Archive for the ‘Firings’ Category

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And so it begins…

Monday, January 4th, 2010

Zorn. Gone.

Not much more to say; everyone knew it was coming.

Lawrence is now arguing that retaining Kubiak is the right call. I’m not sure I agree with that. I agree more with Laurence Simon that the Texans are a mediocre team, and will remain so as long as the current coaching and management structure are in place.

Edited to add: It just gets better. Buffalo has purged their entire coaching staff. It’s like something out of Stalin’s Russia.

Edited to add 2: From the local Buffalo paper: “Drunken Bills fan passes out, leaving three children crying.” The jokes, they write themselves.

Edited to add 3: From the HouChron:

The Bills released an awkwardly worded statement, saying members of the team’s current coaching staff have been informed that their obligations for this season have been completed, and they now “have the opportunity to seek positions elsewhere.” The release said their status will then be determined by the Bills’ next head coach.

Despite how the Bills phrased the release, a person familiar with the team’s decisions told The Associated Press that the staff has been fired.

Edited to add 4: And the Bears take out a full-page newspaper ad apologizing to their fans. (Hattip: E&P in Exile.)

Edited to add 5: Jets Giants fire defensive coordinator Bill Sheridan.

Edited to add 6: Bears fire offensive coordinator Ron Turner, and five other offensive coaches.

Posted in Firings, Loser, NFL | Comments Closed

Bloodletting.

Wednesday, December 30th, 2009

Mike Leach is now officially gone.

In February, Leach and the school agreed to a five-year, $12.7 million contract. According to terms of the deal, Leach was due a $800,000 bonus on Dec. 31 if he were still the head coach at Texas Tech

For the record, here’s a link to the Texas Monthly cover story from earlier this year. (Link does require registration; cypherpunks@mailinator.com/cypherpunks may work.)

Here’s a longish “web extra”,  also from TM that doesn’t require registration.

The local Lubbock paper appears to be slammed right now.

My view? I’m not a huge Tech or Leach fan, but I need to see more evidence before believing he did something wrong (for reasons I outlined yesterday). This sounds to me more like a power struggle, combined with disappointment over an 8-4 season, combined with not wanting to pay a huge bonus.

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The curse continues.

Tuesday, December 29th, 2009

Texas Tech coach Mike Leach hasn’t been fired yet.

But he has been suspended. The father of one of his players is accusing Leach of treating his son in an abusive and improper fashion after the player suffered a concussion and couldn’t practice.

(The player in question, Adam James, is the son of Craig James, an ESPN announcer.)

I have a feeling this is going to turn into a strange story. First of all, there’s the whole “he said, he said” aspect to it; I find it very hard to believe that, after all the attention being given to concussions at the pro level, any coach who wanted to keep his job would pull this kind of crap. Add to that the involvement of an ESPN staffer (Tech is playing on Saturday in the Alamo Bowl, which is being broadcast by ESPN), stir, and we have a mess.

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Did you stand by me? No way.

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

Capital Metro, embroiled in a contract and insurance dispute with rail contractor Veolia Transportation, on Wednesday cancelled its five-year contract with the company to operate freight and passenger rail.

CapMet awarded “emergency” contracts to two other contractors to run the system “over the next five-plus years”. But don’t worry, this won’t delay the startup of the rail system any longer; CapMet says we’re still on target for startup “sometime before March 31, about two years later than originally scheduled”.

Two interesting food-related articles in the NYT: one about the upcoming Tavern on the Green auction, which gives a good overview of the restaurant’s decline and fall. The other article is really more of a rewritten press release on Chex and their promotion of new recipes for Chex Party Mix. Even though it has that whole rewritten PR quality to it, I feel compelled to note the later article; Chex Party Mix is a traditional food of my people.

As a side note, sometime later this evening, I’m going to add a list of BugMeNot links for the NYT, LAT, Statesman, HouChron, and WP to the sidebar. I already have cookies on my machines for most of these, so I don’t think about logins (and all of these sites are somewhat flaky about requiring logins), but Lawrence mentioned this problem to me the other day. (I can’t do it now because, believe it or not, BugMeNot is blocked at the office.)

(Edited to add: Speaking of Lawrence, I haven’t been able to listen to Ms. Aguilera yet; blocked at work. But the Bob Dylan YouTube video isn’t. I’d heard Mr. Zimmerman’s Christmas album was pretty awful; but am I a bad, evil, taste-lacking person for kind of liking “Must Be Santa”?)

Five. Five million. Five million dollars.

Posted in Clippings, Firings, Food, Geek, Media | 2 Comments »

Random notes: December 4, 2009.

Friday, December 4th, 2009

Today’s memo from Captain Obvious: scalpers find it hard to sell tickets when the team is awful. And sympathy for the Nets.

Mangino out.

So your scam involves taking money for hot tubs from people on eBay, then not shipping the hot tubs? I can’t decide who is dumber; the scammer, for not thinking that he’d be caught, or the people who actually thought purchasing hot tubs off eBay was a good idea.

