Coach Finds Great Deal After Black Monday
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By DERON SNYDER
After the football games have ended and the leftovers have been stored comes Black Friday, which is supposed to be followed by another uber-shopping spree, Cyber Monday.
But the sports calendar got stuck in color-coded mode this year, resulting in a twist that dampened the holiday spirit in households across the country: Black Monday.
In the NHL, the Washington Capitals fired coach Bruce Boudreau while the Carolina Hurricanes fired coach Paul Maurice. That was nothing compared the clearance sale in college football, as Rick Neuheisel (UCLA), Dennis Erickson (Arizona State) and Ron Zook (Illinois) were discarded Monday.
Kansas got an early start by firing Turner Gill on Sunday. Washington State and the Jacksonville Jaguars straggled in late, jettisoning Paul Wulff and Jack Del Rio, respectively, on Tuesday. The Anaheim Ducks sensed the opportunity for an upgrade Wednesday and exchanged Randy Carlyle for the just-released Boudreau 2.0.
(For those whose Christmas wish list included a new football coach at Maryland, no. That would be too expensive given the athletic department’s current economic state and it would be too tacky, just one season after hiring the current coach. Sorry that the disappointment grew Wednesday when Washington State unwrapped a shiny new Mike Leach, exactly what the Terps needed as Ralph Friedgen’s replacement.)
