Archive for the ‘Firings’ Category

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Firing watch.

Thursday, April 18th, 2013

I was out of pocket pretty much all morning and much of the afternoon for something that didn’t quite pan out. (Lousy Sapril weather.)

However, Lawrence was covering the beat for me.

Lawrence Frank out as head coach of the Detroit Pistons. 54-94 over two “seasons” (in quotes because Frank was hired during the 2011 strike).

Byron Scott out as head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers. Three seasons, 64-166.

Doug Collins has “resigned” as coach of the Philadelphia 76ers, but is apparently staying on as a “consultant”. So this is probably closer to a real resignation than “jumped before being pushed”, but I note it anyway. Three seasons, 110-120.

Posted in Clippings, Firings, Sports | Comments Closed

Firing watch.

Friday, April 5th, 2013

Tim Pernetti is apparently out as Rutgers AD over the Mike Rice scandal.

Also out: Jimmy Martelli, aka “Baby Rice”, an assistant coach.

Both of these are being spun as “resignations”, but my reading between the lines is that they were more like “I’m quitting now before I officially get canned.”

Posted in Clippings, Firings, Sports | Comments Closed

Random notes: April 3, 2013.

Wednesday, April 3rd, 2013

Some notes from the legal beat to get things started:

Javaris Crittenton is being charged with murder and “gang activity”. Crittenton is a former NBA player with the Lakers, Wizards, and Grizzlies. You may remember him as “that guy who got into a locker room altercation with Gilbert Arenas that ended with guns being pulled and a 38-game suspension”.

Meanwhile, in Arizona, Louis C. Taylor has been freed from prison. Mr. Taylor served 42 years before his release: he was convicted of starting a hotel fire in 1970, when he was 16, and sentenced to 28 life terms. However, it looks like the evidence used to convict Mr. Taylor was questionable, and (if I read the article correctly) the prosecution withheld exculpatory evidence.

Mr. Taylor’s release offered him only a small measure of redemption. Under an agreement with prosecutors in Pima County, he entered a no-contest plea during an hourlong court hearing, which set aside his original conviction and gave him credit for the time he had spent behind bars. The arrangement means that he did not admit guilt, but because he did not contest the charges, he is effectively barred from suing anyone who had a role in his conviction.

And:

Prosecutors, in filings and at Tuesday’s hearing, said they still believed Mr. Taylor was guilty, but chose to accept the agreement because they would not have been able to pursue a new trial. The evidence is too old and scarce, and there are not enough living witnesses, they said.

Of course they believe Mr. Taylor was guilty. God forbid they should admit someone served 42 years for what may not have even been a crime.

On Tuesday, [New York State Senator Malcolm A. Smith], Councilman [Daniel J.] Halloran and the Republican Party leaders were charged with wire fraud and bribery. The senator was also charged with extortion.

Senator Smith is accused of trying to bribe his way onto the ballot for the mayor’s race in New York City.

The complaint described envelopes of cash trading hands in Manhattan hotel rooms and restaurants, payments of thousands of dollars to persuade Republican leaders in New York to put Senator Smith, from Queens, on the Republican ballot in November. The bribes were to be paid to obtain certificates authorizing him to run for mayor as a Republican even though he was a registered Democrat.

Wait. What?

In case you were wondering, Robert “Ratso” Rizzo’s trial on corruption charges is scheduled for September. Ratso’s former assistant, Angela Spaccia, is asking for a separate trial.

From the department of things that suck: noted SF author Ian Banks is dying. Many of my friends, including Lawrence, are big Banks fans. I never got into his work, personally: the only Banks book I own is Raw Spirit: In Search of the Perfect Dram, his non-fiction book about touring Scotland in search of single-malts. But I know that Banks was a hugely important SF writer, and this is just a damn shame.

Firing watch: Mike Rice out as basketball coach of Rutgers after video of him acting like an a–hole becomes public.

Posted in Books, California Über Alles, Clippings, Firings, Law, Obits, Politics, Schadenfreude, Sports | Comments Closed

Firing watch.

Tuesday, March 26th, 2013

In great haste, because I am tied up and down with stuff:

Tubby Smith out as coach of the Minnesota Golden Gophers.

Smith was 124-81 (.610) in six seasons at Minnesota. But he was just 46-62 in Big Ten play and never finished higher than sixth in the conference.

Posted in Clippings, Firings, Sports | Comments Closed

Firing watch.

Sunday, March 24th, 2013

Sources are reporting that Ben Howland is going to be fired from his position as men’s basketball coach at UCLA.

