Virginia football coach Al Groh, fighting for his job after two 5-7 seasons in three years, fired his offensive coordinator/son Mike Groh and two other assistants this weekend.  The younger Groh will presumably keep the latter title, unless he doesn’t RAKE THE GODDAM YARD LIKE HIS MOTHER ASKED.

Loved by most players and an easy target for the fan base, Mike Groh’s departure ends a three-year run that provided limited success. Over the past three seasons, the Cavaliers’ offense failed to crack the top 100 in total offense.

Oh, that’s not so bad.  Just the bottom sixth of all D-1 football for three straight years.  They were probably just having some GROH-ing pains.  Huh?  Huh?  Anyone?  Is this thing on?

[SbB]

The serenity of a youth football game was ruined by a coach who allegedly shoved an opposing player — also known as “an 11-year-old child” — in the facemask after the game ended.

Joe Deavenport says after a particularly contentious game, one of the other team’s coaches shoved the face-mask of his son, knocking him out of the reception line…

“There’s no question, it is assault,” Deavenport said… “This grown man approaches him and physically and forcefully pushes him, hits him in the head and my son had no idea why that was happening…”

NewsChannel 5 spoke to the coach viewed on the videotape… He says that action viewed on videotape was justified by some of the events that happened during the game.

I like that the coach feels justified.  Some people get all defensive and apologetic after they violently shove a child.  This guy isn’t gonna back down from some 11-year-old bully.  You can watch the video here, but it’s a bitch to get to work.  If you’re hankering for some adult-on-child violence, it may be easier to just head over to the playground and do it yourself.

We’ve got a couple moves in the “rash but probably deserved firing” department: Ned Yost is out as the Brewers’ manager, while Raiders coach Lane Kiffin is reportedly in the final throes of employment for Al Davis.

Yost guided Milwaukee to the brink of the postseason, but a 3-11 start to the month of September eroded the team’s 5½-game lead in the NL wild card race, and ownership apparently prefers the team’s chances with third-base coach Dale Sveum finishing the year in charge.  My take: people named Ned are 700% more likely to be fired than non-Neds.

As for Kiffin, his troubles with the team are well-documented.  Over the off-season, he refused to resign, while Davis didn’t want to fire him because he’d have to continue paying Kiffin.  With Kiffin’s public statements last week about how he doesn’t control the defense, Davis’s mind was made up, according to Nancy Gay of the San Francisco Chronicle.  Defensive coordinator Rob Ryan will take over the team, immediately returning some much-needed “white trash chic” to the team.

Brian Butcher, a former assistant football coach at Los Gatos High School in California who was apparently angry about being fired last year, was arrested for attempting to burn the school down over the weekend.

Officers found that the glass door to the gym had been smashed by a shot put, [Sgt. Randy] Rimple said.  They also found Butcher driving a vehicle on the front lawn of the campus, police said.

Butcher had flammable materials in his possession, Rimple said. He declined to elaborate, saying the investigation was continuing.

Just so we have an accurate background here: he coached receivers and defensive backs on the freshman/sophomore team.  He’s 34 years old, and he was an assistant coach for the not-even-JV team.  A job that he couldn’t hold.  So let’s not be surprised he couldn’t pull off setting the school on fire.  We should probably be impressed he found materials that could catch fire.  Even if his car was probably just filled with sticks and paper.

[Machochip]

Until today, Sanford Kaplan was a geology instructor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln as well as the varsity soccer coach at Lincoln Northeast High School. His true calling was an artist, it seems, because he liked to make floating mobiles out of his players.

Lancaster County Sheriff Terry Wagner says 57-year-old Sanford Kaplan was arrested Wednesday afternoon  following complaints that numerous young boys were bound, blindfolded, gagged and suspended from the rafters of Kaplan's garage at 14647 Country Lane. Sheriff Wagner says the investigation currently involves boys as young as 13, who claim they were held prisoner and abused at Kaplan's home beginning in 2000. Wagner thinks there are other victims, some now as old as 23.

Suspended from the rafters? "What a marvelous job you've done for this team. I'm going to retire your number, only YOU'RE GOING TO HANG WITH IT!" 

Man was just trying to convert his garage into his trophy room. C'mon government, quit infringing on his personal bidness! 

Listen, people.  I know you think you're tough.  You may have grown up in a rough neighborhood.  You may have gotten into some nasty fights, maybe had a couple brushes with the law, spent some time in juvie.  But nothing — and I mean nothing — can prepare you for the skate park.  That place is dangerous, and I don't want you going around there any more.  Those kids are fucking roughnecks.

p.s. Because nothing's too good for my dulcet readers, there's extra-hilarious slo-mo after the jump. #1 Cubs fan sounds like a wounded animal on the Serengeti.

(Thanks to hunky gay friend Lance for the heads-up.)