Tag Archives: todd haley

Today in ALDLAND History: Two football coaches reveal the sports industry’s inner workings; the NFL media probes regional stereotypes; and a blockbuster MLB free-agent signing

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Now that ALDLAND has been up and running for more than a decade, we’ve amassed a meaty body of sports stories, data, and observations we can mine for memories and reengagement.

And speaking of meaty bodies, eleven years ago today, we brought you the stories of Steve Spurrier, then coaching at South Carolina, who volunteered that he did not want to hire “fat, sloppy guys” as assistant coaches, among other preferences, and Todd Haley, who believed the Kansas City Chiefs still were tapping his cell phone a month after he’d been fired from the head coaching job there. Read more in The sports profession: Where not everybody’s working for the weekend.

Spurrier spent four more seasons in Columbia before resigning in the middle of the 2015 season. His next head-coaching job came in 2019 with the Alliance of American Football’s Orlando Apollos.

Haley next worked as an offensive coordinator for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Cleveland Browns, and Riverview (Sarasota) High School before returning as a head coach for the USFL’s Tampa Bay Bandits and Memphis Showboats.

Continuing the football time traveling, ten years ago today, we already knew the matchups for the NFL playoff conference championships, and the coverage of the NFC’s pairing of Atlanta and San Francisco was anything but imaginative. Read more in Stereotyping the NFC Championship Game.

The Falcons would fall to the 49ers, helping set up the Harbowl.

From postseason to offseason, eight years ago today we brought you the breaking story of Max Scherzer’s departure from the Detroit Tigers and signing with the Washington Nationals for $210 million over seven years. Read more in Mr. Scherzer goes to Washington.

During those seven seasons in Washington, Scherzer was a six-time All-Star, a two-time Cy-Young winner, and a World-Series champion. I, on the other hand, did not win any awards during those seven years for my conclusion at the time of Scherzer’s Nationals deal that “it wouldn’t be prudent to commit the amount of money he’s due to another long-term contract for another player on the old side of thirty.”

Thanks for re-reading.

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The sports profession: Where not everybody’s working for the weekend

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Investigative journalism of one kind and another gave us a peek behind the curtan of two major athletic operations this week. While most sports fans probably think that working for their favorite team would be a dream job (they certainly like the prospect of owning a part of their team), fans of the Kansas City Chiefs are finding out that Arrowhead Stadium may not be such a healthy work environment. Kent Babb, “sports enterprise writer” for the Kansas City Star, reported on conditions inside GM Scott Pioli’s operation. There isn’t really a quick-hit, money quotation from Babb’s article that neatly sums up the state of the working scene at the Chiefs’ HQ. Rather, like the style of most things I associate with K.C.– ribs and territory blues and jazz big bands– Babb’s piece is a saucy slow-burner, the full effect not realized until the reader is in too deep to escape anything but the conclusion that things really are fairly twisted in that organization. Take it all in to get a good sense of what’s going on behind the closed blinds at Arrowhead. Among other things, you’ll learn that then-unfired head coach Todd Haley genuinely thought that numerous rooms in the building were bugged– and he isn’t alone– and that now-fired former head coach Todd Haley thinks his cell phone still is tapped.

On the other side of the coin, country, and collegiate threshold we have the Old Ball Coach, Steve Spurrier, and his South Carolina Gamecocks. The offseason is here and Spurrier is in the market for some new assistant coaches. Or at least that’s my assumption when he’s answering questions about what he looks for in a new member of his coaching staff. Because I don’t want to pay $10.00 to read the article on GoGamecocks.com and neither do you, we’re going to stick with the author’s teaser tweets, which really give us all we need:

Got it?