JR Ball is the former Executive Editor at Business Report and the head lacrosse coach at Louisiana State University.

JR Ball: Wait…college football is big business?

What’s the deal with all the sanctimonious indignation over Brian Kelly bolting the Golden Dome for the golden riches of LSU?

JR Ball: Louisiana needs an education

Until Louisiana gets serious about education and fighting poverty it will remain ranked as one of this country's worse states.

JR Ball: Flooding is plainly a way of life in Baton Rouge region

The Baton Rouge region, despite what we say, won't solve its flooding problem. Why? Because we don't want to do what it takes to address it.

JR Ball: Ida can’t blow away dedicated tax grab

Whether it's economic development districts or TIF deals, the Metro Council loves giving away our tax dollars to the politically-connected.

Storm-weary residents seek out open restaurants

While most of Baton Rouge was shuttered—and without power—in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, it was bonanza business for those retailers and restaurants that were able to open.

JR Ball: Thank you, Dwight Hudson

Props to Dwight Hudson for inadvertently exposing the disaster that is the hodgepodge of government disfunction we have in East Baton Rouge Parish.

JR Ball: A freedom cry for college athletes rings out across the land

The good ol' days of everyone in Division I college sports getting rich except the athletes who put their bodies at risk are thankfully over.

JR Ball: What the BREC is going on with Bodi White?

Why is state Sen. Bodi White so determined to break the Baton Rouge suburbs away from BREC and start an independent parks department?

JR Ball: The Louisiana curse of resource abundance

If Louisiana hopes to actually compete in an economy powered by knowledge and innovation then it needs to end its resource curse.

JR Ball: Louisiana’s taxing problem

How much we do or don’t pay in taxes isn’t Louisiana’s fundamental fiscal problem. It’s the state’s moronically byzantine tax code as well as which cash kegs get tapped to fill the state’s coffers.