A common question that I ask about sports figures is why aren’t they fired? Do they have incriminating pictures of someone? As a person who’s been fired and laid off over the years, I am much more reluctant to call for someone to lose one’s job. In a society in which your personality, your self-esteem, your mental well-being is centered on what you do. It’s tough – I’ve been there. Of course, it is a big difference between you and I being unemployed than coaches and players being out of work. They have one helluva lot more money that you and I do.
One of my long term targets has been Northwestern University Football Offensive Coordinator Mick McCall. He has overseen the least inventive offense in the nation over the past several years. If it weren’t for the superhuman efforts of graduated running back Justin Jackson (now with the NFL Los Angeles Chargers), McCall would have been fired long ago. At games I often yell at Athletic Director Jim “I’m a hardass, I don’t wear a jacket at games” Phillips to fire McCall, sometimes to do it at halftime. My standard response is “does he have naked pictures of someone?”
This is not another anti-McCall diatribe however. This is about Dallas Cowboys Head Coach Jason Garrett. As coach to “America’s (Most Hated?) Team,” Garrett should be on the hot seat for losing his job almost every week. Now in his ninth season with the team, with only two years of playoff appearances, no Super Bowl appearances, much less wins, and the team mired in third place in the NFC East, ahead of the woeful New York Giants, Owner Jerry Jones not only hasn’t fired Garrett, he keeps giving him votes of confidence.
This is VERY surprising since Jones, as owner and GM, is all about winning. Considering that he got rid of Super Bowl winning coaches Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer, and has run the likes of Chan Gailey and Wade Phillips (no relation to Jim Phillips) out of town fast, one has to wonder how Garrett remains employed. I don’t necessarily think that Garrett has done a horrible job, just kind of “meh,” which doesn’t usually play well in the NFL, especially not in Big D.
Jones however, as mercurial as his friend Donald Trump, does not have infinite patience (in fact, I would think that the two men’s patience could be measured on the head of a pin, and still have plenty of room left). Considering the reputation Jones has for boorish behavior, bordering at times on sexual harassment (I just finished reading the book Big Game – The NFL in Dangerous Times by Mark Leibovich which told some stories about Jones that were illuminating but not very flattering), one has to wonder how Garrett keeps his job?

One would think that after leading a team to 3 Stanley Cup Championships in 10 years, doubling the total in the nearly 100 year history of the franchise, it would take more than 1 bad year and a mediocre start for you to get fired, but that’s exactly what the Chicago Blackhawks did today. The team fired head coach Joel Quenneville and both of his assistants today, replacing him with the head coach of the Rockford affiliate, Jeremy Colliton.
The Hawks got off to a 6-2-2 start but lost 4 straight including being swept on a three-game West Coast swing through Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary. This year’s team has been wildly inconsistent, riding on the goals of superstars Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane and the budding star Alex DeBrincat. However, the team’s puck possession numbers have shown the inconsistency, either up on nights they play well, and horrible on bad nights or against teams that can score (St. Louis, Tampa Bay, Toronto).
Now, I’m not in the locker room, so I cannot judge whether Quenneville had lost the locker room. That would be the only way in which I would have fired Q. Over his tenure in Chicago, I fault Quenneville for two things: we have never been able to score on the power play (but perhaps the franchise is snake bitten – they have never been great on the power play, at least since perhaps when Bobby Hull was playing here); and second, his impatience with young players, although he has been much better in this regard over the past 2 seasons.
To be honest, this was a move to try and save GM Stan Bowman’s job. While he did a great job bringing in talent to bolster the core when they were young, he has tried to fill gaps with older players who have not stepped up. Worse, Bowman has brought back players who were big parts of the championship teams, but with nothing left in the tank (Patrick Sharp, Johnny Oduya, among others). His big deal – trading scoring machine Artemi Panerin for former Hawk stalwart Brandon Saad has been a bust. Panarin is a defensive liability, but he can score in bunches, and he was happy in Chicago as he, Kane and Artem Anisimov were one of the most potent lines in the NHL.
