Will Probably Be My Picture of the Year

Not even a neck brace and a Sugar Bowl hat could save Petrino.

Can Houston Nutt Survive the Season at Ole Miss?

There were many questions about Houston Nutt's job status coming into the 2011 college football season.  Nobody was happy after a 4-8 season; that included fans, alums, players, and administration.

Nutt failed to help his job security Saturday in a 30-7 loss to Vanderbilt in the Southeastern Conference opener for both teams.

“I’m just real disappointed, very disappointed because I know we’re better than that,” a dejected Nutt said.

Scoreless midway through the second quarter, the Rebels allowed Vanderbilt to pull away with 21 points inside the final six minutes before halftime. The Commodores (3-0) now have won five of the last seven games in this series.

The Rebels looked far from sharp with five turnovers, six penalties and a bevy of missed tackles.

If there was just one aspect of the game the Rebels needed improvement in that would be one things.  The problem is Ole Miss isn't doing anything well.

The Rebels showed a lack of discipline with four false start penalties by three different offensive linemen. Center A.J. Hawkins also sailed a snap high over Mackey’s head early in the third quarter, leading to a safety when Jeff Scott kicked it through the end zone.

Nutt said he was most disappointed in the offense after a good week of practice. He even got senior running back Brandon Bolden back from a hairline fracture in his left ankle in the opening loss to BYU. Bolden ran eight times for 39 yards, though not nearly enough.

To Nutt's credit, he didn't sugar coat the situation.  “We could never get anything in synch, could never get anything going offensively,” Nutt said. “That’s what was frustrating. Just looked bad, looked really bad.”

It doesn't get any easier for the Rebels in the coming weeks.  The first four SEC opponents on the schedule are Georgia, Alabama, Arkanssas, and Auburn.  At 2-6, can Nutt keep his job?

Fiesta Bowl CEO Junker Fired - Outrageous Spending

The Fiesta Bowl fired president and CEO John Junker for "an apparent scheme" to reimburse employees for political contributions and "an apparent conspiracy" to cover it up. 

After reading the report on FiestaBowl.org at http://www.fiestabowl.org/_documents/reports/Fiesta_Bowl_Final_Public.pdf Junker did much more than make illegal political contributions.

His spending in my opinion, was excessive and out of line, even for a BCS Bowl Game.

Junker, always looking in control in his bright yellow Fiesta Bowl sports jacket, had been the face of the event for three decades, leading it from an upstart event to one of the BCS giants. With an annual salary of about $600,000, he had been on paid administrative lead since Feb. 4 after, the board said, he failed to comply with two written directives to cooperate with the investigation.

The board said the probe also uncovered "excessive compensation, nonbusiness and inappropriate expenditures and inappropriate gifts."

Here are some examples from the 276 page reports as I read it in pdf form.

Some of Junker's reimbursed expenses were classified as "Undetermined."  How can that be? 

From the report:

The volume or excessiveness of certain expense reimbursements calls into question the reasonableness of these transactions taken as a whole. Following are examples of the types of expenditures that we classified as “Undetermined”:
•
Seemingly excessive expenditures on items that otherwise may be appropriate such as hotel expenses greater than $500 per night, air fare greater than $1,500, and high-dollar limousine charges.
•
Numerous gifts and tickets given to non-Fiesta Bowl employees915 such as conference officials, athletic directors, coaches, and sponsors. Gifts given to football players participating in the games, gifts given as memorials and tickets to other BCS bowl games were all classified as “Potentially Appropriate.”

The Fiesta Bowl, led by Junker also put on illegal fundraisers for politicians and gave gifts that they are not allowed to provide to politicians.  Also from the report:

The Fiesta Bowl would sometimes provide items of value to certain politicians. For example, in a number of the reimbursement requests submitted by the Fiesta Bowl employees whose expense materials we reviewed, the employee’s description of the expense named one or more politicians.

How about Junker using Fiesta Bowl money to pay $110,000 at an auction for a round of golf with Jack Nicklaus.