Howland has a 233-107 record in 10 seasons at UCLA. He took the Bruins to three Final Fours and won four conference championships.

The team went 25-10 this year, and lost on Friday to Minnesota.

The Tampa Bay Lightning (wait, they play hockey in Florida?) fired coach Guy Boucher.

Boucher, who led the Lightning to the Eastern Conference final in 2010-11, his first season, is 84-62-19 in two-plus seasons behind the bench. Tampa Bay, which seems as if it will miss the playoffs for a second straight season, is on a 7-16-1 skid this season after a 6-1-0 start.

Posted in Clippings, Firings, Sports | Comments Closed

Random notes: February 19, 2013.

Tuesday, February 19th, 2013

Well, isn’t this special. Julie Roe Lach, the NCAA’s chief enforcement officer, has been fired. You may remember Ms. Lach from such hits as “my people totally f–ked up the Miami investigation”.

Is Sherlock Holmes in the public domain? Or is he under copyright?

…according to a civil complaint filed on Thursday in federal court in Illinois by a leading Holmes scholar, many licensing fees paid to the Arthur Conan Doyle estate have been unnecessary, since the main characters and elements of their story derived from materials published before Jan. 1, 1923, are no longer covered by United States copyright law.

The scholar in question is Leslie S. Klinger, the man behind the recent Annotated Sherlock Holmes. Klinger and the mystery writer Laurie R. King are planning a collection of “Holmes-related” stories by various authors, but the Conan Doyle estate is demanding a licensing fee. Klinger and King did a previous collection of Holmes-related stories in 2011, and paid a $5,000 licensing fee.

The complaint asks that the court make a declaratory judgment establishing that the basic “Sherlock Holmes story elements” are in the public domain, a point that some have previously argued, if not in court.

What can you say about the only college Greco-Roman wrestling program in the country? What are they going to do if wrestling is no longer an Olympic sport? I don’t know, and I wasn’t going to say anything until I read this:

After losing its federal funding last year, the program relies on USA Wrestling and the university for financial support.

Wait. The Federal Government was funding a wrestling program? On the God-forsaken Upper Peninsula of Michigan?

Hermann always has recruits visit the campus during the summer, which he acknowledges is a bit of subterfuge. When they arrive as freshmen, just as the cold winds are beginning to blow, Hermann instructs their parents to wait in the parking lot for a few minute
“I’ve actually had recruits turn around and go back home the same day,” he said.

Competition tractor restoration. No snark here: I think this is nifty. (And, really, it isn’t any different than car shows, is it? Indeed, thinking about it some more, this might also be worth noting as an example of how the mass media is out of touch with the rest of the country.)

In addition to the Delo, which is sponsored by Chevron’s brand of oil and lubricants and is considered a Super Bowl of tractor restoration, there’s also a tractor restoration Web series (“Tractor Fanatic,” with episodes available in a two-DVD set) and Midwest tractor shows that draw thousands of fans each summer.

Posted in Books, Clippings, Firings, Sports | Comments Closed

Insert Trojans joke here.

Monday, January 14th, 2013

Been busy all afternoon, first chance I’ve had to blog, but still ahead of FARK:

The University of Southern California has fired men’s basketball coach Kevin O’Neill.

O’Neill was 48-65 overall at USC (this was his fourth season there), and 7-10 so far this season.

(I don’t think any other major college basketball coaches have been axed yet this season. Am I wrong? Tell me in comments.)

Posted in Clippings, Firings, Sports | Comments Closed

Enough of this Mularkey.

Thursday, January 10th, 2013

The Jacksonville Jaguars have fired head coach Mike Mularkey after one season.

The team went 2-14.

More from ESPN.

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

TMQ Watch: January 1, 2013.

Wednesday, January 9th, 2013

Time for the backdated TMQ watch. What bloodshed and infamy did we miss last week? Let’s open the briefcase and find out.

(more…)

Posted in Firings, Guns, NFL, Sports, TMQ watch | Comments Closed

Ah, that warm feeling of schadenfreude.

Wednesday, January 9th, 2013

No players were elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame this year in a polarizing vote that reopened the wounds of the steroid era.

The first question I had when I heard this was: are they going to even have a ceremony, if nobody was elected? Answer:

For the first time since 1960, the Hall of Fame — located in Cooperstown, N.Y. — will host a ceremony with no living inductees. The July 28 ceremony will honor the three inductees selected by a committee on baseball’s pre-integration era, but all of those inductees have been dead for at least 74 years.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have fired their general manager, Brian Burke. The Maple Leafs, as I understand it, play an obscure sport known as “hockey” which is popular in Canada.

