Bo Pelini, who was fired Sunday as Nebraska's football coach, met with his team one final time Tuesday night at Lincoln North Star High School to say goodbye.
At least he won't have to pay for the room.
A North Star staff member who allowed Pelini to use the high school's auditorium for the meeting without using an online system for reserving rooms in the Lincoln school district's buildings will be billed $262.50 for use of the facility.
According to Margaret Reist of the Lincoln Journal Star, the unidentified staff member knows Pelini and told him the auditorium could be used without clearing it through the online process first.
"He did not go through the appropriate channels," Lincoln Public Schools spokesman Mary Kay Roth said.
The bill is for the custodial and utilities costs of keeping the room open, and what a person would be charged after going through the online system.
Roth said Wednesday that school district officials had yet to talk to the staff member, but they assume he let the team into the auditorium Tuesday evening. The building was already open -- and the custodial staff was on duty -- because of a theater activity.
Ode to Bo
Bo Pelini's firing, like most firings, was met with a variety of responses from the team's fans.
Some Cornhuskers fans applauded the move, while others were left angry.
At least Jeff Layce, an English teacher in Ralston, Neb., a suburb of Omaha, came up with a unique way to express his feelings.
Layce used poetry as a way to close the door and move forward. His poem, Goodbye Bo Pelini, was published Wednesday in the Bellevue (Neb.) Leader, with references Chancellor Harvey Perlman and Wisconsin running back Melvin Gordon included:
"Goodbye, Bo Pelini. We'll miss your sour puss. You never won a championship but it's not you -- it's us.
"You're probably mad you're fired, mad at Harvey and the rest. Your players loved you, this is true, but they don't cut the checks.
"Nine wins a year! That is a lot. A testament to strong thinking -- but that rushing record Melvin set drove all of us to drinking.
"Some day in some dull grocery store we'll meet again, trade glances. We'll wonder what it'd been like if you'd had six or seven more chances."
Poor choice of words
Fresno State received a letter of apology Tuesday from Hawaii's play-by-play announcer for a comment he made at the end of the television broadcast of the Fresno State-Hawaii football game.
According to the Fresno Bee, Robert Kekaula, Hawaii's play-by-play voice since 2011, concluded the Saturday night broadcast by saying, "Good night from the armpit of America."
The game, which Fresno State won 28-21, was televised by Oceanic Sports in Hawaii and broadcast on the internet through the Mountain West Network.
Apparently Kekaula made the remark while joking with his statistician and may not have realized he was still on the air. He offered an in-depth apology to Fresno State and the city of Fresno for his remarks after Fresno State officials contacted Oceanic Sports.
"In reality, I suppose you could understand where Kekaula was coming from," wrote Matt Yoder of awfulannouncing.com. "When you live and work in Hawaii, it'd be easy to think of anywhere not Hawaii as an unflattering and odious body part."
Sports quiz
What position did Bo Pelini hold before becoming head coach at Nebraska?
Answer
Pelini was the defensive coordinator at LSU, where he helped lead the Tigers to a national championship in 2007.
Sports on 12/05/2014