Is a coach who has never led his team to a winning record a likely target to be hired somewhere else? Vanderbilt is on a very short list of schools where that could happen, and it might happen this year.

I mean no disrespect to Commodores coach Bobby Johnson, who has Vanderbilt at 4-0 and ranked #19 heading into a home game against Auburn, one that ESPN GameDay will grace with its presence. No one would have suspected these developments as recently as a month ago, and I’m plenty excited about it. I’ve said before that Johnson is doing as well as anyone possibly could at Vanderbilt, and I sure hope he stays a long, long time.

The problem for Vanderbilt is that Johnson is doing well enough to be noticed nationally at a time when Tommy Bowden, coach at Johnson’s alma mater Clemson University, isn’t. Bowden is failing to live up to expectations for yet another year, and it’s no stretch to say that he may not be the Tigers coach next September.

I think it would be a lot tougher for Johnson to turn down his Tigers than it was for him to shrug off interest from Duke awhile back. One Georgia fan and blogger predicted that Johnson will become Clemson’s next coach way back at the beginning of September, before Vanderbilt beat South Carolina and Ole Miss and wound up in the Top 25. He incorrectly picked the Gamecocks to defeat the Commodores, though, so I’m hoping that’s not all he’s wrong about. Vanderbilt needs to do whatever it can, assuming there is something it can do, to keep Johnson on board of what is emerging as a very solid Commodore ship. Go Dores!

I think Council Member Eric Crafton should revise his tactics, not his wording, when it comes to dealing with immigrants:

“We want to demonstrate that we’re trying to be reasonable, that we want to listen to what people are saying while still making English the official language,” Crafton said Wednesday in a phone interview. Crafton said new petition postcards would be mailed to some registered voters today or Friday. The petition would call for a special election on Thursday, Jan. 22, at a cost to taxpayers of about $350,000, to hold a referendum on changing the Metro Charter.

Imagine what $350,000 would do to help the Davidson Group, which is being revived to foster positive relations among diverse local residents:

The Davidson Group, which started in 1981 to pair up black and white Nashville community leaders who didn’t know each other, is reorganizing to do the same work in what has become an even more diverse city. It will restart soon with administrative support from Lipscomb University’s Institute for Law, Justice & Society. “The way to really get somewhere in race relations is through personal friendships,” said Nelson Andrews, a real-estate developer who organized the initial Davidson Group and helped get it going again. “If you’re committed to a year and you keep meeting with somebody, I don’t care who you are; you’re going to get a pretty good sense of them.”

You can do a lot more good, I think, by extending a hand than by shaking a fist. I applaud those who are participating in the Davidson Group’s reemergence at a time when this kind of effort is sorely needed. We need less political posturing and empty initiatives such as English Only and more efforts to make our community a better place for everyone to live.

I’m especially proud to see Lipscomb University, an institution that once insulated itself from the surrounding community, step up to support the Davidson Group. We’re all neighbors here, no matter how we arrived. Let’s start acting like it.

It’s undeniably a victory by technicality, but here’s hoping that today’s developments from the Tennessee Supreme Court will give Council Member Eric Crafton time to focus his energies elsewhere:

Crafton has been trying to place a referendum on the November ballot that would ask Davidson County voters to make English the “only” language in which Metro officials can communicate. There are serious doubts that, even if approved, such a charter amendment would be enforceable due to federal laws.

Crafton had tried to place it on the ballot last year, but was denied because the Metro Charter limits when and how many additions to the document can be made over a multiyear period. Thinking that he had crossed the threshold, he reintroduced the referendum proposal this year only to be denied by the Davidson County Election Commission. The commission ruled, based on advice of the Metro Legal Department, that still not enough time had passed.

Not content with the ruling, Crafton then appealed to the judicial system to overturn that decision. Today, the Tennessee Supreme Court handed down its decision. They have denied Crafton’s motion to have even a hearing, thus letting earlier decisions stand and ensuring that an English Only referendum once again will not be placed on the ballot.

After all this time wasted on such a pointless measure, isn’t it time to do something meaningful that would contribute to improving the quality of life in Nashville? I expect that Crafton won’t do that, but will instead keep frittering away time and money that could easily serve better purposes. Surely there is a better way to serve the public than preying upon people who already have uphill climbs ahead of them.

Note to Felicia Young, mother of Vince: You aren’t helping your son by talking to the media at length about what the Titans star quarterback is going through.

“What would you think, if you were tired of being ridiculed and persecuted and talked about and not being treated very well, what would you do? What kind of decision would you make?” Felicia Young said. “He may not want to deal with it (all), but you have to get to that point before you make that decision first. “But we’re not talking about football right now. We’re talking about what would make him happy, and that is the most important thing … You don’t want people to be hurting like he is. But it is a growing-up process, and he will eventually come out like gold no matter what. But Vince is going to be OK. We are just going to try and give him some space.”

Vince Young is under an enormous amount of pressure, and I don’t blame him one bit for feeling stressed out about it. At the same time, he didn’t sign a multimillion-dollar contract to play football in front of tens of thousands of fans (and millions of viewers) without knowing that his performance would be open to public scrutiny.

