Culture
UCF inquires about USC coach Lincoln Riley: Sources
By Bruce Feldman, Antonio Morales and Ralph Russo
UCF has inquired about the availability of USC coach Lincoln Riley as it searches for a replacement for Gus Malzahn, three people who have been privy to those conversations told The Athletic on Wednesday.
There has been no indication Riley is interested in making the move, the people said. He is three seasons into a reported 10-year contract that pays him about $10 million per year.
The people spoke to The Athletic on condition of anonymity because all the discussions were private and UCF was not publicly revealing details of its coaching search.
Riley’s contract is not publicly available because USC is a private school, but extracting him from Southern California — if he wanted to leave — would likely cost tens of millions of dollars for either the Trojans or the school looking to hire him away.
Representatives from UCF reached out to Riley’s representatives last weekend to inquire about his interest in making a move across the country, one source said. Any discussions about adjusting the terms of Riley’s contract would be between him and USC, sources said.
The first source added that UCF has not received any word from Riley’s camp that he is interested in leaving USC, and the school is still looking at multiple candidates to fill its head coaching vacancy.
Firing Riley, whose win total with the Trojans has decreased in each of his three seasons, would cost USC about $90 million, according to one of the sources. If Riley were to leave for another school, he would owe USC nothing. But UCF is not in position to replicate the deal Riley has at USC. Malzahn made $4 million in 2024 at UCF.
Two sources said even if Riley had an interest in making the move, it would require some payout of his current deal with USC to make up for what he would be giving up in the transition — like a professional sports trade where one team pays a chunk of a player’s remaining salary on a large contract and the receiving team picks up the rest.
Riley was hired at USC by former athletic director Mike Bohn, who resigned amid controversy in the spring of 2023. University president Carol Folt oversaw the hire as well and will retire this summer, which means two of the main parties involved in bringing Riley to USC will be gone.
Jen Cohen, the former Washington athletic director, was hired in August 2023 to lead the athletic department. She inherited Riley and his contract.
She’s in the unenviable position of having an underperforming football program but a coach who is too expensive to move on from. In the spring, Cohen navigated a delicate situation with men’s basketball coach Andy Enfield, whose tenure had run its course but his track record was too good to justify a firing. He eventually took the SMU job, and Cohen hired Eric Musselman from Arkansas to replace him.
Even with a suitor for Riley, getting out from under his deal looks more difficult.
Malzahn left UCF after four seasons as head coach to become offensive coordinator at Florida State. The Knights have gone 10-15 overall and 5-13 in league play in their first two seasons in the Big 12 after making the move from the American Athletic Conference. UCF received only a partial share of Big 12 revenue last year, about $18 million, and is scheduled to receive about $19 million for the 2024-25 fiscal year.
The number jumps to a full share in 2025-26, which should be about double those figures.
Riley is 25-14 at USC since being lured to Los Angeles from Oklahoma after the 2021 regular season. It was a seismic move for the Trojans, swiping away a coach who had a 55-10 record in Norman and two Heisman Trophy winners in Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray.
The Trojans went 11-3 in Riley’s first season with another Heisman winner in Caleb Williams, the star quarterback who followed the coach from Oklahoma to USC. But the results have been trending in the wrong direction since.
USC went 8-5 in 2023, its final season in the Pac-12, and wrapped up its first regular season in the Big Ten with a 6-6 overall record (4-5 in league play).
After the 2023 season, Riley told The Athletic that he “didn’t come here (USC) for some short-term thing and as long as SC continues to give us the support and the things we need to continue to build this, this was not a two-year rebuild.”
Recruiting hasn’t lived up to the high expectations that came with Riley’s hire. USC continues to regress on the field each season, and the program doesn’t appear to have much direction moving forward, making the outlook for Riley look hazy at best.
(Photo: Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)
Culture
Randy Moss taking extended leave of absence from ‘NFL Countdown’ due to personal health issue
Hall of Famer Randy Moss is going to take an extended leave of absence from ESPN’s “NFL Countdown” to deal with a personal health issue, the network said.
