Dave Boos yanks our chain

"I have worked with Marci for the past four years and I can confidently say that she has the highest volleyball IQ of any player I have coached."
Ball State coach Dave Boos on his new assistant coach, Marci Peniata

I can't believe Boos is going to sit there and tell us that Marci Peniata has a higher volleyball IQ than Jill Mudge.

Halleluiah, Boos hath signed

Here comes closure to one of the bigger non-stories in the past few weeks. Quite a relief, eh Boos?

"I never had worries that it wasn't going to be done, so it's not that much of a relief," Boos said.

Yeah, that's about what we thought.

It should be noted, though, that Boos has some interesting incentives in his contract. For instance, if he's named national coach of the year, he gets a $5,000 bonus.

That's it? I mean $5,000 is a nice chunk of change, sure, but do you know how many MAC coaches have been national coach of the year since 1996? Zero. I'd be willing to be the number doesn't go up much more if you look at the all-time winners.

Screw the 5k. If Boos wins national coach of the year, they should make him president of the school, maybe even sports czar for the whole state.

Dormant Litchfield rumor mill gets a jumpstart

Unless you've been running covert ops for S.H.I.E.L.D. for the past year, you're aware that Randy Litchfield, a 13-year veteran who had one sub-.500 season, was suddenly let go by Ball State University earlier this year.

There was a lot of hub-bub, hullaballo, over why his contract wasn't renewed. But the dust storm died down, and we all went about our business, until someone on volleytalk.net asked what had happened to Litchfield and his staff.

Sunday, Litchfield replied. (Or someone claiming to be Litchfield.) Let's take a look:

"With the one exception of still living in Muncie and somewhat near Ball State, all is great."

I could be wrong, but it sounds like he's still a little sore at Ball State.

"I'm looking forward to moving away from here."

Yep, those aren't the words of a man happy with his former employer. Can't really fault him there.

"With all the mystery surrounding my firing, I'm sure the rumor mill has run crazy."

Actually, it was crazy, and this post was more of an FYI...

"That bothers me a lot."

I'm sure it does. But I don't know that we need to go throu--

"I believe the truth will come out soon enough."

Eeep. Can of worms...opening...

"I've got to bit my tongue for a little while longer."

Oh no! Don't leave us hanging person-who-may-or-may-not-be-Litchfield! Let the tongue go! We're so close!

ARGH! It's like an episode of "LOST"! I need answers! What "truth" is he referring to? Why does he have to bite his tongue? And what does this have to do with Desmond's bizarre visions? Was it Litchfield that brought Locke's dad to the island? HELP.

Woodward and Bernstein, LOOK OUT

I'd imagine that as a college student journalist, you're always on the lookout for something juicy, something exciting other than the normal "Hey here's another lacrosse story."

But at what point do you think the Ball State Daily News' Justin Hesser realized his story, about new Ball State coach Dave Boos not yet having signed his contract due to a typo, was not the scorcher it first appeared to be?

Probably when Boos told him "I don't think it's important."

Of course, ya' gotta wonder how bad that typo was for Boos to send the whole thing back unsigned. Was the contract for "David Boozz"? "Dave Borscht"? "J. Geils"?

And why does Boos have to "set up a meeting with Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Tom Collins to discuss his contract"? Can't you discuss a typo with, you know, whomever typed up the contract?

"A.D. Collins! A.D. Collins!"

"What is it, David?"

"There's a typo in my contract!"

"Where?"

"Look. You spelled volleyball with five Ls instead of four!"

"GADZOOKS! To the mimeograph machine, young David!"

"Tally ho, sir!"

Dead Man switching jobs!

We LOVE it when college coaches go on messageboards and post using their real names. It's always a delicious train wreck of bad decisions.

But what's potentially more interesting is when an established messageboard poster reveals they are a college coach, as happened recently when "hsuvb" revealed on PrepVolleyball.com's College Talk messageboard that he was, in fact, Hugh Hernesman. Hernesman was recently hired away from Hardin-Simmons to be Dave Boos' assistant at Ball State (They're not booing, they're saying--oh, wait...).

So, then we take a quick trip to "Most Recent Posts" and find this little nugget:So I guess the question is why did Boos hire a dead man? And, yeah, haha, that rumor mill is really...dead accurate sometimes. Yes, we know he was talking about Whitman, but he puts forth a very strong argument why he's not interested in leaving Hardin-Simmons. Little did he know that a couple of months later he'd be dazzled by the big city, bright lights of...Muncie.