"In The Oil Business, We Call It A Dry Hole": Angry Letters Boosters Send The AD When The Football Team Goes 0-12

We've examined the difficulties faced by first-year athletic director Jeff Hammond, who inherited a multi-million-dollar budget deficit when he took over at Southern Miss. Complicating matters was the performance of the team, which went 0-12 under new head coach Ellis Johnson. Johnson had been hired under lame-duck AD Richard Giannini, with an inexplicable contract that gave him four years of guaranteed money. Firing the coach was the last thing Hammond wanted to do—Johnson would still be...