows families in rural areas, where son preference is strongest, to have a second child if their first is a girl. The government has also launched education campaigns promoting girls and gives cash subsidies to rural families with daughters.
Ms Mia's birth in the spring of 1992 triggered a family rift that persists to this day. She was a disappointment to her father's parents, who already had one granddaughter from their eldest son. They had hoped for a boy.
"Everyone around us had this attitude that boys were valuable, girls were less," Gao Mingxiang, Ms Mia's paternal grandmother, said.
Small and stooped, Ms Gao perched on the edge of her farmhouse kang, a heated brick platform that in northern Chinese homes serves as couch, bed and work area. She wore three sweaters, quilted trousers and slippers.
Her granddaughter, tall and graceful and dressed in Ugg boots and a sparkly blue top, sat next to her listening.
Ms Fong, the Harvard researcher, says that many Chinese households are like this these days: a microcosm of third world and first world cultures clashing. The gulf between Ms Mia and her grandmother seems particularly vast.
The 77-year-old Ms Gao grew up in Yixian, a poor corn and wheat-growing county in southern Liaoning province. She had three children and never dared to dream what life was like outside the village.
She relied on her daughter to help around the house so her two sons could study.
Ms Mia's mother, Zheng Hong, grew up 300 kilometres away in the steel-factory town of Benxi with two elder sisters and went to vocational college for manufacturing.
Cam Newton, Miami Dolphins questions add intrigue
Usually, the second NFL preseason game suffers from Middle Child Syndrome. It’
s not the football fast breaker of the first preseason game, and the starters
play fewer minutes than the third preseason game. It’s not even the Jan Brady
of preseason games — after all, some of us liked Jan best.
But Friday’s 60 minutes at Sun Life Stadium that don’t count in the standings
actually look more appetizing than last weekend’s return to NFL football (or,
pseudo NFL football). There’s actual intrigue.
Or, to paraphrase that fine Friday night movie Pulp Fiction, this doesn’t look
like the normal getting-to-know-the-bottom-roster chit-chat. This game might
actually have something to say.
Carolina was nice enough to bring reigning Heisman Trophy winner-national
champion quarterback-No.1 overall draft pick Cam Newton and let him get the
Panthers’ party started.
Newton’s a fascinating freak, with the arm to throw over college defensive
backs and the legs to outrun them from a spread-option offense.
Friday night, we start to see how Newton’s skills translate to facing A-list
NFL opponents out of an NFL offense.
Who cares if it’s only for a quarter or a half or three-quarters of a half?
That’s more than you’d watch a Carolina preseason game — or, heck, regular-
season game — with any of the Panthers’ 2010 starters.
On the other sideline stands the local NFL team, whose starters went SPLAT!
against Atlanta’s first unit last week.
The defense that began training camp talking about being No. 1 in the NFL
provided less resistance than air. Backups began getting some playing time on
Atlanta’s second possession.
The Dolphins didn’t game plan for the Falcons. Also, Atlanta has one of the
most complete offenses in the NFL. Still, touchdown, touchdown, field goal on
your first three possessions as a defense and you want to be this year’s
Doomsday D?
Whatever getting it done is, that isn’t it. Friday night, against a rookie
quarterback guiding a below-average offense, the defense needs to start showing
some dominating play if it’s going to start the season even at the level it
finished last season.
Preseason final results don’t matter. Preseason plays and possessions do. As
boxing trainer Angelo Dundee once said about Muhammad Ali: Ali never won a
round in the gym, but he’d show you a flash, maybe 30 seconds, of what you’d
see on fight night.
Then there’s Chad Henne and the Dolphins’ offense.
Aside from a long touchdown completion to Brian Hartline against Atlanta’s
understudies, they picked up right where they left off in the winter as they
dragged the Dolphins out of the playoff race.
Will having wide receiver Brandon Marshall and running back Reggie Bush this
week accelerate the Dolphins’ progress in their new offense?