Panarin and DeBrincat have shown superstar potential, but the other young players have not amounted to much either. And while it is admirable to reward players that were instrumental in your championships, Bowman overpaid for Brent Seabrook, and now the team is stuck with an A level contract for a third team defenseman. It is fairly evident that Quenneville did the very best with what he was given, but he wasn’t given very much other than aging stars with mediocre youngsters trying to fill the holes and still compete.
Plus, the new coach is younger than Duncan Keith; only a little older than Kane and Toews. Will the old guys listen to a young guy? Will this somehow light a fire under the underperforming young players?
Quenneville won’t be unemployed long. The seats of coaches on bad or underperforming teams just got very hot. There were rumors last summer that Bowman and Quenneville’s jobs were in jeopardy after missing the playoffs for the first time in 10 years, and the prevailing wisdom was that both would be out with another non-playoff performance this season.
Still, this is obviously a last ditch effort for Bowman to keep his job. Quenneville should have been given a chance to finish the season. Honestly, I think the Hawks fired the wrong guy. I’m surprised Rocky Wirtz and John McDonough went along with the plan.

This week, all three defendants in the first college basketball corruption trial were found guilty of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. A jury found James Gatto guilty on all three of his counts and Christian Dawkins and Merl Code were found guilty on both of theirs. Gatto is a former Adidas employee, Code a former consultant. Dawkins is a former aspiring sports agent.
One would think that the revelations disclosed in the trial and the outcome would stand to have widespread impact on college athletics in the coming months and years, be it in the continued reform of NCAA bylaws or by way of punishments against coaches and/or schools down the road. However, the trial has already been pushed to the inside of the sports section and somehow, I think the push for further reform will be muted in the coming months, just like every other money scandal has created a lot of noise at first, but then, nothing tangible or long term.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York successfully argued the trio of men defrauded the University of Louisville and the University of Kansas in the process of helping funnel recruits to those schools. In return, the men intended to later signing the prospects to endorsement deals.
“The jury was out three days, so obviously they thought about it, struggled with their decision,” Steve Haney, lawyer for Dawkins, told CBS Sports. “There’s a little bit of comfort knowing that we worked hard and made them think about what their verdict was going to be.” The attorneys representing Gatto and Code opted not to comment afterward. Dawkins and Code also declined comment when approached by CBS Sports.
The three men will report for sentencing on March 5, 2019. Until then, they’ll remain free and out on bond. Dawkins and Code are defendants in a second of three cases in this overarching saga. Each defendant plans to appeal the verdicts, though a timeline for that remains unclear. This case was potentially groundbreaking, as it established a violation of rules against a private organization (the NCAA) could amount to federal fraud. A lingering aspect of this trial was how the jury pool was established. Members of the jury were specifically picked based on their lack of knowledge regarding the NCAA and a general naiveté about the environment of college basketball.
On the other side, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan made it clear throughout the trial that the defense could not bring moral matters regarding NCAA rules on not paying amateur athletes into argument.
This is far from the last case in this wide ranging investigation. The next trial, which involves former Auburn assistant and NBA player Chuck Person, is scheduled to start in February. I hate to be a cynic, but corruption has been a part of college sports, especially football since the 1880s at least. Attempts to rein the rampant cash have been ineffective so far, although the major colleges allowing athletes to earn stipends to cover expenses and other incidentals. Still, that will not reduce the temptation to cash in on the billions earned by the NCAA.
I hope I’m wrong, but I doubt it.

I have never understood why sports leagues and college conferences stand so solidly behind their officials. Yes, officials and umpires and referees are human, and we all make mistakes, but it seems that refs are hardly ever reprimanded and almost never fired.
Long time readers know that I have been a vocal critic of the Big Ten Conference, who, I believe, field the worst football officials in the country. Mistakes are regularly made, and I’d like to see an analysis of the major college conferences as to how many times instant replay is used and how many times calls are overturned. Further, when coaches, players or staff openly blast officials, the conferences and leagues dish out big money and other penalties, as if saying “how dare you question our referees!”
