Firings watch.

Chan Gailey was not fired as offensive coordinator of the New York Jets.

He retired. And this seems like a legit retirement: His Channess is 65, and supposedly told the team of his plans at the start of this past season.

However, the Jets did fire five assistant coaches.

Tracy Claeys out as head coach of the University of Minnesota. This is interesting: the team was 9-4 this season, he was 11-8 overall, and won both of the bowl games his team played in during his tenure.

So why fire him? It looks like this is more fallout from the sexual assault issue, which you may remember from mid-December. If you don’t remember it, briefly: ten players were suspended from the team for an alleged sexual assault. The other members of the team sided with the suspended players, “boycotted all team activities for two days”, and threatened not to participate in the Holiday Bowl. Claeys publically supported the players and their actions:

Claeys tweeted: “Have never been more proud of our kids. I respect their rights & support their effort to make a better world!”

He later sort of walked back that cat and promised he’d give $50,000 “to help support victims of sexual assault”. But it still left him kind of crosswise with the administration, and I guess they decided that this was something up with which they would not put.

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