How will rookie running back Daniel Thomas look now that he’s more aware of
the NFL pace (even in preseason, it throws most rookies off)?
Will this jled offensive line consistently grant the necessary time and
space to make plays?
And what will the home crowd do if Henne does lay a rotten egg? His last time
at Should Go Back To Being Joe Robbie Stadium, an inept scrimmage performance
had fans chanting for Kyle Orton, a quarterback whose accomplishments got him
traded from Chicago and put on the trading block by Denver.
It’s a reason to watch. That’s more than the NFL normally offers in mid-
August.
Bengals were bad, but Palmergate sent them reeling
One day in late January, the Cincinnati Bengals died. Again. Sometimes it seems as if God himself has decided the Bengals are due to look at the world through astounded, disappointed eyes. And many times, as on this day, the wounds are self-inflicted.
In the weeks before that day quarterback Carson Palmer, according to several Bengals players, began to have private conversations with a handful of teammates about his future in Cincinnati. His bitterness, he told players, had reached an all-time high. It had become unmanageable.
Then, suddenly, Palmer stopped complaining, and it was around that time players believe Palmer decided he never would be a Bengal again.
The daily transaction of NFL life continued, and for the Bengals this meant losing. Then things would get worse. Palmer spoke with Mike Brown and eventually coach Marvin Lewis. Palmer demanded a trade.
"Can we talk you out of this?" Lewis asked, according to a person close to Palmer.
The Bengals asked Palmer if he would reconsider but Palmer had clearly already made his decision. There would be no changing of his mind.
"This is Carson's way," Lewis says now. "This wasn't a grandstand. He had to do what he had to and so did we. We can't let the inmates run the asylum."
Palmer made his trade request in late January after Cincinnati finished the season 4-12. Brown declined the request, Palmer effectively retired and that is the moment the Bengals died. Again. Palmer hasn't been seen around the team since. He'll likely never be a Bengal again.
They've seen many different forms of demise, these Bengals. The comical, the uncanny, the criminal, the tragic -- a player actually losing his life -- but the Palmer situation was one of the more symbolic. We're not here to bash. There are actually many honorable men within this franchise. There is -- and you don't see this word used in relation to the Bengals but it's true -- a certain nobility with the team. They try to fight the good fight. Sometimes, they just don't know how.
And that is reality for the Bengals.
"They both expressed profound disappointment in how the team fared last season, and in how it has generally performed during Carson's tenure with the team," Palmer's agent David Dunn said in a statement regarding the meeting between Palmer and Bengals management. "Because of the lack of success that Carson and the Bengals have experienced together, Carson strongly feels that a separation between him and the Bengals would be in the best interest of both parties."
These are the Cincinnati Bengals, and this is the type of thing that happens to them. The franchise player quits on the wings of a meaningless statement from his agent.
I spent two weeks retracing some of Palmer's footsteps -- and several days at the Bengals' camp, as well as speaking to several players privately on the phone -- but the story here isn't: Where's Carson? The story is one of perennial disappointment and how Palmer's situation stands as almost the perfect metaphor for the State of the Bengals.
Who are the Bengals? What are they? What do they want to be? How do they hope to get there? And what is it like to be what many consider the NFL's worst franchise? How bad? It's a franchise in such disarray that Palmer would rather give up his $11.5 million salary this year than play for an organization that once bear-hed him as its star. The club since has removed every trace of him from its bloodline.
"At this camp no one has mentioned his name," Lewis says. "He's gone. Period."
It is true that Palmer has saved a great deal of money from his seasons as an NFL quarterback. A person close to Palmer estimated he has savings of $40-$50 million in cash assets alone. I'm thinking that estimate is actually quite low since in 2005 Palmer signed a deal that would have taken Palmer through the year 2014 and paid him a total of $119 million.
Nonetheless, to pass up $11.5 million out of principle is a remarkable statement about the Bengals, and that statement isn't good.
