Monthly Archives: January 2011

One has to wonder if the University of Pittsburgh is having buyer’s remorse in hiring Michael Haywood. Less than a couple weeks after the hire, Haywood was arrested and held without bond for domestic violence aimed at the mother of an illegitimate child:

Assistant St. Joseph County Police Chief Bill Redman said Haywood was arrested about 3 p.m. Friday after a custody issue developed with a woman with whom Haywood has a child. The unidentified woman told police that Haywood grabbed her by the arm and neck and pushed her as she tried to leave.

Redman said the woman had marks on her neck, arms and back.

With his job at Miami U. filled, you have to wonder if Haywood might go from promoted to unemployed within a single offseason. He wouldn’t be the first. In 2001, Georgia Tech coach George O’Leary was hired by Notre Dame until they discovered that he had fabricated portions of his resume. Some accounts say padding, but that doesn’t do it justice with a master’s degree from a university that doesn’t exist and college letters he got despite never having played in a single game. O’Leary found an assistant job with the NFL for a year before becoming a rather successful coach at the University of Central Florida.

A year later, Alabama hired Washington State coach Mike Price to take over for Dennis Francione. Price lasted a bit longer than O’Leary, but found himself in trouble when he partied a bit too hard in Florida with the night allegedly ending with a stripper. The stripper was never proven and Sports Illustrated actually went so far as to settle a libel suit. Price ended up at UTEP with notably less success than O’Leary.

Price had never signed a contract, so that was easy to undo. O’Leary probably could have been fired with cause regardless of a contract, but he resigned voluntarily. I’m not sure precisely what Pitt’s situation is with Haywood and whether they can rescind it or not. If they can, they may take advantage of the opportunity to pare down Haywood’s contract.

Update: Haywood has been fired. Lesson of the day: if you’re going to screw up, don’t do it until after you’ve actually coached a few games.


Category: Theater

I left the bar at around last call. Always dangerous. I’d had a light night, drinking-wise, with only two beers over three and a half hours. On the other hand, you never know how things are going to show up on a breathalizer. So, though I was in complete control of my faculties, my main goal was to avoid any sort of unwanted attention (even if you pass the breathalyzer, you still may get a ticket just so that the cop can justify his time.

Oh yeah, and besides all that, it’s last call on New Years Eve. The roads can be a scary place at this time. I think that knowing that was what made driving home so nerve-wracking. Was that car in front of me riding the break because they were a general break-rider? Or because they were drunk? Or because they were paranoid about drunks like I was? I asked this question for every abnormality. Driving too slow, driving too fast, changing lanes. Choosing not to change lanes even though the car in front of them was stopped (waiting to turn into an overfull parking lot) and there was a clear lane to the left?

In addition to being nerve-racking, I think my paranoia actually made me a less safe driver.


Category: Road

-{Reposted from last year.}-

Death Cab for Cutie singing “New Year”:

Chuck Prophet has a song called “New Year’s Day” and a video on YouTube of him singing it acoustically. This is a song about new beginnings and the look upwards from hitting rock bottom. It may be my favorite New Year’s song. Among other things, it contains the priceless line “You gave me everything I wanted/Now all I want’s a substitute”


Category: Theater