The college
basketball coaching changes this year have been fast, furious and
foolish.
To start, Tubby Smith leaves Kentucky - the program
with the largest arena and biggest fan base - to go to a scandal ridden
program, Minnesota (Chippewa word for small
soft drink). Some of you may ask what’s a Tubby Smith? To which we answer: a worker who specializes in tubs for
midgets. “Ah say, Mr. Tim, whats be wrong wit your little steffi
graf tub today?” Okay, that’s our best cockney plumber.
Then, get this, you lead a couple of teams to the
NCAA tournament and then you’re fired at Arkansas by Frank Broyles, no
less, close to resigning himself. Then even more craziness ensues.
Frank Broyles (meaning really
high heat on your hotdogs) fires Stan Heath (sweet chocolate on the outside with
crunchy nuts in the center) and thinks he’s going to hire Billy
Gillespie from Texas A & M. Billy says no, of course, and the heat
rises even more on Mr. Broyles so he snaps up Dana Altman, Creighton
coach from Omaha (Dakota word for storm
the beach, boys) and Altman who shares a last name with famed
Hollywood director, Robert Altman, accepts the job. This is where it
gets crazy. Altman, the coach, not the Altman who directed M*A*S*H, the Long Goodbye and Short Cuts, accepts the job, shows
up in Fayetteville where he’s greeted by fans in hog hats who proceed
to squeal at him “Soooie, Go Hawgs, Soooie, Pig, Soooie.” At this
point, the brain of Altman the coach and not Altman the director, who,
by the way, is dead, starts saying to the rest of his body “Awwwww. Oh
my gawd. Look what you got us into. Where’s the Shortest Cut outta here? There are
all these folks in Hawg Hats. Yiiiikes!! What if we just gave them a Long Goodbye before we get M*A*S*H*E*D?” So then when he gets
back to Omaha (Indian word for storm
the beach, a second time ,in case they didn’t get the joke the first
time around) he makes like The
Player and says it’ll be That
Cold day in the Park before I coach a team where their fans wear
hog hats. (Two more Robert Altman movies.)
Was that crazy enough for you? You know what we love
about the whole thing? Remember Frank Broyles, the old grizzled
athletic director, who when he gets mad turns Soooie hawg crazy red?
Well, when Altman tells him he was Beyond
Therapy and Came Back to the
Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (two more Altmans),
Broyles (an Ozark word for fiery,
red hot) was already in Augusta checked into his favorite
course-side bungalow and ready to enjoy watching the Masters when he
has to get on a plane (“Darn, dang, flyin-machines…. Grrrr,
waitin-in-line… first-class-all-booked-up…
Ma’am-could-ya-get-your-kid-to-quit-staring-at-me”) and fly back to
Fayetteville.
The carousel is just getting started. Tommy Amaker
is fired at Michigan (Sioux/Yiddish word meaning “A State so Schitzo it
needs an Upper Penisula?”) so Michigan hires West Virginia coach John
Beilein whose team just won the N.I.T but had to give their trophy back
because their T-Shirt maker spelled their team “West Virgina.” (which
is an Indian word for… sorry.) However, John’s West Virginia contract
came with a big buy-out - $2.5 million dollars - which will immediately
be enough to allow all the Appalachian home dwellers to upgrade to
double-wides. Michigan saw no problem paying the buyout, saying
former alum Chris Webber had that much hidden in his socks.
So then Bob Huggins, coach of Kansas State in
Manhattan, Kansas, where fans fell in love with him and called their
little fandom Huggyville, holds a press conference to say he is leaving
Manhattan (which is a Delaware word for $24 Dollars in Beads) for his
alma-mater West Virginia. To top it off, the
heading-to-West-Virginia Bob Higgins, says, and we feel this might be a
low blow, that Manhattan was just a little “too hickey” for him.
Of course, after all this, Billy Gillespie takes the
Kentucky job, and Franks Broyles is still looking for a coach. We have
a suggestion for him – a coach everyone seems to like – Stan Health, crunchy nutty in the center, of
course, just like this year’s coaching carousel.