“Pro Football Hall of Famer Randy Moss will step away from ‘NFL Countdown’ for an extended time to focus on a personal health challenge,” ESPN said in a statement. “He briefly addressed the matter at the start of the show on Dec. 1. For nearly a decade, Randy has been an invaluable member of the team, consistently elevating ‘Countdown’ with his insight and passion. He has ESPN’s full support, and we look forward to welcoming him back when he is ready.”
Moss’ exact diagnosis is unknown. Moss, 47, will not be replaced in the interim period. The previous Sunday, Moss addressed his issues on “Countdown,” while sporting sunglasses.
“I just wanted to let the viewers know that me and my wife, me and my family, we are battling something internally,” Moss said. “I have some great doctors around me. I couldn’t miss the show. I wanted to be here with you guys. I feel great.
“But if y’all see me with these Michigan turnover glasses that I have on, it’s not being disrespectful because I’m on television, man. I’m battling something. I need all the prayer warriors.”
Moss is considered one of the greatest receivers in NFL history. He is fourth all-time with 15,292 receiving yards in 14 seasons. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2018.
He previously worked on both Sunday and “Monday Night Countdown,” but cut down by his own choice to just Sundays prior to last season.
(Photo: Stephen Dunn / Getty Images)
Culture
Lewis Hamilton’s final F1 lap with Mercedes: A year of challenges, a decade of triumphs
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — Atop the Mercedes hospitality unit at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi, cooled by nearby fans working hard in the midday heat, Lewis Hamilton sat at a table with his race engineer, Peter Bonnington, for some pre-race weekend planning.
It was a routine they’d been through plenty of times before — 245 times, in fact — but the 246th time carried a little more emotion. After 12 years, 84 race wins and six world championships, marking it the most successful driver-team partnership in F1 history, this was the last race weekend for Hamilton as a Mercedes driver.
Hamilton’s conversations with Bonnington, affectionately known as ‘Bono’ and someone Hamilton has likened to a brother, remained as professional as ever. They knew there was a job to do. But speaking a few hours later, the seven-time world champion admitted these chats involved an extra degree of emotion.
“You’re sitting there, and you’re realizing these are the last moments with the team, which is … it’s hard to describe the feeling,” Hamilton said. “It’s not the greatest, of course, but I think mostly I’m just really proud of what we’ve achieved.”
The ‘last dance’ for Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes has been ten months in the making. On Feb. 1, Hamilton announced he would move to Ferrari for 2025, securing the 39-year-old a last blast in F1’s iconic red cars to end his glittering career. Abu Dhabi was always going to be a significant grand prix.
But at the end of a taxing year on the track, filled with the highs of victory at Silverstone and Spa to the late-season lows, both Hamilton and Mercedes are committed to ending with a celebration.
“It’s a really beautiful journey you go on together,” Hamilton said. “And being that it was so long, the emotions run so deep.”
Toto Wolff, the Mercedes team principal, had an inkling of what was coming when Hamilton arrived at his Oxfordshire home for their pre-season catch-up.
Fred Vasseur, Ferrari’s F1 chief and a close friend of Wolff’s, hadn’t replied to a text asking if he was “taking our driver,” and the father of Carlos Sainz, who Hamilton would replace, had tipped off the Mercedes boss that something might be happening.
Looking back on Thursday, Hamilton admitted to it being an “awkward” meeting with Wolff to break the news that their partnership would end. Only eight months earlier, they’d agreed on a contract extension that appeared to reaffirm their commitment, one Hamilton had previously envisaged lasting long beyond his time racing in F1 was over. Their joint work on campaigns to assist long overdue change concerning diversity and equality in F1 is a legacy that means more to Hamilton than his racing achievements.
It also made for a year he admitted that he “massively underestimated” from an emotional point of view. “It was straining on the relationship very early on; (it) took time for people to get past it,” Hamilton admitted. “And then just for my own self, it’s been a very emotional year for me. And I think I’ve not been at my best in handling and dealing with those emotions.”
