May 02, 2003

COACHES GONE WILD: With "The

COACHES GONE WILD: With "The Real Cancun" having flopped in theaters, perhaps it's time for a sequel- not with students, but (a la "Old School") with grown-up coaches.
Yes, two big-name college coaches are in big trouble this week for their extracurricular actions. Iowa State basketball coach Larry Eustachy, who a few years ago coached my high school classmate Martin Rancik, is in hot water after photos surfaced of him drinking, smooching coeds, and otherwise causing a ruckus in a dorm at the University of Missouri after that school beat his team in January. For Eustachy, who is the highest-paid public employee in the state of Iowa (I'm guessing Iowa coach Steve Alford is #2), it was a sort of perfect storm of minor discretions: not only did the married coach allow himself to be photographed kissing (and drinking with) possibly underaged girls, but he did so on an opposing campus, thus opening himself up to the even more troublesome charge of "fraternizing with the enemy."
Eustachy, who has since admitted that he is an alcoholic, is unlikely to escape with his job; the same may be true of Mike Price, who has been football coach at Alabama for merely four months, yet may pull a George O'Leary and be dismissed before ever coaching his first game. Price (who, also, is married) allegedly spent three hours and $200 in a Pensacola, Florida, nudie bar last weekend, and later that night a $1000 room-service charge appeared on Price's hotel bill, supposedly placed by a woman who had stayed in the room and ordered one of everything on the menu.
These allegations don't sound so awful until it is taken into account that a previous Crimson Tide coach, Mike Dubose, caused major embarrassment to the university by having an affair with (and later being sued for sexual harassment by) his secretary. The implication is obviously that Price took a woman home from the strip club, but I don't see how anything untoward could've occured, when there was $1000 worth of food on the premises.

Posted by Stephen Silver at May 2, 2003 05:47 PM
Comments
Post a comment









Remember personal info?