Vince McMahon's XFL 2.0 launched on Saturday, and has already shown to be more about the games, and not the sideshow antics that doomed the first iteration in 2001.
Case in point comes in this highlight reel of the Houston-Los Angeles game, which aired on Fox. Fox NFL Sunday anchor Curt Menefee is on the call with college game analyst Joel Klatt.
Houston opens the season with the 37-17 win, and looked mighty impressive.
Earlier in the day, DC defeated Seattle, 31-19. Former Seahawks QB Jim Zorn, whose last pro coaching job was in Washington a lifetime ago, is the Seattle coach. Shane McMahon, Vince's son, who was written off WWE television in October, was a sideline guest of the Defenders.
Today's games will air on FS1 & ESPN.
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As spring training begins later this week, the Boston Red Sox have not finalized who will replace Alex Cora as their manager. There were rumors that bench coach Ron Roenicke would be the man, but nothing has been confirmed as of press time.
Meanwhile, Houston lured Dusty Baker out of retirement to replace AJ Hinch, and wipe out the stench of the sign stealing scandal that tainted their World Series run in 2017.
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This next item was originally discussed over at Tri-City SportsBeat, but bears discussion here, too.
On Wednesday morning, five days after a loss to Schalmont, LaSalle Institute, sitting in first place in the Colonial Council's Liberty Division, fired second year head coach Jon Desso, despite a 12-4 overall record (10-1 league) heading into Saturday's home game vs. Mohonasen.
Desso was unwilling to talk to reporters on Wednesday, and first year athletic director Craig Ward, a 2008 LaSalle graduate, would only talk about promoting assistant coach Josh House, who works in the admissions department otherwise, leaving more questions than answers.
Contrast the basketball team's performance this season with that of the hockey team.
The Skating Cadets, under coach Tim Flanigan, have lost 12 straight after dropping a 2-1 decision to CBA on Saturday night. If this was a college league, chances are Flanigan, a veteran coach with more than two decades experience, two sectional titles, and a state title to his name, would be gone by now. However, despite the misfortune this season, Flanigan, also a physical education teacher and golf coach during the fall, does have tenure on his side. Desso, another LaSalle alumnus, didn't, and it's likely that there might've been some lingering issues between Ward & Desso, assuming they were students at the same time at the school, that might've come to light in recent weeks.
I get that high schools don't want any unnecessary or negative publicity, unlike the colleges. It doesn't help that the result of House's first game as head coach wasn't reported to the press in a timely manner. We may never know the rest of the story.
2 comments:
We used to have an XFL team back in the day - The Las Vegas Mavericks. It was quite popular as I recall.
What is the point of the XFL anyway? Just wondering as a non football fan. Is it supposed to be a garden for untapped talent for the NFL? Or a place for those not good enough to get there to still play ball?
The Vegas team was known as the Outlaws, actually.
The XFL, in both iterations, is meant to keep football fans in the loop after NFL season is over. This time, there are no silly nicknames (i.e. "He Hate Me"). Many of the players have NFL experience, as do the coaches, save for former Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops. Some of these guys were with the Alliance of American Football last year, for however long that lasted.
A local Arena player was drafted by Seattle of the XFL, but went to Canada instead. Hmm.
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