Fire-the-coach Web sites become profitable

Here's a bargain for a frustrated Duke University football fan: For $50, you can own the Web site where the name says it all -- FireTedRoof.com.\nThat's a steal. Similar sites calling for the dismissals of Bill Callahan at University ofNebraska or Sylvester Croom at Mississippi State University are five times as expensive.\nThe good news for the beleaguered Blue Devils coach? Nobody has bought it yet.\n"I guess that's a milestone, huh?" Roof said with a laugh.\nBut for most coaches, job security is no joke. With another season kicking off, an online cottage industry has emerged with Internet vendors copying football's most famous anti-coach Web site -- fireronzook.com.\n"Bobby Bowden said it every year -- if you don't have thick skin, in this day and age, you need to get out of coaching," North Carolina State University coach and admitted technophobe Chuck Amato said.\nOf course, technology has made it easier to blow off steam.\nGripe sessions formerly reserved for bars and barbershops now also take place anonymously in cyberspace, where, with a few keystrokes and a credit card, a disgruntled fan can set up a Web site and launch a grassroots campaign to have a coach canned.\nAnd now, one mysterious fan is trying to cash in on fans' frustrations.\nHe obtained the rights to nearly 30 fire-the-coach Web pages over the years and under the Redshirted.com banner is selling them for up to $250 apiece.\nSites naming Callahan, Croom and Roof are for sale there and so are those featuring Iowa's Kirk Ferentz, West Virginia's Rich Rodriguez and, inexplicably, Gerry DiNardo, who two years ago was fired by Indiana and now works as an analyst for ESPN.\nThe owner of Redshirted, in an e-mail to The Associated Press, would identify himself only as a technology worker from Austin, Texas, named Doug.\nHe calls the project an experiment in sports sociology and psychology and says he was surprised that schools or even the coaches themselves didn't think to secure those dot-coms first and prevent what he called "a future PR nightmare."\n"I'm not suggesting that (Nebraska officials) buying 'FireBillCallahan.com' would prevent disgruntled Nebraska fans from finding an outlet on the Internet to voice their opinions," he wrote. "It would, however, be an easy way to create an obstacle for a large segment of the public."\nHis Web site says factors which affect the price are a team's record, the size and veracity of its fan base, the expectations for success and any other team controversy.\nThe first site he sold was a fitting one -- FireUrbanMeyer.com.\nMeyer was hired at Florida to replace Ron Zook, the coach whose contentious hiring gave momentum to this whole dot-com phenomenon.\nSome Gator fans became so angry with Zook's 2002 hiring to replace Steve Spurrier that they created a Web site dedicated to the coach's dismissal. Fireronzook.com was born, and so was a new way for fans to vent their frustrations.\nTwo years later, those fans got what they wanted. Zook was fired soon after an embarrassing loss at Mississippi State but well after the coach was forever linked with the infamous Web site.\n"It's kind of ridiculous in a way that people get their kicks out of doing something like that," Zook said. "But I think coaches understand it's kind of the nature of the business. They don't give it a lot of credence. If you're going to let that bother you, you're not going to be long in this profession."\nSome fans go on the counteroffensive, snatching up fire-the-coach sites to protect them from others who want him gone.\nWilliam Nielson was a sophomore at Georgia four years ago when he bought FireMarkRicht.com for $20 to keep some other angry fan from copying the Zook site.\nThe only text on the site calls Richt the best thing to happen to Georgia football since Herschel Walker, and Nielson, a second-year law student at Loyola University in New Orleans, has no plans to develop it further.\n"I didn't even think anyone would read it. ... The amazing thing was how many e-mails I would get," Nielson said. "I used to get death threats from people, and it's a pro-Georgia site."\nRedshirted suggests other ways to electronically sabotage an opponent.\nWhat's to stop a zealous fan from creating a fire-the-opposing-coach Web site to crank up the pressure on a rival? Imagine a UCLA alum turning the heat up on the University of Southern California with a "Fire Pete Carroll" page or a University of Alabama grad viciously calling for Tommy Tuberville's job at Auburn University.\nOr how about this: If a fan thinks a rival has an incompetent coach, he could obtain the fire-the-coach Web site and urge that school to give him a lifetime contract.\n"For the price of a ticket to just a single game, you can influence the football world in ways you never thought possible," Redshirted's site declares.\nOr at least you can think you're influencing the football world.\nAs for Zook, he can laugh about his situation now.\nHe admitted taking some good-natured teasing from fellow coaches during his first year in Gainesville. Several NFL coaches visited to evaluate quarterback Rex Grossman, and Pittsburgh Steelers coach Bill Cowher mentioned the infamous Web site.\n"He said, 'Zooker, you really screwed this profession up,'" Zook said. "I said, 'What are you talking about?' And he said, 'Well, now it's Fire Bill Cowher, Fire Jim Haslett, Fire Ron Zook.'\n"I said, 'Yeah, you know, I started that,'" Zook said.