Restricting Senior Executive Pay

In the past week, there have been numerous comments about overreaching by the Federal Government in placing caps upon the pay of the top twenty-five executives in companies that have received major government investment.

Government determining the pay of executives is clearly an overreach, but I find it hard to criticize the modest restrictions.

Consider the situation if these institutions were not banks, where bankruptcy was a legal option. Under such circumstances, every employee in the organization would likely be facing firing, salary and other reductions in remuneration.

Banks are difficult to put into bankruptcy because such events would trigger complex and cascading contract events, so the Fed, the Treasury and other regulators have been forced to take over these financial institutions in a "soft" bankruptcy.

When government involvement is looked at in this light, perhaps the complaint should be that more has not been done.

Commentary: Rules Matter and Foot Faulting is Cheating

On Sunday, I made a fuss on the tennis court. It's not something I like to do, but my opponent was so egregious in his cheating that I felt compelled to call him out. (By the way, I use the word cheating deliberately based on what the USTA states.)

Now, before I tell you my story, let me confess that I lose a lot of tennis games, but I love the sport -- the Zen of playing it. So winning is great, but it is not everything for me. So I am not motivated by gamesmanship. I enjoy the fun of tennis which is why I organize a regular game for two courts of players each weekend.

My opponent, let call him "S", started outside the base line, placed his right foot completely into the court (inside the line) and then pushed up from inside the court to hit his serve. He did this on every serve even when he had been called on a foot fault for the previous serve for the same fault.

He got angry, claimed I could not see his feet and insisted that he served way behind the base line. After four consecutive foot faults, he stormed off the court, very angry at me. All in all, it was not a pleasant experience for me. And probably not for him, either.

Coincidentally, I ended up watching S in a subsequent round from a position where I could see along the base line as if I were a line judge. Every serve repeated the pattern of stepping one foot completely into the court before rising up to serve the ball. What I realized is that S either does not understand the rules of faulting or he is not watching his own feet. A companion, a knowledgeable, long playing tennis player and long term organizer of tennis events, seated beside me agreed on my assessment. It was clear to both of us.

Now S has a strong serve and I like playing against people with strong serves. It gives me a chance to practice my service return. But, as Randy Cummings points out in his web site:

What does a foot-fault do? Think of it this way, it either lowers the net by a six inches or more or makes the guy serving equal in height to Ivo Karlovic. In either case, the server has a distinct advantage over the opponent who remains behind the baseline until after the ball has been struck. The cheater can hit harder, flatter balls, because with a lower net or higher physical stature he has more margin for error (see my articles Deceptively High Net and Window on the Serve for more explanation). If he is also serving and volleying, he is that much closer to the net before your return crosses into his half of the court, making his volleys easier to execute.

Why is this cheating tolerated? Probably because those facing the cheater don't realize how high the net really is and how much topspin needs to be hit on the ball in order for it to clear and land in the box. The net is deceptively low because you can see through it. If it were a solid piece of material, you would quickly perceive how much you have to arc the ball in order to have a safe serve. Failing to understand this, players allow the cheater to continue, not realizing how much advantage is really being taken by the foot-faulter. The foot-faulter has reduced the amount of arc he needs to have on the ball to get his serve in the box, giving him a distinct advantage.

http://vjtta.com/content/view/238/88/

This paragraph by the way describes the type of serve delivered by S.

To reinforce the point, the USTA states:

... And one of the most missed/ignored rules is the foot fault. Here’s a reminder from Sheila Banks, Director of Adult/Senior Recreation USTA/Pacific Northwest, reminding players of the foot fault rule and how to handle a team that is committing foot faults:

Please pass this on to your Captains as I have received concerns that many players are footfaulting during their matches.

Foot Faults are considered cheating and at no time to be allowed..

http://tenniscrowd.com/blog/2009/03/07/the-foot-fault-rule/

USTA Code p. 54/55

Footfaults: A player may warn an opponent that the opponent has committed a flagrant foot fault. If the foot faulting continues, the player may attempt to locate an official. If no official is available, the player may call flagrant foot faults. Compliance with the foot fault rule is very much a function of a player’s personal honor system. The plea that a Server should not be penalized because the server only just touched the line and did not rush the net is not acceptable. Habitual foot faulting, whether intentional or careless, is just as surely cheating as is making a deliberate bad call.

I have a pretty good serve some days. Some days not. Serving is difficult and we are all frustrated by days when our service is off. That same day of dealing with S, one lady came up to me and implied in a very gracious way she did not believe foot faults should be called. But there is very little point to tennis if we apply rules selectively. When should we bother calling a ball in or out? When it comes to foot faults, at what point do we call them, when the foot is on the line, inside the court, when the player is serving from three feet inside the court?

To be honest, I don't call most of the foot faults I see. There is a lot of social pressure not to. And there are a lot of them in weekend tennis. But if a player is a beginner or low rated player with a weak serve, I feel it's too much trouble to call.

But I am changing my view. I think we should call foot faults. In my research, the best conclusion I have come up with is to warn the person the first time and then call them on subsequent faults.

Not foot faulting is a good idea. It makes you less likely to foot fault in a tournament. It sets a better precedent for your kids. At the risk of being grandiose, in a world where large scale cheating has been occurring widely (Enron, Bernie Madoff and the whole financial melt down to mention only a few), perhaps not cheating has a larger value.

And if you are consistently hitting the net, maybe you should learn how to improve your serve rather than cheat. It's not that hard to learn how to put a little topspin on your serve which eliminates the need to foot fault.

I would like to offer a final mea culpa. In doing my research for this commentary and reading the rules of tennis, I have learned much more about foot faulting than I previously knew. I knew for example, from listening to commentators at tennis events, that your feet cannot intersect the center line of the court when you serve. I did not know you had to be inside the outside line when you serve. I also learned that you cannot be moving, either walking or running when you serve. I suspect I have been foot faulting when I served from too close to the outside of the doubles or tram lines. So, while I have never been called on a line foot fault, I suspect I should have been when I was serving from far too wide.

So, please, call foot faults. We can all benefit.