Posted in Clippings, Firings, Loser, Sports | Comments Closed

Skulls for the skull throne!

Friday, January 4th, 2013

Hey, remember Bloody Monday? Wasn’t that a time?

Remember how the Kansas City Chiefs fired Romeo Crennel as head coach, but didn’t fire Scott Pioli as general manager?

Well, about that…

Beyond the losing on the field, Pioli’s management style created a toxic atmosphere within the organization. Haley told The Star a few days before he was fired in December 2011 that he suspected rooms at the team facility were bugged so that team administrators could monitor employees’ conversations. Haley also believed his personal cellphone, a line he used before being hired by the Chiefs, had been tampered with.

And this is sportsfirings.com, not sportshirings.com, but we have to add this note:

The move clears the way for the Chiefs to hire…

Yes, Andy Reid is the new coach.

Posted in Clippings, Firings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Blood for the blood god!

Wednesday, January 2nd, 2013

The man who TMQ would describe as “the tastefully named Gregg Williams” is apparently out as defensive coordinator in St. Louis, according to ESPN.

This is kind of an interesting situation: Williams worked for the Saints, took the job with the Rams in the off-season, and was then suspended indefinitely by the NFL for his part in the bounty scandal. He didn’t coach at all this season, and has not been reinstated by the NFL. So I’m not sure why they’re letting him go now; couldn’t they have just as easily fired him before the season started?

Both ESPN and ProFootballTalk are reporting that Blake Williams, Gregg’s son and the linebackers coach, has also been fired. Blake actually coached this season: PFT states “After Gregg was suspended, [Rams coach Jeff] Fisher gave many of Gregg’s responsibilities to the 27-year-old Blake, making him one of the youngest assistant coaches ever to handle play calling in the NFL.”

Beats me, but I just report ’em.

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Monday morning coming down.

Monday, December 31st, 2012

My plan is to do one post covering all of today’s NFL firings, and to update it whenever possible throughout the day.

So far:

Gene Smith is out as general manager of the (2-14) Jacksonville Jaguars. Khaaaaaaaaaaan!

Andy Reid. Eagles. Everyone knew it was coming.

According to the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, the Jets have fired general manager Mike Tannenbaum, but plan to retain Rex Ryan as coach. That’s a “WTF?”item.

The Cleveland Browns have canned coach Pat Shurmur and general manager Tom Heckert.

Various sources are reporting that Romeo Crennel is out as head coach in Kansas City, but the team plans to keep Scott Pioli as general manager. There’s nothing official from the team yet. (Edited to add: the KC Star reports that this is now official. And “Chiefs chairman Clark Hunt said in a statement that the entire football operation will remain under review and no final determination has been made about Pioli’s job status.”)

Edited to add and bumped: Lovie Smith gone as head coach of da Bears.

Chan Gailey out as head coach of the Bills.

Edited to add: Reports are that Norv Turmer and AJ Smith are out in San Diego, but I have not seen anything official yet. (Edited to add: official now.)

Edited to add: FARK has an official “Black Monday” thread going. You are, of course, welcome to comment here as well.

Edited to add: Ken Whisenhunt out as coach and Rod Graves out as general manager of the Arizona Cardinals. (ETA2: and a whole bunch of offensive coaches as well.)

Edited to add: I think everyone who’s going to be fired today, has been. So let’s wrap this for now with a fitting musical interlude.

Edited to add: Mike Munchak retains his position as head coach, and Ruston Webster stays general manager, in Tennessee. But Mike Reinfeldt is out as chief operating officer.

And Jim Schwartz stays coach of the Lions, but three of his assistants got kicked to the curb.

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | 1 Comment »

TMQ watch: December 25, 2012.

Sunday, December 30th, 2012

Yes, we admit it. We’re lazy and evil. Also, we got a little behind with the holidays. This is the first chance we’ve had to post this week’s mini-TMQ watch for this week’s mini-TMQ.

Before we start, though, we do want to note that NFL.com is currently reporting the firing of Andy Reid as head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, but it does not sound like the team has made an official announcement. Yet. Monday is the usual “blood in the streets” day for NFL firings.

After the jump…

(more…)

Posted in Clippings, Firings, NFL, Sports, TMQ watch | Comments Closed

Ooops.

Friday, December 28th, 2012

Forgot to note this, especially since Lawrence gave me a heads-up:

 Avery Johnson out as coach of the New York Nets.

The team is 14-14, and Johnson was “coach of the month” in November. However, the team is also 3-10 in December, which seems to have motivated the firing.

Posted in Clippings, Firings, Sports | Comments Closed

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