"There were split feelings about Carson in the locker room. A lot of players privately support Carson," said one Bengals player who like several others spoke on the condition of anonymity, fearing retribution from management. "There are guys who wish they could afford to do what he did. Others have just let it go. They've blocked him out."
In speaking with several Bengals players this is the portrait they portray of the current state of the Bengals:
• Spirited practices.
• Hard-working coaching staff.
• Players and coaches who truly care.
• Stubborn ownership stuck in the 1970s -- polyester in a dri-fit world.
• A feeling that this year will be better.
• A fear that this year will be the same.
Publicly, the franchise is defensive about how it's portrayed in the media and that's completely understandable. When a franchise is routinely called a group of incompetent buffoons it has every right to be defensive, yes? "To say things are bad with the Bengals, that's just not the case," says Lewis. "Give us a chance. We can come back."
From the dead?
• • •
The survivor
Past the supersized K-Mart and strip malls, past the "Believe: Creationism" signs and near the industrial complexes that sit like metal sugar cubes is Georgetown College where the Bengals train. Lewis sits in a campus classroom, totally relaxed, and in these moments away from the cameras and crowds Lewis shows why he's the Bengals' best weapon. He's intelligent, explanatory and utterly convinced the Bengals will turn the franchise around sooner rather than later.
"Why is it crazy to think we can win this year?" he says. "We're better than last year. I see a bright future for this organization. I'm not thinking about just the past." The past. It's a weight draped around the neck of the Bengals. Since there is no such thing as a time machine they can't escape it. The players arrested for criminal acts. The tragic death of Chris Henry. The losses that have piled to historic highs. There is no need to rehash all of these things, but Lewis has seen large swaths of the ugliness since he took the job in 2003.
Last season, the Bengals brought in wide receiver Terrell Owens, who did nothing to improve the team's fortunes. When asked if there was any chance of Owens returning, Lewis said, "No. He's a free agent. An injured free agent."
Lewis maintains that while he liked Owens as a player, his signing forced the Bengals to go away from the physicality of running the ball.
"I like Terrell as a player but Terrell didn't work out for us," Lewis says. "In fact, our offense went in the other direction in terms of toughness. We got softer because we were throwing the ball more than I was comfortable with. It's my own fault. I allowed myself to get away from our character, which is running the ball and toughness."
The team also lost longtime Bengals showboat Chad Ochocinco. So, Cincinnati lost its starting quarterback, two starting wide receivers, and a good cornerback in Johnathan Joseph. They just released defensive lineman Tank Johnson.
Then, in the first preseason game against Detroit, the Bengals' defense, the strong point of the team, was torched as four Lions quarterbacks led scoring drives, angering the fan base. It was so bad Bengals players and coaches were left pleading for patience. Lineman Domata Peko told Bengals.com after the game: "My message to the fans is to keep the faith, believe. It's just one game. We're going to fix things. That's what the preseason is for: to learn from the mistakes and keep getting better. Keep being excited because we're going to have a good season."
The team is already asking for forgiveness and Lewis isn't worried?
"No because everyone feels confident in our rebuilding plan," Lewis says. "What people on the outside say isn't relevant to us."
• • •
The rookie
There is always hope in the NFL. It's what keeps fans of teams like the Bengals from dunking their heads in a vat of boiling oil. Hope is the Arizona Cardinals in the Super Bowl. Hope is the salary cap. Hope is remembering the Oakland Raiders were once great. Hope is quarterback Andy Dalton.
He's been embraced by the Bengals veterans, and in speaking to him after practice one moderately warm afternoon, you can understand why. Dalton is aggressively polite off the field. Only time will demonstrate if he can play football on it. He clearly understands one important thing: it would be foolish to try to replace Palmer.
"He was a great player and the thing I have to do is just be myself," he said.
Sounds simple enough, but the fact is Dalton always will be compared to Palmer. The Bengals know this. He knows this. The only way it will stop is if Dalton is successful. This is the harsh reality of football.