In other news, we’re all going to die (well, mostly you folks in Houston). Film at 11.

Edited to add: The Observer has a nifty interview with Maj Sjöwall. I’m kind of ashamed to admit, even though I’ve read some of the Martin Beck books, I had no idea Per Wahlöö was dead. (Hattip: Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind.)

Posted in Books, Clippings, Firings, Hysteria, Loser, Media, Roads, Stupid | Comments Closed

When you’re a Net, you’re a Net all the way…

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

…from your opening loss at Charlotte to losing at home against the Mavericks and setting a new NBA record for futility.

Two other franchises had gone 0-17 to start a season. The Miami Heat set the record 21 years ago as an expansion team. The Los Angeles Clippers, who often look like an expansion team, matched the mark 10 years ago.

The Nets now stand alone, wallowing in despair and self-loathing.

Lawrence gave me some flack yesterday for not mentioning Bobby Bowden. My feeling was that Bowden wasn’t fired, he resigned; Lawrence’s argument is that Bowden resigned in the same way Nixon and Spitzer resigned. I don’t have much to say on the subject, but if you do, here’s your thread.

Obama Ecstasy tablets? Those will go well with my Chia head.

Dear Congressman Lamar Smith: Please be so kind as to consume excrement and thus hasten your demise.

Edited to add: I forgot this one. By way of the Scalz, homeowner’s association tries to tell a 90-year-old Medal of Honor recipient he can’t have a flagpole in his yard. Get the popcorn, folks, this should be almost as much fun as the ongoing situation in what Balko calls Marakafka County.

Posted in Clippings, Firings, Law, Loser | 1 Comment »

Weis whacked.

Monday, November 30th, 2009

The firing is now official.

St. Edward’s and Notre Dame are both under the Congregation of Holy Cross, so I have some sympathy for Notre Dame. This firing doesn’t give me any pleasure.

I think Notre Dame’s biggest problem is a need to adjust to the realities of the new world. As TMQ points out, Notre Dame graduates 94 percent of their football players; they’re basically playing an amateur game among professionals. The school needs to decide what’s important; building character and graduating players, or steamrolling cupcakes and getting a share of that sweet sweet bowl money.

Posted in Firings, Loser | 1 Comment »

Notes towards a loser update.

Sunday, November 29th, 2009

The New Jersey Nets (who, by the way, are 0-16, and two games away from setting an NBA record for most consecutive losses to start a season; and they play the Lakers tonight) fired coach Lawrence Frank. Who says Bruce Ratner cares more about his real estate ventures than the Nets?

(By the way, that is not the firing I was expecting today. I was also not expecting Al Groh to be fired at Virginia quite yet, but when you go 3-9, and can’t beat your arch rival, your days are numbered. Groh apparently has pro experience with the Jets; could he go to the Bills? Or could he possibly be considered for the Notre Dame job?)

I see that the Texans once again managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

This doesn’t really qualify as a “loser” update per se, but last night I was able to have a very nice dinner at my sister’s place and watch the Baylor – Texas Tech game. I’m glad Tech pulled the game out, but it sure seems to me that there were a lot of missed and dropped passes. This victory strikes me as being one for the defense; and, as we all know, you can’t rely on defense to win games.

And the more Avatar commercials I see, the more I root for the movie to be an enormous flop.

Posted in Firings, Loser, Movies, NFL | Comments Closed

Irrational hatred.

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

I can’t explain why I dislike the Buffalo Bills. It has nothing to do with the Honorable Mr. Owens; I disliked the Bills before they signed him. It has nothing to do with Buffalo itself, a city that brought us the Buffalo wing, or Buffalo fans; I’m sure they are wonderful people who adopt stray puppies and help old ladies across the street. (I have a friend who used to live in Buffalo; he tells a great story about his experiences during one of the epic Buffalo snowstorms. When he talks about moving down the street with his cow-orkers, all of them roped together so they didn’t get lost in the blinding snow, you gain a new appreciation for Texas.) It has nothing to do with the Oilers and their spectacular collapse; if I was going to resent anyone for that, it would be the Oilers.

No, I really can’t explain it. But it does make me happy that Dick Jauron is the first coach firing of the season.

Posted in Firings, Loser, NFL | Comments Closed

Jose Cruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuz…

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

…has been fired by the Astros.

  1. I am not a baseball fan. If I can find it, I’ll post my review of Seasons in Hell (which I love) but the short version is that I hate baseball with a passion.
  2. Given 1 above, I don’t live and die by the fate of the Astros.
  3. Given 1 and 2 above, I believe the Astros have major problems that won’t be resolved by firing Cruz.

Posted in Firings | Comments Closed

Quick blog fodder.

Monday, September 21st, 2009

The Houston Astros have fired Cecil Cooper.

The Astros have lost seven straight and eight of their last 10 games.

With Sunday’s loss they dropped to 70-79 and were eliminated from playoff contention.

Posted in Firings | Comments Closed

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