Firing offensively

 Caught this one today on the Awful Announcing website, via FOB (Friend of the Blob) and fellow Indiana sports journo colleague Andrew Smith, aka the Hardest Working Man In Sportscasting.

(Or so I call him).

What Awful Announcing posted, and Andrew re-posted, was an item about Boston College, which just hired Luke Murray as its new basketball coach. It seems among the changes fully expected anytime a new regime takes the reins was one that wasn't expected: In addition to a new staff, Murray also insisted BC fire longtime men's basketball broadcasters Kevin Collins and Josh Maurer, who'd been calling BC's games together for nine seasons.

Rather than stand by their men, BC acquiesced -- on August 1, which means it'll be hard for Collins and Maurer to find another gig for this winter. A profile in courage this wasn't.

A slap in the face to two men who deserved better, however, it was. Not to say completely ridiculous.

First off, and most obviously, Collins and Maurer had no direct connection to the previous regime, or to any previous regime, really. Collins in particular had been calling BC games for 13 years, through three head coaches and five athletic directors. That made him less a specific program institution than a university institution -- certainly more of the latter than anyone involved in firing him.

Any or all of whom should lose their jobs, in the Blob's opinion. For, I don't know, lack of institutional gumption or something.

Look. I get that every new coach wants to bring in his own people, if only to fumigate a program that, one presumes, desperately needs it. But the broadcasters aren't any part of that. All they're doing is calling the games. So to insist they go, too, is not only a supremely dickish move, but a supremely irrational one, too.

(Re the dickish part: It should be noted that Murray came to BC from UConn, where he was an assistant for Dan Hurley, the high priest of college hoops dickishness. So I guess he gets it honest.)

Anyway, shame on Murray. And shame on BC administrators for letting him knuckle them.

Because what someone (ideally the athletic director) should have said when Murray insisted on canning Collins and Maurer was this: "Coach Murray, that's not your call. That's our call. And unless you can show cause -- which you can't, because the whole idea is absurd on its face -- Collins and Maurer aren't going anywhere. And if you don't like it, we can tear up your contract right now. I hear Northwest Eastern Tech State is hiring."

Of course, saying all that would have taken some stones. And some integrity. Both of which seem especially lacking these days in Chestnut Hill.

You've heard of firing offenses?

This one was an offensive firing. Squared.