His injury, while unfortunate, may be a blessing in disguise: He can take time to deal with what is going on in his life and work through whatever he is feeling. At 25, Young is young, and it’s understandable that it’s not easy to learn and prosper with half the world watching his every move. I’m encouraged, honestly, to see a psychologist brought in to the situation and hope that Young will allow a clinical professional to help him overcome his struggles.

It’s only natural for a parent to want to defend her child, but doing it in the public eye only increases the focus-and the pressure-on Vince.

My wife and I are spending a long weekend in New York City this weekend. I wouldn’t want to live here, but I sure love visiting Manhattan. It is beautiful, exciting, unique and ecclectic everywhere you turn.

Our hotel happened to be immediately across from the World Trade Center site (top photo, from our hotel room on the 46th floor), where construction is taking place around the clock to build the new Freedom Tower and the 9/11 memorial. You can see the foundation of the Freedom Tower beginning to rise on the right in the photo, and some of the surviving WTC buildings are in the backrgound. One of the footprints of the Twin Towers is discernible on the left side of the photo. Both footprints will be preserved as reflecting pools that will be part of the memorial.

Though I’ve visited the WTC site twice before, it was a little peculiar at first to be staying right next to the location of such a horrible tragedy. As the hours have passed since we arrived Thursday evening, though, seeing everyone else nearby going about their business and their daily lives has made the scene feel more ordinary.

I also had the chance to walk over to the Brooklyn Bridge, which is a few blocks from our hotel. Having walked across the Golden Gate Bridge before, I’m not sure I’ve ever given this famed Manhattan landmark more than a passing glance when spotting it from a distance. That was a mistake. I walked out to the first tower on the bridge (bottom photo) yesterday, and it was breaktaking. Seeing the beauty of the bridge itself and then taking in the view of the rest of Manhattan was stunning. It was a perfect sunny day, and there were pedestrians and cyclists everywhere. I felt like I was a small part of a huge mass of life crisscrossing all at once, and I am thrilled to have had the experience. It’s another good reminder that there is just nothing in the world quite like New York City.

I agree with Metro Council Member Erica Gilmore that a ban on single-beer sales in Nashville’s “urban core” is probably a good idea:

“I think we have a better grasp of how to deal with it,” Gilmore said. “Just traveling to Denver, it was really clean. It was really amazing actually. You think, ‘When I walk downtown, I wish our downtown could be like this.’” Gilmore believes single item beer sales contribute to vagrants loitering around downtown and leads to littering. “You have people loitering round, hanging around with bottles, it does not look attractive,” Gilmore said.

I don’t believe, however, that this is a comprehensive solution for vagrancy, littering or homelessness. Did Gilmore talk to anyone in Denver government, or did she just witness the cleanliness of a city hosting one of the most significant events in its entire history? I’m sure that downtown Denver was practically spotless, and downtown Nashville likely will be when it hosts a presidential debate next month. I’d like to know what Denver public officials have done to make their downtown area cleaner. I’d also like to know whether it is typically clean or whether it was merely especially tidy because of the Democratic Convention.

Reduced access for people who are abusing alcohol, including people who are homeless, can’t hurt. It won’t stop everyone, but it is one more layer of deterrent. Does anyone who does not have a substance-abuse problem urgently need to buy only one beer while they are downtown? If they need one single beer that badly, couldn’t they plan ahead or head to the suburbs? I think this legislation can be effective, if approached reasonably, but it won’t do what would help people who are homeless: Help them secure housing and learn the life and career skills needed to hold jobs and earn better wages.

There are definitely advantages to being a strong and growing, but stable, community:

Information out this afternoon in the Fiserv Case-Shiller Home Price Indexes uses Nashville’s home market as an example of a bright spot in a national market that has seen average prices fall by some 14 percent. Contributing to our market’s relative resilience, the study claims, are the comparative affordability of Nashville homes and our job market, which has outpaced national growth figures in the last three years. Nashville’s median home price has remained fairly steady at $156,000 over the last year. And while that figure is well below the national average of $196,000, Nashvillians on the whole pay a smaller portion of their household income on monthly mortgage payments.

It’s easy to envy the booms in places such as Arizona, Florida, Nevada and California, but it’s nice to avoid the steep declines that often follow.

Last week, I quoted NBJ Editor Lance Williams as saying that Nashville needs to do a better job connecting its capital with its entrepreneurial community. At least one local venture capitalist, John Chadwick, agrees. According to him, he’d welcome the competition because it would strengthen Nashville’s economy:

Chadwick said that while he enjoys Claritas’ singular standing in Entrepreneur’s annual ranking, he believes that in the longer term it’d be better for everyone if there were more early-stage investors active in Nashville. Sharpening the point, Chadwick explained that more Tennessee funds making more early-stage investments – with an eye for good deals in their own backyard – would strengthen the state’s entrepreneurial “ecosystem,” deepen the pool of capital and create a bigger pipeline of the talented executives and specialists who are so critical to early-stage success.

I think Chadwick is right that increased investment in local startups would have a snowball effect here, and I’d like to see that happen.