UNDER THE BANNER
What's Going On In and Around Black College Sports
GRANT OUT AT SOUTHERN: Southern University has fired basketball coach Michael Grant, who
riled the school last month while interviewing
for another head coaching job. According to his attorney,
Nikki Essix-Manuel, Grant was given a letter last Wednesday
from Southern chancellor Edward Jackson temporarily
appointing him as assistant athletic director until his termination date on
May 15. Grant, who has one year left on a three-year contract, was
reportedly given the choice of resigning or appealing the
termination. The appeal is set for May 9 before the school's athletic committee, Essix-Manuel
said. Southern has the right to fire Grant and not pay him his
base salary for the third year of his contract if it can establish
cause for dismissal. Grant, an Ohio native who had served stints
as a head coach at Central State and as an assistant at
Michigan and Cleveland State, had interviewed for the head
coaching job as one of three finalists at Youngstown State earlier
this month and said at the time, "I can not put it any simpler, I
want this job." He later added comments about how he
would rebuild the YSU program by recruiting junior college
players, a quote that spurred one member of Southern's board
of supervisors to publicly take exception to the remarks.
Grant sent letters of apology to board members and others in
the Southern administration. "Southern is a great school, but
he wanted to look at another opportunity," Wade Shows,
another of Grant's attorneys, said. "That's all he was doing.
He has not been disloyal. He's done everything to fulfill
his contract. Southern ought to be proud other schools
are looking at their personnel, not punish somebody who's
trying to better himself," Shows said. The school, which has
had five straight losing seasons, will be searching for its
fourth head basketball coach in six seasons. Grant has a base
salary of $76,000, along with a $12,000 housing allowance and
the use of a courtesy car. Grant, who inherited a program that
had back-to-back 20-loss seasons for the first time in
school history, went 26-31 in two seasons. The team finished
14-15 last season, its best finish since the 1999-2000 season
and reached the Southwestern Athletic Conference
Tournament semifinals for the first time since 2001.
FRANCIS RESIGNS AT PV: Prairie View A&M head men's basketball coach Jerome Francis resigned last week. PVAM Athletic Director Charles McClelland said, "We just felt that it would be best, based upon our conversations about where we were and where we wanted to go." He added that the lateness of the resignation was a problem especially since no recruits had been signed for next year. Formerly an assistant coach under Ray McCallum at Houston, Francis had been at PVAM for three years compiling a record of 30-54 including a 5-23 mark last season. In his first season (2002-03), Francis led the Panthers to their first Southwestern Athletic Conference basketball championship in more than 40 years and a win in the first round of the conference tournament. He was honored as the 2003 SWAC coach of the year.
© 2005 Azeez Communications, Inc.