It's safe to say the countdown to a new football coach has started at Texas A&M.
The San Antonio Express-News reported today that Aggie coach Dennis Franchione had been selling insider subscriptions to an e-mail newsletter at $1,200 per subscription. The subscriptions were sold to VIP boosters, and contained information not revealed to the public. This information included injury reports and personal comments about players. The newsletter was written by Franchione's personal assistant, Mike McKenzie. The proceeds from the subscriptions supposedly went to the upkeep of Franchione's website, coachfran.com.
All has not been well in Aggieland. In my opinion, a booster decided to leak this information in order to speed up the process of Fran's dismissal. Aggies are not (and should not be) happy with the performance delivered by their program. They have a coach making $2 million per year, and a program that does well to finish 3rd in the Big 12 South division.
I have a couple of takes on this situation.
First, this is not worth risking trouble over. These are health records that are now subject to federal privacy laws. Also, this is information that could end up in the hands of gamblers. This is a big can of worms.
Second, this is coming from a coach left his two previous jobs in less than stellar fashion. It appears he is about to burn some bridges on the Brazos River, as well.
This is not going to end well for either Fran or the Aggies.
Where's R.C. Slocum when you need him?
7 comments:
When I first heard this on the Ticket this morning, I was dumbfounded and thankful. Dumbfounded that Coach Fran is this stupid and thankful that Fran is found out now. Maybe he'll move on to coaching some 2A program now.
Yeah, not even SMU will touch him after this..
Fran is wishing he was still coaching the Pittsburg State Fighting Gorillas. Things were a lot simpler then.
What a used car salesman...
Is he from NJ too? ;)
Nope. He's from southeast Kansas. He got his bachelor's from Pittsburg State, home of the Fighting Gorillas, where he later coached.
I don't think the Sopranos ever made it to Kansas.
I forgot to mention earlier that when I first heard about the Fran debacle I didn't even think about the gambling aspect of it, but it makes total sense. I hope there is some major reform, if not firing, going on soon in College Station.
They say that money goes to upkeep of the web site, which means his assistant coach who does the web site is getting a tidy little bonus!
At least Fran doesn't do a free blog using Blogger. :-)
Now that would have been hillarious. True Aggies would have payed to read it. lol
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