It is surprising when a franchise that keeps coaches for a very long time (Dan Reeves, Mike Shanahan) abruptly fires its head coach, but the Denver Broncos did something they don’t usually do – fired Josh McDaniels. The Bill Belichick assistant was hired 22 months ago, but aside from the gray hoodie and their very own videotaping scandal, and the Broncos cut loose the 34-year-old McDaniels less than 2 years into his 4-year deal. He led the Broncos to the franchise’s worst skid in four decades.
Players didn’t know of McDaniels’ firing when they left team headquarters after a conditioning run ended. Shortly after that, McDaniels was called into owner Pat Bowlen’s office and fired. McDaniels then met with his assistants. From what I’ve read and heard, many of the players weren’t exactly unhappy to see McDaniels go. Running back Lance Ball tweeted: “this (is) the closest thing to Obama being elected president!!!”
Running backs coach Eric Studesville will serve as interim coach for the final month, and the rest of his staff, including McDaniels’ brother, Ben, who tutors the quarterbacks, will stay on for the final four games and obviously, Bowlen is trying to harness some lightning in a barrel for the end of the season for the 3-9 Broncos.
McDaniels becomes the third coach fired during the season, all in the past month. The Dallas Cowboys fired Wade Phillips on Nov. 8 and promoted Jason Garrett to interim coach, and two weeks later, the Minnesota Vikings fired Brad Childress and promoted Leslie Frazier to replace him. The two new coaches have a combined 5-1 record since taking over.
Here in Chicago, we will always remember the flak when McDaniels was hired that he tried to replace QB Jay Cutler, who was eventually traded to the Bears. Cutler hasn’t been the super quarterback we expected, but the Bears are 9-3, while his ex-team is 3-9 and his nemesis is out of work. Do you think Jay Cutler is smiling a little bit bigger right now?

This week, Consumer Reports released its satisfaction survey of wireless carriers, and in no shock to me, AT&T ranked dead last among U.S. wireless carriers.
The nation’s second largest wireless network received the worst possible rating in eight of the nine categories the magazine studied, including overall value, voice service, data service, phone service, staff knowledge, and resolution of issues, among others. Readers gave AT&T an overall score of just 60 out of 100, which is six points below its score a year ago and nine points below T-Mobile.
I have an iPhone and admit that I can’t wait to move to Verison when they support iPhones. I laugh when I see the AT&T billboards that say that it’s network covers 97% of the country – I say that I must always be in the 3%. Coverage sucks; drop outs occur frequently. They suck

In less than a week, we lost two fine athletes and broadcasters that I loved to listen to. First, we lost local Chicago favorite Ron Santo. Santo was a Cub for all but 117 games in his career, but is better known as the radio voice of the team. In that role, he was hilarious, even to a White Sox fan.
Santo literally lived and died with the team (mostly died). His cry of “Oh, No” whenever there was a mistake in the field, or a bad play, or a pop up with runners in scoring position and the Cubs down one or two runs, was heartfelt, and I admit, funny.
Greater however was Santo’s fight against diabetes. Quietly, he took his insulin and told no one, eventually losing both legs to amputation. But he helped raise millions for juvenile diabetes research and was a force in the community.
The only drawback was his disappointment at being passed over for the Baseball Hall of Fame. According to stat-master Bill James, Santo was the sixth best third baseman to ever play, but he was passed over. (One of the pettiest comments I heard about Santo not in the Hall came from Nolan Ryan. Santo was known for kicking up his heals after a victory when the Cubs’ clubhouse was in the left field corner. Ryan said that he felt it was showboating, but this was in a different day, and Santo just was enjoying himself. Just shows what a crotchety old man Ryan is.)
I wonder if Santo’s family will do the same as Harry Caray threatened when he didn’t get in the Hall, which was don’t enshine him posthumously; enshire him while he was alive, or don’t do it at all. Santo would be justified as well.
Just a couple of days later, we also lost Don Meredith. Meredith was, arguably, the first of the great Dallas Cowboys quarterbacks (and, reportedly the basis for the quarterback in the book and played by Mac Davis in “North Dallas Forty”) who left the field and became one of the most recognizable figures on ABC’s “Monday Night Football” broadcast team. He was 72 when he died after suffering a brain hemorrhage and lapsing into a coma.
Meredith played for the Cowboys from 1960-1968, becoming the starting quarterback in 1965, but while he never led the Cowboys to the Super Bowl, Meredith was one of the franchise’s first stars. Over his nine-year career, Meredith threw for 17,199 yards and 111 touchdowns. He retired unexpectedly before the 1969 season. Then, just two years after retiring from football, Meredith joined Keith Jackson and Howard Cosell in the broadcast booth as part of the “Monday Night Football” crew.
He quickly became one of the most popular broadcasters in sports because of his folksy sayings and country humor and as a foil for the erudite Cosell. I know that young people around me have no idea, but I often sing Meredith’s signature song, Willie Nelson’s “Turn Out the Lights” when it was apparent that the winner and loser had been determined.
Both will be missed.

