Sources are reporting that Ben Howland is going to be fired from his position as men’s basketball coach at UCLA.
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.
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?
The scholar in question is Leslie S. Klinger
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:
Wait. The Federal Government was funding a wrestling program? On the God-forsaken Upper Peninsula of Michigan?
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.)
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.)
The first question I had when I heard this was: are they going to even have a ceremony, if nobody was elected? Answer:
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.
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…
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…
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.
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.
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…
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.
Jim Washburn is out as defensive line coach of the Eagles. Yes, already.
Obit watch: David Oliver Relin, journalist and co-author of Three Cups of Tea. I wish I had more to say on this, but right now I’m not sure what I can say.
As I recall, the case of the lawyer who shot at a census worker was well publicized at the time. The lawyer. Carolyn Barnes, denies the incident ever happened. But she was declared incompetent to stand trial and sent off to a state mental hospital.
Here’s the punchline: her law license is still valid, and she’s representing at least one client.
So, in other words: if the state hasn’t taken away her law license, she’s sane and can be tried for shooting at the census worker. If the state takes away her law license, that just certifies that’s she’s insane and can’t stand trial. That’s some catch.
Widely reported yesterday, but noted here for the record (I wanted to let the press shake out a bit before linking): Gene Chizik out at Auburn.
33-19 overall, 15-17 in conference, 3-9 overall and 0-8 in conference this season. And, yes, he won a national championship in 2010, but what had he done lately?
North Carolina State fired Tom O’Brien: 40-35 and 22-26 in conference over six seasons.
Jon Embree is gone at Colorado after two seasons, during which he was 4-21, and 1-11 this season.
Danny Hope out at Purdue: 22-27 over four seasons, 13-19 in conference. And Purdue is going to a bowl game…
And, finally, as far as I know, Frank Spaziani out at Boston College:
(Loser update: the Washington Wizards are now 0-11, and still have a shot at being the first NBA team to go 0-82.)
Jeff Tedford: out as coach at the University of California, Berkeley.
Tedford’s overall record is 82-57, “the most wins in school history by the longest-tenured coach in school history“. The problem was, Tedford went 15-22 in his last three seasons, 9-18 in conference, and 0-3 against Stanford.
And this one goes out to Gregg Easterbrook:
My apologies for not noting this yesterday, but I was out with friends from early in the morning until late in the evening. Yes, I did have fun, thank you very much.