I was just sitting on the couch, eating a big bowl of mashed potatoes, turkey, stuffing, sauerkraut, cranberries, and gravy (and I mean bowl- I threw it all in, stirred it up into an unrecognizable mess, and microwaved it. And it is fabulous.) and some more coffeee while watching theTexas/Texas A&M game, when I heard the news that Larry Coker had been fired:
Miami fired football coach Larry Coker on Friday, a day after the Hurricanes beat No. 18 Boston College 17-14 to salvage a 6-6 season to become eligible to play in a postseason bowl game.
Coker was informed of the decision by athletics director Paul Dee early Friday. Coker has three years remaining on a contract that pays him nearly $2 million annually, and the school will owe him between $2.4 million and $3 million in a buyout.
“The university has made a decision to change head coaches for our football program,” Dee said at a news conference.
To a man, the announcers all said what a nice guy Larry Coker is, and what a shame it is.
Bullshit. Larry Coker sat at the top of what could be described as a legally sanctioned criminal enterprise, and did nothing as this crew of thugs, petty criminals, and illiterates bullied their way through the NCAA for a number of years. The behavior of the Miami football team has been a national disgrace for years, and the one person in a position to change it- Larry Coker- did nothing, just so long as the boys were winning.
His nonchalance about the behavior of the cretins he calls a team is legendary, and this indifference is best exemplified by his reaction to the disgusting Miami/Florida International brawl earlier this year. FIU got rid of two players and suspended the rest of those involved indefinitely. Miami suspended a kid and mentioned vague punishments to be named later.
Larry Coker sat by and allowed a thuggish and criminal mentality to not only creep into his organization, but to be cultivated- as long as the U was winning, bad behavior was allowed. Larry Coker may be a lot of things, but anyone who leads that many young men astray, either intentionally or through indifference, is most certainly not a “good guy.”
So, good riddance, Larry Coker. College football will not miss you.
Redleg
I agree. Miami has been a team of ciminals for as long as I can remember. It’s too bad that the decent players on the team have had to put up with the coddling of the dickheads.
canuckistani
A college football team is a “legally sanctioned criminal enterprise”? And you accuse Tim of hating Baby Jesus? You’re getting into Hunter S. Thompson levels of moonbattery.
I think you’re right, of course, but I also hate Baby Jesus.
neil
Sauerkraut?
Armand
What I find weirdest about these comments is that they distract from discussing Coker’s extremely successful career at Miami. Good guy or not – doesn’t it make more sense for them to focus on what he did on the field? I mean they are paid to discuss sports, not the character of the coaches and athletes. And in terms of his product on the field he was extremely impressive: about an 80% winning percentage, a national title, a bowl game every year. If the announcers are desperate to say something nice about him as he gets fired, why not talk about those results?
Cyrus
From the article:
So he lost his job not for all the stuff John talked about — or at least not mainly because of that — but because the team’s historic winning streak fell to a .500 season. Classy.
I don’t know if this is an objective view of a problem with America or just resentment left over from having been one of the geeks in high school, but I just wanted to repeat that. Enough people care deeply enough and spend enough money on college sports that a good coach can make $2 million a year? Mind-boggling.
SeesThroughIt
Yes, but John, he’s a personable guy in interviews, and that makes him a “nice guy,” trumping all the hideous bullshit you list above.
Becoming a football player for the U ought to require some sort of jail sentence and parole. It’s gonna happen sooner or later, so you may as well get it out of the way up front.
db
I hear West Virginia is looking for a new defensive coordinator. Maybe a guy who knows how to recruit thugs would be a shot in the arm.
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I am just joking, of course… I have no idea about WV’s defense. I just thought it would be fun to make Cole choke on a turkey leg.
Steve
They did talk about the results, in fact. Why they felt it necessary to also comment on his personality is beyond me. It’s reminiscent of political reporters telling you who they’d like to have a beer with.
The defining event of this season was the brawl with Florida International. If that brawl doesn’t happen, I seriously doubt the guy gets fired just for having one bad year. Yeah, if they had a brawl while going 11-0, he probably keeps his job, but… he can’t let the players’ lawlessness become such a big news story that it gives a black eye to the university as a whole.
jake
A nice guy is now defined as: A person who, regardless of other personality flaws, is one you could imagine sitting down to have a beer with.
I confess, I went to a elite north eastern hippy infested college full of Michael Sipes look-alike geeks and our best team was the Women’s Rugby team, followed by Men’s lax. Students from my alma mater are what what football players call a light snack.
