March 24, 2008
The shake up of the Rhinos continues with head coach Laurie Calloway being let go as the team's head coach. There had been talk that Jukka Massalin wouldn't get a new contract as the men's assistant coach. But, the change in the coaching staff was much larger with Calloway being let go.
So now the questions are who will be the new head coach? Darren Tilley is getting mentioned by a lot of fans and given that he impressed many when he ran a training season a year ago when Calloway was looking to replace Willy Fitzpatrick as his assistant, that would certainly make sense.
You also have former Vancouver Whitecaps head coach Bob Lilley, who is with the Detroit Ignition of the MISL right now, former Rhinos head coach Pat Ercoli, other former players like Doug Miller and Tommy Tanner, and Rochester natives like Dave Sarachan and Brian Bliss that could potentially be in the mix.
And what about the guy that the Rhinos almost hired instead of Calloway: John Harkes? Right now he's slated to be working on ESPN's MLS broadcast team, but perhaps the Rhinos could make him an offer he couldn't refuse?
Like many of the changes that have been made so far, it's all going to come down to the execution. The Rhinos have a really tight timeline between now and the start of the season. So, can they pull off moves like replacing the coaching staff and replacing Delaware North as the concessions provider and improve things in 2008?
Only time will tell.
News & Notes:
- Ryan Whirty over at The Pressbox Powertrip is all over the logo twist (Erik Rhodes found the clipart site where the Rhinos got the Rhino head for the new logo) and he's being his normal paranoid self about how quickly the Rob Clark deal happened.
- Bob Bradley has announced the 18 man roster for the Poland match on Wednesday. Landon Donovan, Brian Ching, and Ricardo Clark are the only MLS players on the roster as Bradley has gone with European based players for the bulk of the roster.
- Michael Bradley has a hot hand as he scored twice, including the game winner, in Heerenveen's come back win over Roda JC Kerkrade .
The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author, and not necessarily those of the Rochester Rhinos or SoccerSam.com. Feel free to send any comments or complaints to news@soccersam.com. James promises to read (but not to respond) to all of them.