So, it is refreshing to see that the NFL, or at very least Al Riveron, the NFL senior VP of officiating, take a very firm stand on an official who made an egregious error. Last weekend, an obvious, horrendous missed false start call should have nullified a Chargers touchdown against the Browns. It was so wrong, the fans, announcers, players, coaches, everyone screamed foul. (It should be said that the call probably didn’t change the game too much, with the Chargers winning 38-14, but the league has to defend integrity and fair play, otherwise NFL games becomes WWE Wrestling.
The call was the responsibility of the down judge (a position that was renamed from head linesman beginning in 2017), who is positioned at the line of scrimmage on the near sideline. The down judge in that game was Hugo Cruz who has been employed by the NFL since 2015. Cruz has been fired by the league, effective immediately. Sources say that it wasn’t just one call that got Cruz fired; according to a couple of sources to a website called Football Zebras, Cruz was reportedly not “maintaining a very high level of performance over a sustained period,” while another said in March that Cruz’s future with the league was already in jeopardy. This is partially borne out by his lack of postseason assignments for the two seasons he would have qualified for, not counting assignment as an alternate last season.
Cruz is a former Conference USA official, who joined the NFL in 2015. He was assigned to Carl Cheffers’s crew this year, but weirdly, worked on other crews for three of his six games.
Cruz is reportedly the first official to be fired mid-season since the merger, and just two officials have been fired over the last decade. (Those two are side judge Keith Parham, in the 2014 offseason, and side judge Jimmy DeBell in 2015. Though this obviously doesn’t count those officials who have been encouraged to step down or retire than be outright fired.)
One of the old chestnuts that football coaches, commissioners and broadcasters pull out all the time is that sports “builds accountability,” and yes, coaches and players are often instantly accountable for actions on and off the field, and they should be. However, there are a lot of officials drawing paychecks who are inept or incompetent and nothing ever seems to happen to them. They remain on the fields, courts and rinks despite the fact that there are lots of instances where it can be shown that they make bad calls, makeup calls, or calls not based on the game, but on the team or to send a message to a particular player.
To a great extent, instant replay should help umpires and referees and coaches, saving them from themselves. The key is to get the calls correct, no matter what and no matter who the teams or situations are. Let me say here that I am not ranting simply because a team I follow doesn’t a call or appear to hardly ever get calls. When I am yelling at the officials at Big Ten games especially, I complain when Northwestern gets a bad call. My thinking is that these young men are exerting maximum effort to compete, often risking their lives and health; the least the conference should do is make sure the athletes, not to mention the coaches and fans deserve the very best officials.
It is rumored that Cruz’ firing was an attempt by Riverton to exert some control over the officials because the uproar over the roughing the passer calls and catch/no catch rules from previous years places Riverton on the hot seat. Perhaps – whatever it takes.
Of course the NFL Referees’ Union has filed a grievance, but this is one of the things that lowers people’s opinions about unions – they shouldn’t have to stand behind a member if he or she is proven incompetent. This is one call that shouldn’t be overturned.

The NHL season starts tomorrow night, and, as usual, I’m excited with the fact that hockey is back. However, after finishing last in the NHL Central Division, the Blackhawks are no longer the Stanley Cup Contender that they’ve been for the past decade. Age, young players not stepping up, and mostly the fact that the team’s core have played a ton of hockey over that stretch finally caught up to them.
Their birth certificates may say that Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane are 30; Duncan Keith is 35; Brent Seabrook is 33, but in terms of games played, you can probably add some 2-3 years to all of them. It was inevitable – every great team falls to Earth after having success. I thought that it would take longer for the Hawks, but it hasn’t. The retirement of Marian Hossa hasn’t helped, and other than Alex DeBrincat, the other young players have not matured into top level NHL players.
What will be interesting is how the fans react? After years of success and 10 years of sellouts, suddenly there are tickets available for every game almost. I do not think that the sellout streak will end, Chicagoans love their hockey, but Blackhawks fans are spoiled. I saw fans expecting the Hawks to come in and win games just on talent and because they always had. I said to my friends that the fans should appreciate the winning, because it can’t last forever.
