- Nick Saban took a break from collecting national
championships this season, but his habit of collecting disgraced former college
head coaches knows no respite. Having just sent his first major reclamation
project packing when he fired, er, encouraged then-offensive coordinator Lane
Kiffin to leave before the end of the season to start his new job coaching second-tier
college football at Florida Atlantic, the Nick-tator quickly elevated
consultant Steve Sarkisian to the OC slot. Kiffinf was infamously fired on the
tarmac at the airport at USC (after being fired by the Oakland Raiders and
University of Tennessee) and came slinking into Alabama with his tail between his
legs, only to be replaced at USC by his pal Sarkisian, who bombed out and was
ultimately fired shortly after a drunken, erratic speech at an athletic
department event. He too headed for Tuscaloosa and there, he’ll work closely with
former New Mexico head coach Mike Locksley, whom Saban has promoted to a
full-time offensive assistant. Locksley worked as an analyst last season with Sarkisian,
but it’s what he did at a certain previous coaching stop that should allow him
to fit well with Saban’s ongoing coaching rehab program at Alabama. See, back
in 2011, Locksley was fired at New Mexico following a) a 2-26 record and b) a
series of ugly incidents that included him serving a one-game suspension for
punching one of his assistant coaches. Oh, and he was also sued for sexual
harassment by a former administrative assistant and just prior to his firing,
he was caught up in an ugly situation in which a student borrowed a vehicle
from Locksley's son, who's a walk-on player for the Lobos, a vehicle registered
to the coach, and got liquored up before driving, incurring charges of
aggravated DWI, being a minor in possession of alcohol, reckless driving and
driving without a license. All in all, quite a track record for the latest
official member of the coaching staff for the reigning national runners-up………..
- Full-time, non-seasonal hermits need not apply. A clifftop
cloister in the state of Salzberg, Austria is in need of a hermit, but read the
fine print on this offer before you apply. The cloister is seeking a part-time
hermit to dwell in this isolated space, but the 350-year-old hermitage has no
running water, heat, or Internet. Running water and heat can be forgiven, but
no WiFi? What are you guys, barbarians? Worse still, the post only runs from
April to November and it’s unpaid, so think of it as a slightly less crappy
version of that summer internship your academic advisor urged you to apply for.
"There is no classic job description for a hermit," the parish
website says. If you have previous hermiting experience, that’s great, but if
not, this unpaid loner should have a
Christian outlook and be "a self-sufficient person at peace with
himself," says local priest Alois Moser. The hermit will spend most of his
or her time alone, but will be expected to spend a moment or two chatting up
the occasional passing pilgrim. This has actually been a legit post since the
cloister’s first occupant took up residence in the bird's-eye perch in the town
of Saalfelden in 1664. Whoever is chosen for the gig will do so knowing that
the competition is fierce, including an incident back in 1970 in which one of
the failed applicants opened fire with a shotgun, though the occupying hermit
wasn't hurt. Still, the view is outstanding, as the remote hermitage is built
into a natural cave perched above Lichtenberg castle, with a 17th century
chapel next door. Unlimited prayer time and a chance to work on your manifesto
are obvious benefits, or simply looking to get off the grid for a while………
- Call in what you will, HBO, just don’t call it original
programming. According to HBO programming president Casey Bloys, as the last
two seasons of “Game of Thrones” draw near, the network could try to extend the
shelf life of one of its most popular series, but it would more likely be a
prequel than a spin-off series. The seventh season of “Thrones” is set to air
this summer and the eighth and final season is slated for next year, at which
point the network will have to find something else to fill that void. “A
prequel feels like it has less pressure on it [than a spin-off]. [Author George
R.R. Martin’s history of Westeros] gives you areas in which to say to a writer,
‘If you were going to do this, then go flesh it out,’ and we’ll see what comes
back,” Bloys said. “But I don’t feel any pressure that we have to have
something. It’s such a big property we would be foolish not to explore it, but
it’s a pretty high bar. We’ll take some shots at it. I’m not going to do it
just to do it. It has to feel very special. I would rather have no sequel and
leave it as-is then have something we rushed out.” Yes, no pressure at all,
just your job on the line if ratings flat line and you can’t find something good
to keep viewers engaged, but other than that, no pressure at all. Not that HBO
has totally failed as coming up with new and interesting ideas in recent years,
but if it can piggyback off an existing property and use it to springboard into
its next big idea, you know that’s the road it will take……..
- It’s the plot of a very bad, Ryan Reynolds-starring
college-based comedy that goes straight to Blu Ray and DVD…but it actually happened
over the weekend in Boston. There, a man was stabbed during an early morning
house party at the home of a Massachusetts university chancellor while the
chancellor was on vacation. Yes, the chancellor goes away and a man with three
children gets the surprising news that someone - maybe even one of his own
offspring - threw a rager at his palatial home. Amazingly, an unauthorized party
on a Saturday night spilled into a Sunday morning, at which point someone got
shanked at the Stoughton home of University of Massachusetts Boston chancellor
J. Keith Motley. The stabbing victim was rushed to a Boston hospital and the
chancellor issued a very bland, vague statement about it all. "I have
learned about an incident that occurred at my residence last night and am very
concerned about it as well as the health of the young man who was
injured," Motley said in a statement. "I was traveling and not home
at the time, but I am returning as quickly as possible so that I can fully
understand what happened and respond accordingly. I will have more to say at
that time.” The circumstances around the party and subsequent stabbing remain
murky, but police have asked anyone who attended the house party or has
information about what happened to contact investigators. Motley, who couldn’t have
a better last name given the love of iconic rockers Motley Crew of this very
sort of party, has been chancellor since 2007 and apparently, he needs better
campus security at his fine institution of higher learning……….
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