Archive for the ‘Firings’ Category

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Firings watch.

Monday, December 3rd, 2018

Mike McCarthy out as head coach of the Green Bay Packers.

The Pack is not exactly noted for random coach shuffles, but McCarthy was 4-7-1 this season, lost to Arizona on Sunday, and Green Bay is pretty much out of the playoffs for the second season in a row.

McCarthy is 125-77-2 overall in 13 seasons, 10-8 in the playoffs, and has one Super Bowl win (and three NFC Championship losses) to his credit.

I don’t think he’s a bad coach, and someone’s going to be lucky to get him. But it does seem like it just wasn’t working out in Green Bay.

Terry Bowden done as coach of the University of Akron Zips. 35-52 overall, 4-8 (2-6 in conference) this season.

Division I football has been a struggle on and off the field for Akron since the Zips moved up to the top tier in 1987. Since then, no Akron head coach has been successful. Gerry Faust only had two winning Division I seasons out of nine with the Zips; Lee Owens had three out of nine; J.D. Brookhart had two winning seasons out of six; Rob Ianello had none in two years and Bowden only had two in seven years.

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry?

Sunday, November 25th, 2018

Larry Fedora fired as head coach at the University of North Carolina.

UNC was 2-9 this season and 3-9 last year. Fedora was 45-43 overall in seven seasons, and 28-28 in conference.

Kliff Kingsbury is apparently done at Texas Tech, though this is being couched as “sources say”. There was supposed to be a press conference an hour ago.

35-40 overall in six seasons and 19-35 in Big 12 games.

The Red Raiders lost to Baylor 35-24 on Saturday, ending their third consecutive losing season and fourth in five years.
Under Kingsbury, the Red Raiders also failed to break .500 every year in Big 12 play, extending that streak to nine seasons in a row.

Posted in Firings, Sports | Comments Closed

Firings watch.

Sunday, November 11th, 2018

Bobby Petrino is done at Louisville.

2-8 so far this season, and 0-7 in conference.

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Firings watch.

Monday, November 5th, 2018

In great haste: last night was busy, and that’s continued well into today.

David Beaty is out as head coach of Kansas at the end of the season.

Beaty, in four seasons at KU, is 6-39, including a 2-31 record in Big 12 games, 1-19 in road games and 2-2 against FCS opponents.

Posted in Firings, Sports | Comments Closed

Firings watch.

Thursday, November 1st, 2018

DJ Durkin, University of Maryland football coach.

This is a long and complicated story that I’ve only been paying a little attention to. The short version is that one of Durkin’s players, Jordan McNair, died of heatstroke during a practice in late May. Durkin was suspended while the university conducted an investigation:

…investigators found disturbing things about the program under Durkin’s leadership, including instances of bullying and humiliation by strength coach Rick Court. It also concluded that players did not feel comfortable going to Durkin with issues. But it also said the school had a dysfunctional athletic department that did not serve Durkin well in his development as a first-time head coach.

The university initially decided, earlier this week, to retain Durkin. But (as I read the coverage) this decision was made under pressure from alumni and boosters, and prompted a revolt among students and members of the football team.

Longer, more detailed timeline from ESPN.

Posted in Firings, Sports | Comments Closed

Firings watch.

Tuesday, October 30th, 2018

I think this counts.

Izaia Bullock, a linebacker for the Rutgers football team, has been dismissed.

“For violating team rules?” I guess you could say that…

…I do believe most teams have rules against murder plots.

Bullock, 22, “initiated a plot to murder the family members of an acquaintance” earlier in the week, according to a statement from the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office.
Bullock was charged Tuesday with two counts of attempted murder in the first degree and two counts of conspiracy to commit murder in the first degree.

I wonder if this was one of those situations you see played out so often on the Justice Network: rich child hires patsy to whack his parents while rich kid is off somewhere setting up an alibi…

Posted in Firings, Law, Sports | Comments Closed

Ah, Cleveland.

Monday, October 29th, 2018

Well. Well well well. Well.

The Cleveland Browns just fired head coach Hue Jackson.

(waits for the deafening cries of “What took them so long?” to subside)

Really, what took them so long? The man was 3-36-1 over two and a half seasons.

Also shown the door: offensive coordinator Todd Haley.

Jackson and Haley were both fired after a rift with Haley that began in training camp and was played out on HBO’s Hard Knocks. It continued through Haley defiantly starting Josh Gordon in the opener against Jackson’s wishes, and refusing to play Nick Chubb and Duke Johnson more, which led to the trade of starting running back Carlos Hyde.

(Hattip: Lawrence.)

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Loser update with bonus firing: October 29, 2018.

Monday, October 29th, 2018

NBA teams that still have a chance to go 0-82:

Cleveland

On a totally related note, Cleveland fired head coach Tyronn Lue on Sunday. I believe this is the first firing of the NBA regular season.

He was 128-83 over three years, and had one NBA championship and three finals appearances to his credit. But…the team is 0-6 for the first time since 1995.

According to a source, the Cavs had been frustrated with the overall lack of competitiveness, believing the roster is more talented than it has displayed. Lue’s rotations, including a lack of playing time for some of the youngsters in favor of veterans like Smith and George Hill, has also been a point of contention. That loyalty contributed to Lue’s ouster.

Posted in Firings, Loser, Sports | Comments Closed

Norts spews.

Tuesday, October 9th, 2018

We have our first firing of the NBA season. You know, the NBA season that hasn’t started yet.

Phoenix Suns general manager Ryan McDonough out.

From ESPN:

He drafted the likes of Devin Booker, Josh Jackson, TJ Warren, Alex Len, Dragan Bender and Deandre Ayton. He had some early success, but the Suns are still in the same rebuilding mode that they were in when McDonough was hired. The team went 155-255 during his tenure.
The Suns also had five different coaches under McDonough. Last season, they fired coach Earl Watson three games into the season and named Jay Triano interim coach. In the offseason, they named Igor Kokoskov head coach.