Those of us who remember “the bad old days” of the 1990s when the team was an afterthought know how bad it can get. When the team couldn’t give away tickets; when my friend Tom and I were seemingly the only people in our 300 section, right at the blue line; games where we were reading the newspaper during play. It was horrible.
I also am asking myself how I will react? I have been one of the most rabid fans over this period. I spent much money on all kinds of swag after each Stanley Cup title. How will I react to a potentially mediocre team? Time will tell, I guess.
It’s been a helluva run. I hope the young guys mature in a hurry and give us something to cheer for. Either way, they’re my boys.
Go Hawks!

As I write this, the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival is still in full bloom. The festival ends Sunday, but long time readers know that I go up the first weekend and watch films. Every year (this was my 18th) it seems that there are themes that run through the festival selections. Last year, it was tennis films: Battle of The Sexes and Borg vs. McEnroe. A few years ago, there were four hockey films at the festival. And there always seems to be at least one Nazi World War II drama or documentary playing. Usually, I end up seeing one of the Nazi films, and this year, there was a documentary on the then 22-year-old, inexperienced attorney who was lead prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials. I didn’t set to see it because its only showing that fit my schedule was at the same time as the first film I watched, which was something I really wanted to see.
This year, I saw 14 films in five days, about par for the course. As usual, I am here to discuss the films and detail my adventures.
Day 1 – Friday, September 7, 2018
One of the best films of the past 10 years was David Mackenzie’s “Hell or High Water.” After that, given the chance to see a film written and directed by Mackenzie and staring Hell or High Water star Chris Pine, I was going to see this. For the first time in the festival (but certainly not the last), this was a film either directly financed or purchased by Netflix. At first, I asked myself whether it was worthwhile to see films that will soon be playing on my personal electronics. However, there is nothing like the full theater, big screen experience, especially for this film.
Tipping its hat to Mel Gibson’s “Braveheart,” Pine plays Robert the Bruce, one time ally of William Wallace, but in the Gibson film, he was frozen into inaction by his overly political father. Here, Pine’s Robert is also conflicted until forced to fight against the British. The character of Wallace shows up briefly in the film, but he is a dirty vagabond, far from the heroic figure in Gibson’s film. Parts of Wallace are shown after being drawn and quartered, which eventually leads the vanquished Scots to vow allegiance to Britain’s Edward I.
Eventually, Bruce brings the Scots together, but suffer loss after loss before a climactic battle between a greatly outmanned Scottish forces were able to defeat the Brits and Edward’s son Edward II. The battle was well done, but now, pales in comparison to the Game of Thrones episode “Battle of the Bastards.” Game of Thrones and “Darkest Hour” veteran Stephen Dillane was good as Edward I, but here, I found myself longing for the late great Patrick McGoohan (“The Prisoner,” “Danger Man”) who was so deliciously evil in “Braveheart.”
The biggest problem with the film in my opinion was Pine. I’ve loved him as an actor in High Water, and also the Star Trek reboots and also in Wonder Woman, but here, I just felt that he wasn’t given enough to work with. Quiet early, he suddenly turned heroic, and while these things often happen gradually, Pine’s Robert was too quiet and too nice and during the losses, too brooding for him to suddenly become a leader of men.
Still, this was a good film. Now, on to Day 2…

The first film of the day interested me because my oldest daughter read the book and I wanted to see if it would be appropriate for her to see when it is widely released. “The Hate U Give” is the story of a young, smart Black girl who comes from a poor neighborhood, but her family sends their three children to an upscale, predominantly white school. Starr (Amandla Stenberg) is caught in two worlds, a basketball player with a white boyfriend and white girlfriends at school; black friends at home.
One night, Starr runs into her oldest friend Khilil (Algie Smith) at a party. A fight breaks out, shots are fired and everyone scrambles. Starr runs with her friend, who has been dealing drugs for the local crime boss played by Anthony Mackie (The Falcon – Avengers and Captain America films). The two talk in the car and eventually they are stopped by a white police officer.
