The Hot Seat And Other Musings

As surely as the swallows return to Capistrano, Tommy Bowden finds himself back on the proverbial hot seat as the 2007 college football season creeps up on us.

Whether it's self-inflicted, media-inflicted or a bit of both (like this year) Bowden has been through the process enough times to know the routine. He handles his media interviews with his customary humor, not letting on publicly how much the external pressure matches the pressure he puts squarely on himself.

Should Bowden stay? Should he go?

There are arguments to be made for both sides. Each has been hashed and rehashed to the point that there's no need to revisit them here.

What I do find amusing, however, is the fan who says, "Well, if you fire Tommy, who you gonna get?"

I laugh because the insinuation is that Bowden is only here because no one else wanted the job, and if you fire him there's no way any big name coach would ever be interested in coming to Clemson.

We all know that the exact opposite is true. Most of us do, anyway. If this job did open up, the list of established coaches and up-and-coming hotshot assistants interested in the job would be long and impressive.

All you have to do is look inside the same athletic department to the basketball office. When Larry Shyatt was under the gun some years ago, many of his defenders would ask the same question. Who you gonna get?

Well, Terry Don Phillips got Oliver Purnell. Worked out pretty well, didn't it?

Bottom line here is that there will always be someone high profile out there for a job at a school like Clemson in a conference like the ACC.

Trouble is, the job isn't open. And Bowden doesn't appear quite ready to simply hand over the reigns just yet.

***

Watching the NFL Network this afternoon, and they were running through one of their Top 10 lists - this time the Top 10 quarterback-to-wideout passing combinations.

How good for how long was Jerry Rice?

So good for so long that he was on the list twice - at No. 3 with Joe Montana and at No. 2 with Steve Young.

That, friends, is a Hall of Famer.

***

If you're in Anderson Friday morning, stop by Fairway Ford Mazda on Clemson Blvd. and say hello.

I'll be doing the show live from there, 9 a.m.-Noon, as always. Breakfast from Spinx, Drive gear, free racing tickets to Anderson Motor Speedway...and a chance to meet the legendary Tom Ponder in person.

Does it get any better than that?

***
3:45 p.m.

My jovial mood just darkened considerably. It's just been reported that Wake Forest basketball coach Skip Prosser has died of a heart attack.

He was 56 years old.

Prosser was a guest on my show a few years back, and as we were coming in from commercial break Cobb Oxford, my co-host, had us play a Linda Ronstadt tune as the bumper music.

Trying to be cute, I opened the interview by apologizing to Proctor for my partner's poor taste in music. Skip's first words were, "No, no. I'm a Stone Pony guy."

The interview was off and running from there. But that's how he was with the media, and that's why you'd have to look far and wide to find someone who didn't like Skip Prosser.

Our thoughts and prayers to Prosser's immediate family as well as his Wake Forest family.

Great coach. Better man.

Horrible loss.