I know a good sports team brings in tons of cash for the institution and sports scholarships offer a way for some students to attend when they otherwise might not be able to. But its a fucking college and the 99.9999% of the atheletes who don’t make the pros will need to cope with the real world when they graduate. Us dweebs would like it if the guys who could step on us and not notice learned a little self-control while they’re in there. And of the infinetesimal number of players who do make the pros, their future coaches and team mates will appreciate it if they aren’t a batch of Terrel Owens mimics.
matt
Larry Coker is a horrible coach, but he’s actually credited (rightly imo) with turning around what you’re complaining about in this post. They’re not thug-u anymore, they just suck.
scs
Yeah, we can’t all be good guys or gals. Everytime someone dies, everyone talks about what a good person they were. Statistically speaking, this can’t always be true.
Hyperion
the univerity of miami has always had (and deserved) the reputation of a private party school for the academically derisive.
their football program was the most public manifestation of that attitude.
recently their recruits have established new lows wrt to law enforcement issues and made many alum uneasy. but if the team had a winning record, all would have been forgiven.
so..another dog bites man story.
Otto Man
Given that criminality and thuggery are treasured traditions at Miami, Coker’s turning a blind eye was probably something that endeared him to the alumni. (Assuming they actually have alumni. I mean, someone actually graduates from there, right?)
Pooh
I nominate Dwayne Johnson to position.
I mean, he’s an alumnus (or at least a former attendee) and has experience leading thugs and ne’er do wells.
Can you Smell What The Coach Is Cooking?
srv
Fixed.
This is another thing people have always said about Bush. That he’s some kind, good-ole-boy. Yeah, I can just see me, Dick and George sitting under some tree in Luckenbach listening to Willie play and downing Shiners. Not.
Justin Slotman
Yeah, what Hyperion said. I’m pretty sure the thug thing is what the University of Miami (I almost said Miami University, but they’re a far different kind of school) braintrust wants people to associate with their team–their marketing people think it sells windbreakers or something. Coker is the least of that, and he would have been gone sooner if he had done something about the thuggishness, I think. No, the thug thing is something celebrated by the Miami fanbase–they’re like the Raiders fans of college football–and it’s going to take action at the top to change it, if anybody at the top thinks it should be changed.
Bombadil
I’m with Neil on this one.
Sauerkraut?
Adam
Regardless of the reason Coker got fired, I don’t think it’s inappropriate to say ‘good riddance.’ Even if he “turned the program around,” which is debatable, what happened at FIU this year cancels out those purported gains. That was just mind-boggling.
It’s sad that it took a crappy performance to get Coker fired. I wish he’d been thrown out for other reasons, but I’m still glad he’s gone.
Joe1347
$2 Million per year for a football coach. I wonder what Miami pays it’s professors?
I guess I’m in the minority – but I always thought that going to college was about getting a good education. Instead of watching coddled and pampered goons pound on each other.
SPIIDERWEB™
Unfortunately, srv, the boys aren’t winning in the case of Bush. At best they are not losing and I believe a case could be made that they are.
Anderson
Good guy or not – doesn’t it make more sense for them to focus on what he did on the field?
WTF?
Yeah, Hitler comes off relatively well too, on *that* logic.
The ends do not justify the means.
just sayin
Isn’t this the reverse of how the (pre-steroid) Barry Bonds got labelled a “bad guy? Because of his father’s experience in the major leagues, he had no use for sports reporters and didn’t bother to hide it. I suspect it’s also why the post-steroid Bonds has become the poster boy for the problem instead of the dozens if not scores of players who took steroids before he gave in and cheated to keep up.
The relative salaries of coaches and professors is a tired hobbyhorse – it’s simply a buyer’s market for non-superstar academics and a seller’s market for name coaches. If you’re Miami of Florida, you pay to play, if you’re Miami of Ohio you make a different choice and compete in a smaller pond.
Zifnab
I’m just going to sit here and cry into my soup as I replay the disaster that was the UT/A&M game over and over in my mind.
Poor Colt. The only thing worse than his performance on the field was his replacement’s. Is it me or is the UT Football team trying to re-enact the plot to Friday Night Lights? I just hope McCoy’s girlfriend isn’t a giant slut.
rachel
He may be a good guy, but he falls short of being a good man.
srv
Might as well turn out the lights in Austin. It seems like we only get a decent quarterback every other generation or so, so tune back in around 2030.
demimondian
POTD.
West Coast libertarian
“Larry Coker sat at the top of what could be described as a legally sanctioned criminal enterprise”
Actually I would have saved that description for Miles Brand
Dustbin Of History
It was Butch Davis who cleaned up the mess of thuggery that Jimmuh and Dennis Erickson had left behind and instituted some level of calm at Miami. When Davis went off to go over his head in the NFL, Coker got lazy or something and went back to the good ol’ days.