Needless to say, this encounter does not end well, and Starr is the only witness. Deciding whether to testify or remain quiet about the incident, while trying to hide this from the white school is a lot for a young person to deal with. Add to the fact that Mackie’s character King, is concerned what Starr will say about his operation on the witness stand, and he tries to intimidate her against testifying.
Of course, there is even more backstory – Starr’s Dad (an excellent Russell Hornsby) used to sell drugs for King until going off to jail. When Mav returns, King staked him to a small convenience store in the neighborhood. Making sure to cover all of the bases, Common plays Mav’s brother who is a police officer.
With all of these levels of drama, the film seems overstuffed with story. The King plotline is almost too much for the film to bear, and an acquaintance I met said that he couldn’t believe Mackie as a drug lord – he was too nice in his other roles. I didn’t have a problem with Mackie, but I was derailed by the fact that there’s nothing that Starr could have told the police that would have sent him to jail/been a huge risk. Everyone seemed to know that King was the leading the drug gang in the neighborhood; I’m sure the police knew. The events with Khalil gave no evidence about King’s operation and no drugs were exchanged. Taking that piece out of the puzzle, the film falls short, but he main plot about a young lady caught between two worlds and trying to find her way in a very difficult situation is compelling.
Speaking of being caught between two worlds, filmmaker Paul Greenglass is best known as the director of three of Matt Damon’s Bourne movies, but Greenglass is also very well known for docudramas, like the excellent “Bloody Sunday” about the event that ignited the Northern Ireland/Britain conflict. Greenglass is better known here for “United 93” the story of the passengers who fought the terrorists on 9/11 and kept their plane from flying into the Pentagon. However, both sets of films have a documentary feel to them: an active camera in which sometimes the action gets lost in the heat of the moment.
Greenglass’ latest is “22-July,” the story of the Norwegian Right Wing terrorist who blew up a car bomb at the offices of the Norwegian Prime Minister, then when to a summer camp on an island and proceeded to kill over 60 schoolkids and counselors. The first 20 minutes of the film that details the attack are harrowing, but Greenglass does a good job of keeping the focus on the shooter, Anders Behring Breivik (Anders Danielsen Lie) without dwelling on the gore and the dead and wounded kids. The rest of the story follows the aftermath, primarily from the perspective of one young man Viljar (Jonas Strand Gravli) whom we pick up before the attack, then following his brother and parents, the doctors fighting for his life, his aftermath and recovery. The real Breivik chose attorney Geir Lippestad (played by Jon Olgarden in a gripping understated performance). Mr. Lie is very good, creepy and realistic as the mass murderer who tried, like more spree and serial killers do, try to manipulate everyone around them, especially the lawyers and media.
This too is a Netflix film that was better on a big screen 9although the terrorist attack may be easier to take on a smaller screen). No matter how you watch it however, it is a must see if you like this kind of thing. One of the best of the Festival.
Last on my list that day was an unusual little film called “The Dig” from Ireland. Moe Dunford plays Callahan, who returns to an abandoned and dilapidated house that he inherited from his family, long dead. When he arrives, he finds Sean MacKenna (Lorcan Cranitch) has dug and continues to dig holes on the marshy bog behind the abandoned house. It turns out that Callahan was sent to prison for killing Murphy’s oldest daughter and everyone thinks that she buried out in the bog and Murphy is determined to find her.
Callahan got drunk the evening of the murder and fought with the older daughter, but he passed out and can’t remember what happened that night. Callahan had sort of a relationship with the younger daughter Roberta (Emily Taafe), who has no life other than tending to her Dad when he’s not digging. The only way Callahan is going to get rid of this man is to help him dig, which would help him remember/atone for killing the girl. Eventually, many secrets are uncovered, and the three people and the local police chief Murphy (Francis Magee) has his own beliefs about what actually happened that night shook to the core.
A very interesting small film.