In March 2003, Junker attended “Celebrity Fight Night,” which bills itself as “one of the nation’s elite charity events” with a live auction. There are two charges on Junker’s American Express statement from March 24, 2003, one for $95,000 and another for $15,000. Each is listed as “Celebrity Fight Night” with a handwritten notation as “Jack Nicklaus golf bid.” It appears that in 2004 the Fiesta Bowl paid for Junker and at least one other person to fly to Florida to play golf with Jack Nicklaus in connection with the auction item purchased in 2003. There is also a $735.50 charge to “Prestige,” which may be a limousine service, in Boca Rotan in connection with the “Nicklaus” trip. Junker, in a supplemental statement offered by his attorneys, noted that the attendees of the foursome were supposed to be Nicklaus, John Compton (President of Frito-Lay), Kevin Weiberg (Big 12 Commissioner), and Mark Womack (SEC Senior Associate Commissioner). According to Junker, Weiberg cancelled at the last minute, and Junker filled in.  Junker believes that the golf trip was important for the Bowl’s relationship with Frito-Lay and its relationship with the SEC. A March 29, 2003 memo to file from Junker explains the purchase.

Junker also was allowed to have memberships at 4, yes 4 golf clubs.  Paid for of course, by the Fiesta Bowl.

The golf clubs were:

Whisper Rock Golf Club in Scottsdale, Arizona

Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club in Oregon

The Biltmore Golf Club in Phoenix, Arizona

Karsten Creek in Stillwater, Oklahoma

Remember, Junker lived in Arizona.

Two more areas that I couldn't believe.

Cars:

During the years that GMC was a sponsor of the Fiesta Bowl, senior Fiesta Bowl executives received GMC company cars.1101 When this sponsorship ended in 2009, Junker, Wisneski, Schoeffler, and Fields received money from the Fiesta Bowl to make down payments on a car, plus monthly automobile stipends.

In addition to the senior executives, Junker’s wife, Susan, also has a car paid for by the Fiesta Bowl. In the past, Susan Junker was provided a car under the Fiesta Bowl’s contract with General Motors. When that contract ended, Junker received a stipend to cover not only his own car, but also a car for his wife.

On August 25, 2009, Junker received an $8,500 check for automobile down payment(s); Wisneski received $6,500; Schoeffler received $3,000; and Fields received $2,000 on October 22, 2009.1 According to information Wisneski provided to PricewaterhouseCoopers, in 2009 Junker received an annual automobile stipend of $27,000; Wisneski $15,600; and Fields $9,600. Schoeffler stated that his monthly automobile stipend was $1,000/month.

And the infamous strip club visits:

On September 12, 2008, Junker, Aaron Brown, and Shawn Schoeffler spent the evening at Phoenix’s Bourbon Street, which claims to be a “World Famous Strip Club.”  Aaron Brown is a Maricopa County Sheriff’s lieutenant who owns Blue Steel Consulting, Inc., a company that provides security services to the Fiesta Bowl.

Junker’s American Express statement includes five separate charges from Bourbon Street for the evening, totaling $1,241.75.  (The men also spent $46 at Z Tejas, a restaurant, and $48.47 at Tilted Kilt, a bar, that evening, all paid for by the Fiesta Bowl.) Junker acknowledged that the more than $1,200 spent at Bourbon Street that evening was not all spent for food and drink but “in all likelihood” included the payment for women to dance for them. -  Huh?

One of the investigators retained by counsel to the Special Committee conducted an investigation that concluded that the individual amounts that totaled up to the night’s charges equated with the charges for private dances. The Fiesta Bowl paid for the drinks and all the strip club charges.

Now, read that above paragraph again.  An investigator's job was to go to  strip club and conduct an investigation on how to spend $1,241?  What kind of job is that?

Conclusion at this point - The report is mind blowing, Junker will probably be charged criminally and the BCS may have to look at sanctioning the Fiesta Bowl.  Good job to everyone who was lining their pockets on the pretense of putting on a bowl game for "student athletes."

Mocking Cam Newton Gets 'Bama Staffer Fired

(It's a long video, go to the 9:30 mark to listen to the songs in question)

Is the Alabama/Auburn rivalry getting soft?  Alabama has fired an employee who mocked the Auburn quarterback with songs he played over the public address system before their game Friday night at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa.

“Take the Money and Run” and “Son of a Preacher Man” were played throughout the stadium in honor of Cam Newton and his Father who are under investigation by the NCAA for numerous reasons.

This from Alabama public relations director Debbie Lane: “Our processes require that all music and videos played in the stadium prior to and during every game be carefully scripted and approved by a senior administrator in the Athletics Department. The former staff member deviated from the script that had been approved for the game with Auburn, and the University took steps to immediately terminate his contract.”

I would've lost it if he had played Madonna's "Papa Don't Preach" or "Money For Nothing" by Dire Straits.