Whipped Cream Difficulties

Gus Malzahn out at Auburn after a 6-4 season.

Malzahn finishes his Auburn tenure with a 67-33 overall record, a national coach of the year award, two SEC West titles, one SEC championship, a national runner-up finish and two New Year’s Six bowl berths. He had only a 2-5 record in bowl games, with wins against Memphis in the 2015 Birmingham Bowl and Purdue in the 2018 Music City Bowl.

But they got stomped this season by Alabama, Texas A&M, and Georgia, and also lost to South Carolina.

Malzahn’s seven-year contract, which he agreed to and signed in December 2017 after leading Auburn to an SEC West title, included 75 percent of the deal’s value fully guaranteed. His buyout, as of this month, is $21,450,000, with 50 percent of that owed within 30 days of his termination and the remainder paid in four equal annual installments.

Lovie Smith gone at Illinois. 17-39 over five years, and 2-5 this season.

Kevin Sumlin out at Arizona. The precipitating event seems to have been a 70-7 loss to Arizona State Friday night, but he was 9-20 overall (in a little more than two seasons) and Arizona has lost 12 straight games.

Derek Mason out as head coach at Vanderbilt.

The team is 0-8 this season, and Mason was 27-55 in approximately six seasons.

Missed this one until I was tipped off by, shockingly, Mike the Musicologist:

Doc Rivers was fired as head coach of the Clippers yesterday.

The precipitating incident for this seems to have been the team blowing a 3-1 lead in the playoffs and losing to Denver. He was 356-208 in seven seasons, but the team has struggled in the playoffs.

The Clippers’ job becomes the sixth current vacancy in the NBA, along with Houston, Indiana, Philadelphia, Oklahoma City and New Orleans. New York, Brooklyn and Chicago have already filled vacancies in their offseasons.

Also noteworthy:

Rivers’ departure means the league also is down to four Black coaches currently with jobs: Lloyd Pierce in Atlanta, J.B. Bickerstaff in Cleveland, Monty Williams in Phoenix and Dwane Casey in Detroit. Rivers is the third Black coach to either step down or be fired this offseason, joining Nate McMillan in Indiana and Alvin Gentry in New Orleans.

Edited to add: fixed the poor formatting introduced by trying to use the visual editor in the WordPress app on the iPhone.

Jim Boylen out as Chicago Bulls coach. Tribune.

He was 39-84 over “parts of two seasons”, which I believe works out to a .317 winning percentage.

(Are they playing pro basketball now? I haven’t noticed.)

Sports firings have been kind of slow recently. With very little sports going on, who’s going to get fired and why?

Answer: Nikita Lowry Dawkins, assistant women’s basketball coach at Texas Tech. And head coach Marlene Stollings.

As for the why…

The termination follows a USA TODAY investigation into what 10 players allege was an abusive culture…

…

Wednesday’s report by USA TODAY Sports, in collaboration with The Intercollegiate, was based on season-ending exit interviews with players from the past two seasons, other documents and interviews with 10 players, two former assistant coaches and two parents. Six of the players spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
Among the claims from players:
Coaches directed players to maintain an heart rate of at least 90% of capacity during play or face conditioning assignments or risk losing playing time.
The three international players on rosters the past two seasons allegedly faced treatment such as being ridiculed, isolated and threatened by coaches. Brazil native Marcella LaMark said Stollings told LaMark her fitness lagged so far behind teammates’ that she was “dangerous” to them.
Emma Merriweather, a 6-5 center, said she was admonished by coaches for displaying symptoms of depression, for which she was eventually diagnosed. She was also allegedly told by assistant coach Lowry Dawkins to snap a rubber band on her wrist when she had a negative thought.
Five players alleged Petrella sexually harassed players, making suggestive comments to one player and using a therapy technique that involved applying pressure to some players’ chests and pubic bones and groins.
Three players said Stollings retaliated by holding tougher practices after they brought abuse claims to school officials, including Judi Henry, executive senior associate athletic director and senior women’s administrator.

The “Petrella” mentioned above is strength and conditioning coach Ralph Petrella. He resigned in March.

Things have been kind of slow on the sports firings front. With no real sports being played, who’s firing people?

Answer: the Chicago Bulls, who just fired Gar Forman as their general manager.

Ron Jans out as head coach of FC Cincinnati. This is being presented as a “resignation”, but it is a resignation that comes after he was accused of using “racial slurs”.

“As Major League Soccer’s investigation unfolded and some themes emerged, Ron offered his resignation and we agreed that it was the best course of action for everyone involved with FC Cincinnati,” club President Jeff Berding said in a team news release.

The first games in the new XFL season took place over the weekend.

The first firing took place today.

Pepper Johnson was fired as defensive coordinator of the Los Angeles Wildcats.

Also, Anthony Johnson, linebacker and one of the team captains, declared on Twitter that he’s a free agent.

I wonder if the check didn’t clear…

The New York Knickerbockers have fired team president Steve Mills.

Mills joined the Knicks as general manager in 2013 — just two days before training camp — and got fired two days before the 2020 trade deadline.