Have a great holiday and weekend. I’ll be back next week!

I know that Notre Dame fans will claim bias at the next piece, but I have been silent on the problems that the ND football program have encountered off the field, figuring that the situation had been covered sufficiently in the normal press, but with a second incident hovering over the program, I feel it’s time to comment.
Of course, the first incident was the untimely (and apparently completely avoidable) death of student videographer Declan Sullivan. If you remember, Sullivan, 20, was killed Oct. 27 when a hydraulic lift he was on toppled over while he was filming football practice.
At first, the university said that Sullivan was not sent into a dangerous situation, but the kid’s online Twitter account showed that he was terrified before and while on the platform. The university’s investigation apparently in ongoing; and it is only a matter for time before the young man’s family files a wrongful death lawsuit and ND will pay, bet on it.
That is bad enough, but then over the weekend, the Chicago Tribune reported that Elizabeth “Lizzy” Seeberg, 19, a Northbrook native and student at St. Mary’s College who had battled depression, apparently overdosed on prescription medication in her dorm room Sept. 10. The young lady died after having reportedly been sexually attacked by a member of the neighboring Notre Dame Football team. The alleged attack occurred Aug. 31, the second week of classes at Notre Dame and the young lady reported the attack on Sept. 1.
The Tribune report disclosed that more than two months later, Notre Dame officials have declined to publicly acknowledge the case or say what actions have been taken to investigate her allegation. The Tribune is not identifying the football player because he has not been charged with a crime, but he remains on the team. (He has also not responded to e-mail messages from the paper seeking comment.) Meanwhile, his accuser’s parents have hired a former federal prosecutor to look into Notre Dame’s handling of the matter. (I just looked at the tribune website – reportedly, the university has turned over “voluminious records” to authorities on the alleged assault.)
It is unusual, but in both these instances, the university’s response has been to protect its rookie head coach Brian Kelly. In the earlier situation, the university went out of its way to say that Coach Kelly did not do anything wrong in Mr. Sullivan’s death, even though it did not protect athletic director Jack Swarbrick, who came under criticism for his handling of the school’s response to the Sullivan case.
Yesterday, Kelly himself held a conference call with reporters, saying that the case was an institutional matter that does not fall under the football program’s purview. “Anything the article alleges is a university matter,” Kelly said. “The process is to dispel rumors and misinformation and get to the facts. And that’s what our university is doing.” Kelly declined to say whether he has spoken with the player about the allegation.
Huh? Not the purview of the team? While I agree with the Tribune that the young man’s identity should not be made public because he has not been charged of a crime; the whole situation, just like Mr. Sullivan’s death, is being covered by a shroud of secrecy that makes the university appear incompetent at best; negligent at worst.
I know that I have dislike for the ND Football program, but that’s on the field. Off-the-field, I do have respect for the university – ND does graduate its athletes and in general, ND athletic alumni have done well in life, with some doing well in the NFL. That can’t be denied, but we do have to ask whether the school has a higher commitment to its athletes than anyone peripherally involved with the program, or who happens to become the object of one of its player’s libidos?