Dalton one day might be able to laugh at his first NFL start after he makes the Pro Bowl, or critics will use it against Dalton should he flop in Palmer's shadow. Dalton's first pass as a pro was intercepted, and later monster Detroit defensive lineman Ndomakung Suh grabbed Dalton by the upper body and slammed him to the ground -- knocking off Dalton's helmet. It was rough few plays but Dalton survived.
I ask Dalton jokingly if Suh has called to apologize. "No, I wouldn't expect him to," he smiled. The most amazing thing about Dalton is his capacity to absorb large amounts of information. After only a few weeks, it's believed he has learned most of the playbook and has a firm grasp of the protection schemes and calls. There are few rookie QBs in the NFL now who can make a similar claim.
But like every other rookie, Dalton has initially been stunned at the upgrade in speed from the college to the professional level. He gives an example of how in the pros, linebackers make the tackles on bubble screens, because their speed allows them do so. In college, defensive backs do.
Dalton has a long ways to go, but quotes like the following make you root for him: "I know I have a lot to learn but I'm getting the practice snaps. I'm studying hard and listening to everyone. But I also want to be my own guy." He brings up Palmer without prodding. "I respect what he did here but I want to create my own legacy."
• • •
The future
Maybe it is indeed bleak. These are, after all, the Bengals. Bleak often has been their middle name. And maybe they are due for another strange happening. A broken leg, another star quitting, another Bengal arrested. These are, after all, the Bengals.
Then you come here and talk to the players and watch the team and speak to Lewis and there's that word again -- hope. The NFL built its brand around it and the Bengals cling to it.
"Let people say what they want about us," Dalton said. "We’ll just keep working."
Maybe, for once, the Bengals will escape their own demise. Again.
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Berlin Wall 50 years on: families divided, loved ones lost
When she heard the news that would cause her to be separated from the father of her child for ever, Ursula Bach was 18 years old and six months pregnant. She was tired. The baby was using up all her energy so she was lying in bed with the radio on, trying to get some rest at the chaotic refugee camp in West Germany where she had fled a few months earlier, leaving her fiancé, Fried, back in the East. Suddenly her brain tuned in to what she was hearing.
She still remembers the broadcast word for word: "It is Sunday the 13 August 1961. You are listening to the news on Bavarian Radio. Early this morning in Berlin the border police and members of the operational combat troops started to erect barbed wire and a security fence between the eastern and western sectors of the city. Sixty-nine of the 81 border crossings have already been closed. Residents of the GDR and East Berlin are now only allowed to cross with special permission. The S-Bahn is no longer running…"
"I couldn't believe it – I never thought they would hermetically seal the border," Bach said this week, recalling the day 50 years ago when the paranoid East German government decided to stem the flow of refugees fleeing the German Democratic Republic (GDR) by putting up what they euphemistically called the "anti-fascist protection measure". She never saw Fried again. The first her son, Andreas, ever heard from his father was after the Wall fell in 1989. It was too late then for them to build a relationship.
By the time Bach and her mother, brother and grandmother escaped from Saxony Anhalt on 21 May 1961, 2,000 East German citizens a day were arriving in West Berlin. The 3.5 million East Germans who had left since the founding of the GDR in 1949 made up approximately 20% of the entire East German population. Enough was enough, decided Walter Ulbricht, first secretary of the Socialist Unity party and GDR state council chairman. Despite claiming publicly that "no one is planning to build a wall", Ulbricht gave orders for engineers to do just that.
Bach's mother decided to leave when the East German government started cracking down on private enterprise in their mission to turn a market economy into a centrally planned one. She ran a leather shop, and was finding it increasingly difficult to stay afloat after the GDR authorities stopped her deliveries. "They wanted to give her a nothing sort of job in the trade department instead," said Bach.
Bach was in love. She didn't want to leave Fried, but a division opened up when their teaching course turned more political. "We were asked to spy on each other and were told not to go to church. That meant that our child would not be able to be baptised, which was very important to me," she said.
