Well, it looks like former University of Utah basketball coach Rick Majerus is up to his old tricks again.
Hear about the latest brouhaha involving the guy not so affectionately referred to by local media types as "the Big Man" after he guided the Utes from 1989 to midway through the 2003-04 season?
Now the head coach at St. Louis University, Majerus is refusing to appear on his own radio show, which he says uses up time that could be better spent on recruiting, scouting, his charity work and, probably, eating.
Majerus opened last week's show by asking radio station personnel to take his name off the hour-long "Rick Majerus Show," which he is contracted to do, and then stayed for only 35 minutes.
Monday, he blew off the show altogether, then sparked more outrage by appearing on Chicago radio station WGN at the very same time he was supposed to be on the local show. If that Majerus ploy sounds familiar, it should. For 15 years, he often cold-shouldered the local media here for a chance at some national pub.
Adding insult to injury for the St. Louis station (WXOS) that carries Billikens games was the fact that a rival station (KTRS) picked up WGN's feed, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch , meaning that Majerus was on a competing station when he should have been on the one that pays him.
Classic Majerus.
According to the newspaper's sports media critic, Dan Caesar, the real reason for Majerus' abandonment of his own radio show might be his way of protesting his university's cancellation of private charter flights for his team. The Billikens and the 61-year-old Majerus have been asked to fly commercial as a cost-cutting measure.
A couple weeks ago, Majerus drew the ire of locals and officials of the Atlantic-10 Conference, to which St. Louis belongs, by saying that the Billikens belonged in the Missouri Valley Conference, which is closer to home.
The A-10 is considered to be a more prestigious league than the MVC and Conference USA, the league St. Louis left in 2005.
"My greatest concern is for my own players academically," he said, in another refrain that often used to echo off the Wasatch Mountains. "Now with this travel schedule, there's just absolutely no way. You've got to get to the airport two or two and a half hours early. You've got to take early flights. A lot of these places, there's only one nonstop flight."
Majerus told station officials to call it "The Billikens Show," another tasty bit of irony since he demanded complete control when he was on the show and refused to allow commercial breaks when he was on another one of his infamous soliloquies.
Of course, tales of Majerus' eccentric, oddball, crass and oft-times crude behavior are legendary among Utah reporters who covered the coach's teams around here. Most of them are actually true, although an absolutely disgusting one making the rounds on the Web site deadspin.com hasn't been verified by several former assistants under Majerus at Utah that I've contacted.
I covered high school basketball for most of Majerus' tenure at Utah (1989-2004), and had a few memorable encounters with the coach. Once, he gave me a good tongue-lashing for mentioning in a story that he parked his SUV on the front steps of the Tooele High School gymnasium (forgoing the parking lot completely) to watch future Ute Drew Hansen play in a game.
Looks like that rather mild criticism is nothing compared to what the Big Man is facing now.