Hamilton has always worn his heart on his sleeve, evidenced by the tears that flowed after ending his two-and-a-half-year win drought at Silverstone. The intimacy of his relationship with Mercedes permits a brutal honesty that has survived significant disappointments — like his 2016 title loss to teammate Nico Rosberg or, more controversially, what happened in Abu Dhabi three years ago when he missed out on a record eighth world title.
Wolff has always liked to prod at any open wounds, knowing that is often the only way to understand how to make a situation better. He felt that Hamilton and Mercedes had “done a good job” handling the emotions of this year.
“When he took the decision at the beginning of the season to go, we knew it could be a bumpy year ahead,” Wolff said in Qatar. “He knows he’s going to go somewhere else. We know our future lies with Kimi (Antonelli). To go through the ups and downs and still keep it together between us, that is something we have achieved.”
“I’m just slow.”
For these words to be uttered by a seven-time world champion might seem fanciful. But there was a degree of resignation as Hamilton digested a difficult Friday of practice for the Qatar Grand Prix, where he couldn’t feel the car giving him back the kind of performance he needed. It continued a season-long trend.
For much of the year, the Mercedes W15 car hadn’t gelled to his driving style or allowed him to extract the kind of pace that he’d needed, particularly over a single lap. Through 23 races this season, Hamilton trails George Russell 18-5 in their qualifying head-to-head and is 24 points behind in the drivers’ standings.
The day after Hamilton made that comment, when he’d qualified sixth in Qatar while Russell was P2 and almost half a second quicker, he was asked to expand on it. Did he really mean that he’s lost the edge? Is this a sign of the decline most elite drivers and sports stars encounter as they near their forties?
“I know I’ve still got it,” Hamilton said. “(It’s) just the car won’t go a bit faster. I definitely know I’ve got it still. It’s not a question in my mind. (I’m) looking forward to the end.”
It wasn’t the first time Hamilton had given such a bleak outlook. After the race in Brazil, where he’d lagged to 10th in rainy conditions while Russell had been in the mix for victory prior to the red flag, he admitted he “could happily go and take a holiday” instead of doing the final triple-header. In Las Vegas, when the W15 came alive in the cold and allowed Mercedes to sweep to a 1-2, Hamilton seemed downbeat that he’d not been the one to lead it home after qualifying down in P10 while Russell was on pole.
“These last races, maybe even the whole season, was clearly not what we expected,” Wolff said in Qatar. “That car is a handful to drive on its worst days.”
But how much of that has hurt Hamilton in a way that it has not for Russell? Wolff put part of it down to Hamilton’s driving style. “One of his strengths is how he’s always able to brake late and attack the corner, and the car can’t take it,” he said, adding that when the grip kicks in the slow-speed corners, the problem worsens. “Then if the car slides more and it lacks grip, that contributes to (him) probably suffering more than George.”
In Qatar, Vasseur said he was “not at all” concerned by the form of his incoming star signee. “Have a look on the 50 laps that he did in Vegas, starting P10 (and) finishing on the gearbox of Russell,” Vasseur said. “I’m not worried at all.”
The progress made by Ferrari this year, recovering from its mid-season slump to put up a late fight to McLaren for the constructors’ title, will also encourage Hamilton that he can rekindle more of his old form. He stressed on Thursday that while his focus remains on Mercedes for his final weekend, there was a natural excitement building about the next chapter.
“It really sparks motivation,” Hamilton said, “and it’s a dream scenario for any driver to have an opportunity like this. I don’t take that for granted.”
Whenever Hamilton hangs up his helmet and calls time on his enormously successful career, this period with Mercedes will be the lasting, most definitive part of his racing legacy.
When he decided in 2012 to make a shock move away from McLaren, then consistently one of F1’s leading teams, it was scoffed at as a mistake: a step into the midfield, away from the team that had brought Hamilton up to F1, and into the unknown.
It proved to be the right move at the right time. McLaren was about to start a decade-long decline, while Mercedes was on the verge of starting a record-breaking F1 dynasty with Hamilton as the centerpiece.
The move also allowed Hamilton to become himself. His evolution from a 27-year-old one-time champion into one of F1’s elder statesmen, on the cusp of his 40th birthday with seven world titles to his name, with interests and a celebrity status stretching far beyond this paddock, has been impressive.