Fried was a committed communist; Bach was not. She decided to leave and didn't tell him she was going, though she long hoped he would follow her. The last she saw of him was when she was on the train heading out of town forever: "He waved and motioned for me to open the window, but the window wouldn't open. I didn't see him again."
Cameron Heyward: What it's like growing up in NFL locker rooms
Ohio State defensive end Cameron Heyward will follow his father into the family business. Craig "Ironhead" Heyward, played 11 seasons in the NFL for five different teams. He was a bruising fullback; his son bruises quarterbacks.
Cameron Heyward played the best game of his career the last time he stepped on the field, when Ohio State beat Arkansas in the Sugar Bowl. He is expected, but not guaranteed, to go in the first round on Thursday.
Heyward talked with Sporting News' Matt Crossman about sacks, the draft and getting interviewed in the bathtub.
SN: Is this the biggest week of your life, or is that overstating it?
CH: I think it is. It's a great opportunity. It's going to be fun.
SN: You're part of the 'Everything to Prove' video series on NFL.com. What I don't get is, you had a great career at OSU and you're probably a first-round pick. I mean this as a compliment, but what do you have left to prove and who do you have to prove it to?
CH: With my circumstances, I got hurt after the Sugar Bowl. I have to prove myself again, coming off the injury (elbow surgery), to all these coaches. I have to prove to everybody that I'm ready for the NFL. I know I still have a lot of proving to do once I make it to the NFL.
SN: They essentially interviewed you in the bathtub (laughs). Do you ever look around and say, what the heck am I doing giving an interview in a bathtub?
CH: Yeah, you know, it was warming up the body before a workout. It gets a little funny at times. But it gives good insight into players. You (usually) only see players with their helmets on. This makes it more personable. It helps a lot.
SN: You had Tommy John surgery, correct?
CH: Yes, sir, a form of it. Not the full Tommy John.
SN: So should we call it the Cam Heyward surgery now?
CH: We might as well (laughs).
SN: What's your best memory of being in an NFL locker room with your dad?
CH: Being with my dad, all the memories we shared, going into the locker room, meeting his friends. Seeing how people loved him. It was kind of fun to see how the media went to him and see how he answered questions as well.
SN: Do you think that gives you an advantage going into the NFL?
CH: I don't think it's an advantage. It doesn't separate me from anybody. It just shows I've got everything to prove again, living up to all the hype.
SN: Speaking of hype, there are a ton of good D-ends in this class. If I locked you, Da'Quan Bowers, Robert Quinn and Adrian Clayborn in a closet and said you guys had to fight it out to see who goes first, when I opened the door, who'd be standing there?
CH: I want to say me. All you need is for one team to fall in love with you. All those guys are great players. To be in a class with them is a great honor. Wherever they go, they're going to do well, and I wish them the best.
SN: What's your favorite part about sacking the quarterback?
CH: Seeing their face when they go down, knowing we're getting off the field, knowing their backs are against the wall now.
SN: Who made the best 'I just got sacked by Cameron Heyward face'?
CH: I would have to say (Ryan) Mallett. It was a critical time in the game (fourth quarter in the Sugar Bowl.) To lose that momentum, I think it got them down a little bit.
2011 NFL Mock Draft: Houston Texans Need Defensive End for Wade Phillips' Scheme
It's all about defense for the Houston Texans. The team strled last season in the secondary, but also need depth at the defensive end position, especially with a new defensive coordinator in tow.
Wade Phillips leaves his post with the Dallas Cowboys. He made a horrible head coach, but still remains as a top end defensive mind. The new 3-4 demands that the Cowboys get a player that can breeze around the ends and put pressure on the quarterback.
They will have a great pick of several players that fit perfectly with where this team is headed. Here is the run down from our panel of experts.
Todd McShay ESPN: Robert Quinn DE/OLB
Scenario 1: Taking Quinn is the best-case scenario outside of Miller somehow falling this far. Quinn would be a nice complement to fellow OLB Connor Barwin, one of the best ILB tandems in the league in DeMeco Ryans and Brian Cushing, and difference-maker Mario Williams up front.
