Bad endings galore

Bobby Bowden's book is out today, and the former FSU coach is not being bashful in his promotional interviews. Bowden tells Sporting News that he was fired as the head coach, and that no one even came to say goodbye to him as he was cleaning out his office. T.K. Wetherell acknowledges the relationship between him and Bowden is no longer good. It can not be ignored that Bowden brought most of this on himself. He brought the program down with his refusal to hire a qualified OC instead of his son Jeff. When it became clear Bowden was putting his personal interests ahead of the program's, people began wondering if he was ever going to retire or if he genuinely believed the job was a lifetime appointment like a Supreme Court seat. It all culminated in the decision not to subject FSU to another year of meandering leadership rather than a plan moving forward, because Bowden refused to take the hints (statue, stained glass window, field naming) that the school was ready to move on. I hope for both sides this doesn't turn out like Tennessee and Johnny Majors, where the bitter former coach still is lobbing bombs at his old school on the airwaves periodically, but if this season isn't a big success in Tallahassee I wouldn't be surprised at all if Bobby has some zingers for them.

Many of the reasons college basketball's recruiting scene became a cesspool can be laid at the foot of one man. Sonny Vaccaro was the one who began the trend of funneling shoe money to coaches and then to AAU and travel team coaches without any regard for what kind of people they were. If they had influence with the potential "next Jordan", Vaccaro wanted them to have the kid in his company's shoes. Eventually Sonny worked his way through three different shoe companies, and he last turned up convincing Jeremy Tyler to leave high school after his junior season to turn pro overseas. Now there's a Chinese shoe company looking to break into the US basketball market, and guess who they're about to let flood the court scene with cash and gear again? This will not end well. Meanwhile, an Indianapolis media figure claims an investigation is underway involving the recruitment of star Kansas signee Josh Selby. Shockingly, Kentucky's name is linked to it. Hard to imagine there's much real danger for them on a kid Cal didn't even get though.

Would have loved to see the looks on their faces at the courthouse in Panama City yesterday when Tiger Woods and Elin roll in to finalize their divorce. Far as I can tell Tiger didn't hit the wet t-shirt contest at the Spinnaker later, but as this whole episode showed you never know. Maybe having this off his plate will finally free up Woods to begin getting his game in some kind of familiar shape again. Dan Wetzel of Yahoo had the line of the day yesterday when he tweeted that Elin's real revenge will be when she shows up as Rory McIlroy's date for the Ryder Cup.

Watch the car crash video from this link. That guy's alive, and after watching him vaporize that automobile I have no idea how.