This past weekend, I took the Indignant Family to the Northwestern – Illinois football game at Wrigley Field. NU did a great job, getting the city to close Sheffield Ave. for “Wildcat Way,” a bunch of tents with food, drink, and sponsors who were giving out seat cushions and little banners.
Once we got in, it was quite impressive to see the field, even though my seats were on the 20 yard line of the “closed” end of the field. But since we were in Section 139, we were very close to the action at the start of drives. After that, it was hard to tell exactly where plays started due to the weird sightlines. It was nice however to see a Northwestern home game where NU fans were actually the majority. (Even though NU fans still are much too quiet. I think of the old John Lennon quote: those in the balcony clap; those downstairs rattle your jewelry.”
It was the first football game at Wrigley in 40 years and the first college game in 70, and with the shortened dimensions, it will probably be the final football game ever played there. (Now if they could just outlaw playing baseball there…)
Everyone knows what happened in the game; NU once again played its “Matador Defense” – wave as they go by. Mikel Leshoure ran over, around and through Northwestern for 330 yards Saturday in Illinois’ 48-27 butt whipping. Leshoure had 62 yards on his first two carries, and Illinois galloped for 530 yards as a team including nearly 100 from QB Nathan Scheelhaase and two touchdowns from fullback Jason Ford (my comment of the day – the way Illinois was blocking and NU was tackling, they could have run Henry Ford, John Ford, and the late former President Gerald Ford and we couldn’t have stopped them). The 330 yards is the highest tally of the season for an FBS player and the fifth-highest in Big Ten history. It broke the Illinois school record, and the Wrigley Field record.
In addition, despite what Coach Pat Fitzgerald said last week that was the ability of NU offensive coordinator Mick McCall to prepare NU quarterbacks. Two years ago Mike Kafka replaced an injured C.J. Bacher and beat Minnesota; last year Dan Persa contributed when Kafka tweaked a hamstring. Fitzgerald said that first-time starter Evan Watkins “will be ready.” He wasn’t (and I don’t think that McCall has done a very good job in those earlier occasions. Kafka ran the ball for over 200 yards in the Minnesota game, and Persa didn’t win any games, as he too became a running back, not a passer). Watkins held on to the ball too long on most passes, took three sacks (fumbling once), threw a first-quarter interception and ran effectively only once. Watkins completed just 10 of 20 passes for 135 yards.
This of course, does not bode well for NU’s last regular season game, next week at Wisconsin who will be playing for a Big Ten title and the Rose Bowl and looking to avenge last year’s loss in Evanston. Then NU will probably be going to play in the Cotton Bowl (now named the Dallas Classic Football Bowl) against a Big 12 representative. It doesn’t look good.

With Northwestern taking a beating at Wrigley Field, all eyes turned to the start of the basketball season where NU is trying to make the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history (the only top level school never to make an appearance.
But, the Tribune reported on one huge piece of unfinished business. NU was looked at being an NCAA tournament team on paper last year before one of the most accomplished players in Northwestern basketball history left the team before the season even started.
Late last week, a reporter from SI.com who had written a Northwestern season preview e-mailed forward Kevin Coble this quote from coach Bill Carmody: “(Coble) came into my office, and said he wasn’t going to play. So I said, ‘OK.’ What was I supposed to do?”
Coble’s e-mailed response to SI.com detailed what had been known to those who follow the program closely. Carmody had given Coble an ultimatum: Accompany the team for its preseason trip to Italy or say goodbye to NU basketball.
Here’s the background: the 6-foot-8 Coble, the first player to lead Northwestern in both scoring and rebounding his first three seasons, suffered a fracture in his left foot last year in a preseason practice. Following a successful operation on Dec. 2, Coble said his surgeon advised him to keep his leg elevated until he returned to the doctor’s office five days later.
Coble said NU medical staff called requesting a Dec. 4 examination of the incision. Coble protested. He said the school official told Coble’s parents that his surgeon had approved the meeting. “My surgeon said that never happened,” Coble said. “So there was deception.” The sides agreed that Coble would set up his rehabilitation. He did, choosing a facility in Glenview.
In May, Carmody told Coble about the team’s trip to Italy leaving in late August. While Coble declined to join the team in Italy, saying he would be in the final stages of rehabilitation, he did take a family vacation to Hawaii around the same time. Coble believes Carmody has “used that” against him.
Coble told the Tribune that the trip was to commemorate “my mom’s third year of being cancer-free and the dates did not overlap. We still offered to cancel the trip so I could be around for those (10 pre-Italy) practices.” Carmody did not take him up on the offer.
“Coach Carmody said he felt we (Coble and his parents) were manipulating my surgeon’s orders to get a time frame that didn’t fit going on the European trip,” Coble said. Coble said he believes his former coach launched “some personal attacks toward me, things about my character.” But some NU insiders have labeled Coble a loner who sometimes didn’t eat or work out with teammates.
Long time readers know that I’m far from being a Carmody fan, and this doesn’t change my opinion. Why did Coble have to go to Italy? Why push a kid who isn’t warm and fuzzy to his teammates as long as he produces? Coble could be trying to play basketball, instead, he is going to class to finish his degree (on NU’s “dime,” his scholarship hasn’t expired.)
I do hope for NU basketball success, but it’s stories like this that make it seem like NU is just as underhanded and petty as all of the other programs.