On the entrance to Mercedes’ garage for this weekend at the Yas Marina Circuit are two large pictures of Hamilton, one from Hungary 2013 — his first win for Mercedes — and the second from Silverstone this year, arguably the most emotional of his record 104 victories. Across it reads the message: “Every dream needs a team.”
Even the challenges of this year and the difficulty of a year-long goodbye will not diminish what Hamilton and Mercedes built together.
“Nothing is going to take away 12 incredible years with eight constructors’ and six drivers’ championships,” Wolff said. “That is what will be the memory, and after next Sunday, we’re going to look back on this great period of time rather than a season or races that were particularly bad.
“We will stay with the good memories.”
Good memories. Historic memories. So heavy in emotion that, when the checkered flag drops for Hamilton on Sunday night and he hoists himself out of a Mercedes F1 car for the final time, they will surely come flooding back.
Top photo: Chris Graythen/Getty Images, Clive Rose/Getty Images; Design: Meech Robinson/The Athletic
Culture
‘The Michael Kay Show’ will move off afternoons, ending an era in New York radio: Sources
The end of a New York sports radio era will conclude as “The Michael Kay Show” will soon broadcast its last program in the afternoon time slot on ESPN New York, sources briefed on the decision told The Athletic.
While Kay will remain on the air in mid-days, the battle between Kay and his ESPN New York cohorts against their nemeses on WFAN that have included Mike Francesa, Chris Russo, Evan Roberts and Craig Carton is now over, signifying the conclusion of what was one of the most entertaining and contentious periods in the history of the medium in New York. The afternoon Kay Show has been on for 22 years.
Nearly two years ago, Kay flirted with leaving afternoons, but ESPN made a big financial push to keep him. This time around, with the ESPN and the radio business evolving, Kay’s desire to work a more manageable schedule earlier in the day and the lack of an overwhelming offer for him to remain in the afternoons were considered decisive factors, according to sources briefed on the discussions.
The final afternoon show is expected to be next Friday, Dec. 13.
Kay, the star of the program that also featured Don La Greca and Peter Rosenberg in its most successful recent stage, is not leaving the airwaves entirely; Kay will become a solo act from 1-3 p.m. ET on ESPN New York, which is streamed on its own app and can be found on 880 AM in New York.
In the afternoons, La Greca and Rosenberg are expected to stay and be joined by former newspaperman turned longtime TV and radio personality, Alan Hahn, though no deals are yet signed.
All the new programs will begin on Jan. 6th.
Hahn has been on locally with former NFL Pro Bowl linebacker Bart Scott from 1-3 p.m. ET. The proposed show with La Graca, Rosenberg and Hahn will be from 3-7 p.m. ET.
The YES simulcast for Kay’s new time slot and afternoons are still to be determined. YES and ESPN have had some preliminary discussions but could not work out a deal until the radio station had its lineup settled. Those discussions should pick up after the agreements are finalized.
ESPN declined to comment.
In the new format, Scott is expected to shift to 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. ET with Dan Graca. This would knock Mike Greenberg’s national show from 880 AM. This is not as big of a factor as it was when ESPN’s Radio local signal was on the more desirable 98.7 FM.
In New York, ESPN still provides the on-air hosts for the local programs, while Good Karma Brands runs the marketing and advertising departments.
In the morning on ESPN New York, Rick DiPietro and Dave Rothenberg will continue where they have made inroads and gained popularity, though WFAN’s Boomer Esiason and Gregg Giannotti are still the top sports morning show and often are No. 1 rated in all of New York radio.
The fight between the stations, which reached its peak when Kay and Francesa had a war of words that heightened the anticipation of who would win the Nielsen Audio Radio ratings, had already dissipated as, under Good Karma, ESPN New York had discontinued using Neilsen’s tabulations as it focused more on digital growth.
Kay, 63, will continue as the TV voice of the Yankees on YES, but now will be a solo act in mid-days, moving down in the order as a sports radio era in New York ends.
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