Scenario 2: If Quinn is gone, then a 5-technique like Watt or California's Cameron Jordan would be the pick.
MUST READ: Power Ranking the Top 100 NFL Players in the NFL Today
Mel Kiper ESPN:Robert Quinn DE/OLB
Houston has needs all over the defensive side of the ball, and Quinn is the best player still on the board if they can get him here. A gifted natual pass-rusher, Quinn sat out all of 2010, but his talent should overcome any questions about rust. A physical specimen, Wade Phillips can find a way to use Quinn in his scheme, and DeMarcus Ware will be what he has in mind when he gets Quinn into camp.
Chad Reuter CBS Sports: Prince Amukamara CB
Improved pass rush would help one of the league's worst secondaries, but adding Amukamara to the mix and picking up a rush linebacker in the second round could be the preferred route.
Peter Schrager Fox Sports: J.J. Watt DE
What’s not to like about the kid? Lightly recruited out of high school, Watt attended Central Michigan, where he played tight end and weighed 260 pounds. After transferring to Wisconsin without a scholarship offer, he worked at a Pizza Hut flipping dough for six months and hit the gym. Two years later, he was weighing in at 280 pounds and downright dominating the Big Ten.
There really is only two choices here for me. The Texans either grab Amukamara or Robert Quinn. Both are future top level talents in the league. Amukamara has the speed on the corner, and the size to bring the pain.
Robert Quinn may be the more likely pick. He is versatile as he is talented. He will fit on whichever side he is forced to. With three players on the line, you need speed and a great motor, Quinn has both. He will give you all he has for four straight quarters.
The offensive line will be surely need a break when he is done with them.
Factbox: Work stoppages in major U.S. professional sports
1987 - The NFL brought in replacement players for a strike, which covered 24 days (Sept 22-Oct 15). One week of season (14 games) was canceled and replacement players participated in three other weeks (42 games). While owners all but broke players union, the players scored in court, eventually winning unrestricted free agency.
1982 - Strike lasted 57 days (Sept 21-Nov 16) with season shortened from 16 to nine games per team, a loss of 98 games. Players were unhappy with revenue distribution after owners signed a five-year, $2.1 billion television contract. New deal gave players retirement severance packages, five-figure bonuses and modest increases in salaries, but their pay continued to lag behind other U.S. professional sports.
1974 - Players went on strike for 44 days in July and August in a bid for guaranteed payment of salaries. They eventually gave up and took their case to courts. No games were canceled.
1970 - Players took strike vote on July 30 but the stoppage ended when the two sides reached agreement on Aug 3. Minimum salary for long-term players increased to $13,000.
1968 - Owners locked out players for two weeks during training camp, then players struck briefly over pension benefits. Long-term players were guaranteed a minimum salary of $10,000 as part of first NFL collective bargaining agreement.
- - - -
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
1994 - The 232-day strike over two seasons (Aug 12, 1994 to April 2, 1995) led to 938 games canceled and for the first time since 1904, the World Series was not played. Owners wanted a salary cap and elimination of salary arbitration, but gained neither. The new agreement did include revenue sharing for teams and a luxury tax on big-spending franchises.
1990 - The 32-day lockout (Feb 15-March 18) resulted from disagreements over free agency and salary arbitration. It cost baseball much of spring training. Opening day was pushed back a week and the season extended to allow for a full 162-game schedule. The new agreement raised minimum player salaries to
$100,000.
1985 - Two-day players' strike (Aug 6-7) ended after attempts to change salary arbitration were dropped. Twenty-five games were re-scheduled and minimum salaries climbed to
$60,000.
1981 - The 50-day strike (June 12-July 31) cost Major League Baseball 712 games. Owners failed in their demand for direct compensation for free agents leaving a team.
1980 - Players struck April 1-8 during spring training over free-agency compensation. Preliminary agreement called for issue to be reconsidered the following season.