In other news, I missed this story until Popehat tweeted part of it. Ken White’s take on this was more “look at the stupid things clients do”, which surprised me: I’ll touch on the reason why shortly.

Summary: the Los Angeles Dodgers (and other baseball teams) may be in trouble. Legal trouble.

Sports Illustrated has learned that the U.S. Department of Justice has begun a sweeping probe into possible corruption tied to the recruitment of international players, centered on potential violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. What’s more, SI has learned that multiple alleged victims of smuggling and human trafficking operations have already given evidence to law enforcement agents or testified before a federal grand jury.

…

The trove of evidence—the material that largely persuaded the bureau to launch an investigation—includes videotapes, photographs, confidential legal briefs, receipts, copies of player visas and passport documents, internal club emails and private communications by franchise executives in 2015 and 2016.

…

Internal communications by the Dodgers show concerns about what team officials called a “mafia” entrenched in their operations in the Caribbean and Venezuela, including a key employee who dealt “with the agents and buscones” and was “unbelievably corrupt.” Other personnel were suspected of being tied to “altered books” or “shady dealings,” according to the documents.

FanGraphs has an interesting supplemental piece. The part that jumps out at me – and the one that I’m surprised Ken wasn’t all over:

…what is described in the SI piece also comes dangerously close to a violation of a law called the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”), a law which allows for prosecution of an entire company or enterprise instead of each person involved individually.

Did the Dodgers do the RICO? I am not a lawyer. But the person who wrote the FanGraphs article is: I think she presents a good argument that, if the Dodgers are found guilty of human trafficking, that’s a “predicate offense” for RICO purposes.

To charge under RICO, at least two predicate crimes within 10 years must have been committed through the enterprise.

Mail and wire fraud are also predicate crimes. So one count of human trafficking, and one count of wire fraud…to quote FanGraphs:

…getting banned from baseball may end up being a best-case scenario depending on the extent of their involvement and whether they knew or should have known about the illegality going on in their operations.

Admit it: wouldn’t you love to see the Department of Justice seize the Dodgers in asset forfeiture and try to run a baseball team? I know I would: a government run baseball team would make the 1899 Cleveland Spiders look like a model of competence and sanity.

Posted in California Über Alles, Firings, IANAL, Law, Sports | Comments Closed

Your loser update: week 5, 2018.

Monday, October 8th, 2018

The Browns actually won a second game this season. The New York Football Giants are 1-4. And the worthless San Francisco 49ers lost, which is good: but to Arizona, which is bad.

Also: Mike Stoops out as Oklahoma’s defensive coordinator.

NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:

None.

The loser update will return at the start of the NFL season next year. There may possibly be special updates between now and then, but it will definitely be back in 2019 (assuming we all live that long).

Posted in Firings, Loser, NFL, Sports | 2 Comments »

Quickies.

Wednesday, October 3rd, 2018

Our short national nightmare is over:

The Republic of Texas Biker Rally and the Heat Wave car show will go on at the Travis County Exposition Center, but the Travis Central Appraisal District will have to scramble to find another venue for thousands of property tax protest hearings after county commissioners voted Tuesday to continue contract negotiations for the two highly popular events.
After a heated debate, commissioners voted 3-2 Tuesday, with County Judge Sarah Eckhardt and Commissioner Margaret Gómez against, to move toward contracts with the event organizers on renting the Expo Center, leaving the appraisal district out of the mix.

Chimene Onyeri, the guy who shot Judge Kocurek: life in federal prison.

Paul Molitor out as manager of the Minnesota Twins. 78-84 this season and no playoffs.

Posted in Firings, Law, Politics, Travis County | Comments Closed

Pilot error.

Monday, August 13th, 2018

The Dallas Wings, who are a team in the WNBA, fired their head coach Fred Williams yesterday.

The root cause was apparently not that the Wings have lost eight games in a row: they are 14-17 so far this season, and could conceivably make the playoffs. The root cause appears to have been that Mr. Williams and the team president/CEO got into “a postgame altercation”. It isn’t clear to me if punches were thrown or exactly what the nature of the altercation was: either it was serious enough that CEO Greg Bibb felt compelled to fire Williams before the season ended, or (possibly) Mr. Bibb is just a little oversensitive.

In any case, the Wings are still one game ahead of…that’s right, the Las Vegas Aces.

(Apologies for linking to ESPN, but the Dallas paper was really obnoxious about ad blockers. I couldn’t find any mention of this in the Statesman or HouChron.)

Posted in Firings, Sports | Comments Closed

Firings watch.

Friday, May 11th, 2018

Dwane Casey, NBA coach of the year, has been fired by the Toronto Raptors.

Casey was 320-238 over seven seasons:

Casey, 61, led the Raptors to four Atlantic Division titles in five seasons, and three consecutive 50-win seasons. The Raptors had their eyes on an appearance in the NBA finals after winning a franchise-record 59 games in the regular-season, including 34 wins at home — tied with Houston for best in the league.

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Firings watch.

Monday, May 7th, 2018

On the road back from Dallas, but quickly:

Stan Van Gundy our as Detroit Pistons head coach.

Blogging from the passenger seat of a Mazda RX-8 (or really any moving vehicle) is harder than you might think. Updates to come.

Posted in Firings, Sports | Comments Closed

Firings watch.

Friday, April 13th, 2018

More blood in the streets:

Steve Clifford out as head coach of the Charlotte Hornets.

196-214 overall, two playoff appearances where they never got out of the first round, and 36-46 this season with no playoffs.

Posted in Firings, Sports | Comments Closed

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