Tim Floyd is one slimy bastard

In this train wreck of an economy, it’s highly likely that you know someone who’s currently unemployed. Literally millions of honest, hard working Americans have been pink slipped and bounced into one of the worst job markets in the history of our nation.

And then you have hoops coach deluxe Tim Floyd, who keeps getting jobs in spite of lacking a character trait that most employers value:  honesty.

While at USC, the dude made a cash payment to Rodney Guillory to get O.J. Mayo delivered. When the NCAA’s posse picked up his scent, Floyd quit his job.  But the way he told it, it wasn’t an admission of guilt, it was because his bosses at USC didn’t kiss him on the forehead and tell him how special he was:

“It was a complete testament to a lack of support by my administration and how we were treated after four years of doing everything the right way. And that is what I’ve gone on record as saying. The day the story broke, my athletic director called me and asked me where I was. I happened to be in New Orleans after being there for seven months. He asked me if I’d read the story. I said, ‘Yes. And I did not do what I’m accused of doing.’ Two, ‘Where are you?’ ‘I’m in New Orleans.’ The third thing he said was, ‘You need to get your ass back to Los Angeles, so I can decide what I’m going to do with you.’

“That did not register well with me, did not sit well with me, ” Floyd went on. “I always said I would only stay at a place as long as I was wanted there. It was a situation where the athletic director was more worried about himself than our program. Everything we had done to establish that program as one of the top national-level programs in the country was being destroyed from within. Players being released, the treatment of our coaches, the treatment of me as the head coach. . . . And at this point in my career, I didn’t feel like I needed to stay there and deal with that. I felt I’d done enough over 33 years of being in this business to never have my integrity challenged and did not appreciate it.” (New Orleans Times-Picayune)

Integrity?  What integrity?

If there’s one dude who deserved to stay jobless for a while, it’s Floyd.  But you know that old adage about cheaters never prospering?  It’s bullshit.  He landed on the New Orleans Hornets’ bench after leaving LA because the NBA has always served as a refuge for collegiate rule benders ($1 to Kelvin Sampson).

I didn’t think another college would come within a country mile of even interviewing Tim Floyd ever again.  But UTEP not only interviewed the dude, they HIRED him.  To coach basketball.  At their school.

I was so surprised that I wasn’t really surprised, because after all, it’s UTEP, the school that hired Mike Price to coach football after his Strippergate debacle torpedoed his Alabama coaching career before it ever began.  I guess you pretty much have to kill somebody to not be considered for a coaching job at UTEP.

Think Floyd’s learned any lessons from his experiences in LA?  Think again.  Word came out yesterday that he’s hired Jason Niblett as an assistant.  Niblett’s the guy who started Heat Academy in Martinsville, VA a few years back.  To say that Heat Academy is a basketball factory is putting it lightly:

The Heat Basketball Academy doesn’t own a school building, doesn’t offer classes, doesn’t employ teachers and doesn’t issue grades. Rather, it’s a haven for 17- to 21-year-olds who want to play elite basketball while pursuing their own academic agendas. Some Heat players are enrolled at a local private high school; some have graduated high school but lack qualifying scores on the SAT; some have attended college but want attention from bigger universities; and some are just visiting from Australia and Nigeria.

The Heat plays almost exclusively against prep schools, but its own educational offerings are made clear on an informational tab found on the Heat Web site: Academics (Optional). (Washington Post)

Here’s what Eli Saslow was writing about:

It just so happens that before the hiring, two Heat Academy “grads,” Michael Haynes and Desmond Lee, signed on to play at UTEP.  It’s like Floyd has given up on even trying to hide the fact that he’s a slimeball.