…but largely irrelevant news stories, it’s hard to find a better topic than a sports coach getting fired over a scandal that has little or nothing to do with his/her job performance.

Such was the case last month with ex-WSU football coach Mike Price, who was hired by Alabama then promptly fired after he spent a lost weekend with a Florida exotic dancer.

Such is also the case with now-ex-UW football coach Rick Neuheisel, canned this week after four years on the job. The UW didn’t dump him when word got out about recruiting irregularities at his former employer, Colorado. The UW didn’t dump him when he tried to get hired by the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers and didn’t bother telling his current employers. The UW initially didn’t dump him when somebody snitched that he’d been betting on (non-UW) college basketball games. But athletic director Barbara Hedges later changed her mind, presumably after consulting with some of the big-money boosters whose donations help keep the Huskies among the sport’s most prominent programs.

(The above link also includes a further link to a .pdf graphic showing all the UW football coaches since 1908!)