Barrasso
I think that college sports should be done away with altogether, go to a juniors style system like canadian Jr hockey, all these dimwit athletes are taking up room in colleges they don’t deserve to attend. Fuck the big stupid football players, there are smart kids who want your spots.
Newport 9
I’m sure the Miami students who spend the next thirty years paying off their student loans can take some small satisfaction in knowing their tuitions are going to help the school’s football program pay two or three million dollars to the coach they just fired.
Whose idea was it to turn a bunch of alleged institutions of higher learning into the NFL’s farm program?
Rod Stanton
He is and was a disgrace to the NCAA. Should have been fired in Oct! But like Erickson his teams won and that is all that matters. How or why they won does not matter. Sportsmanship died with Pappy Waldorf half a century ago.
The Other Steve
I think it’s time college football went pro. The players deserve a salary, considering they ain’t doing this for the college education.
Darrell
Well if you’re going bitch about the costs, you’ll need to acknowledge the flip side, which is the revenues from television contracts + ticket sales to games + sales of caps & T-shirts, etc. I imagine (but not sure) that Miami’s football program has been a net moneymaker for the University.
Darrell
Or at least have an alternative route other than the college system monopoly.. like the baseball minor leagues. Right now, it’s the college/university system or nothing for the players.
Zifnab
Oh, boo. Sims wasn’t fantastic, but he was good. And, strictly by the numbers, McCoy was outpacing Young until he took that bad hit. Admittedly, it was poor planning of Mack Brown just to assume Colt would carry the team indefinitely, and he could have spared some time and energy in getting even a semi-competent backup. But give the QB an off-season of downtime to recover, and I think we’ll see a very strong UT in ’07. This was really only supposed to be a rebuilding year anyway.
srv
That’s what we used to call an Akers unit.
jake
Tsk and pshaw! They learn what it’s like to go from golden boy to has-been in four short years (less if they sustain a serious injury). That’s an invaluable lesson right there. I don’t know in what exactly, but I’m sure there are starving kids in Logotee who would kill for the opportunity to go from superstar to no-body before their 21st birthday.
Bruce Moomaw
“I was just sitting on the couch, eating a big bowl of mashed potatoes, turkey, stuffing, sauerkraut, cranberries, and gravy (and I mean bowl — I threw it all in, stirred it up into an unrecognizable mess, and microwaved it. And it is fabulous.)”
Thanks a lot, John. You’ve just made it MUCH easier for me to diet for the rest of my life.
CaseyL
I haven’t gotten over the shock that FIU actually has a football team. I was at FIU in the mid-80s (working for Hillel and taking ceramics classes) and it was an all-commuter, mostly-international, really small university then, hardly distinguishable from a junior college.
I mean, I knew it had changed, but… a football team? I can’t even remember if it had one way back when. Considering how many students came from other countries, the serious study body team sport was likelier to be soccer.
Oh, and this:
… has got to be a Single Guy thing.
On the plus side, it means many fewer dishes to wash afterwards.
Otto Man
Cole’s Big Bowl of Leftovers might be the only thing more stomach churning than that bowl thing that KFC is pushing.
On the bright side, Mr. Creosote would be proud.
Kirk Spencer
Sorta. It’s been a net moneymaker, but for the athletic department.
Let me caveat that with “probably”. I’ve not seen Miami’s books. I’ve seen books for other schools, though, and so suspect it’s not going to be too much different.
The athletic departments tend to defend their large salaries for coaches by noting that everything over the “standard” pay for professor/assistant professor/etc is self-generated.
And big college sports teams do, indeed, generate a lot of money. It’s just that it all stays in the hands of the sports people. Plus the athletic departments get a share of the university budget. It’s additionally supported by “prestige” factors, recruiting not only sports but academic stars and other potential students who want to attend the place with “that team”.
But the bottom line is that in all cases of which I’m aware, all the money generated by the athletic department is kept by the athletic department.
Kimmitt
So true.
It just occurred to me that college-affiliated minor league teams — that is, teams sponsored by colleges by not staffed by students, as such — could be a pretty nifty intermediate measure. We could even require that the players be of approximate college age, just not that they attend school. Hm.
jake
Just don’t eat that teeny tiny wafer theen mint.
Sine.Qua.Non
This didn’t actually sound so bad until I realized you had mixed sauerkraut with it all……..OMG, I would be ill…….with cranberries no less. Just chilling!
Punchy
Ah….I see my post was deleted. Thanks John. I love it when you play God with your blog.