Fire-The-Coach Web Sites a Big Business

Duke's head coach Ted Roof watches punter Kevin Jones (49) during football practice, in this Aug. 14, 2006 file photo, in Durham, N.C. Here's a bargain for a frustrated Duke football fan. For $50, you can own the Web site where the name says it all _ FireTedRoof.com. That's a steal, because similar sites calling for the dismissals of Bill Callahan at Nebraska or Sylvester Croom at Mississippi State are five times as expensive. The Blue Devils have been under .500 for 11 consecutive seasons, and are 3-45 in ACC games since 2000. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome) (Gerry Broome - AP)

DURHAM, N.C. -- Here's a bargain for a frustrated Duke football fan. For $50, you can own the Web site where the name says it all _ FireTedRoof.com.

That's a steal, because similar sites calling for the dismissals of Bill Callahan at Nebraska or Sylvester Croom at Mississippi State are five times as expensive.

The good news for the beleaguered Blue Devils coach? Nobody has bought it yet.

"I guess that's a milestone, huh?" Roof said with a laugh.

But for most coaches, job security is no joke. With another season kicking off, an online cottage industry has emerged with Internet vendors copying football's most famous anti-coach Web site _ fireronzook.com.

"Bobby Bowden said it every year _ if you don't have thick skin, in this day and age, you need to get out of coaching," North Carolina State coach and admitted technophobe Chuck Amato said.

Of course, technology has made it easier to blow off steam.

Gripe sessions formerly reserved for bars and barbershops now also take place anonymously in cyberspace, where, with a few keystrokes and a credit card, a disgruntled fan can set up a Web site and launch a grass roots campaign to have a coach canned.

And now, one mysterious fan is trying to cash in on fans' frustrations.

He obtained the rights to nearly 30 fire-the-coach Web pages over the years and under the Redshirted.com banner is selling them for up to $250 apiece.

Sites naming Callahan, Croom and Roof are for sale there, and so are those featuring Iowa's Kirk Ferentz, West Virginia's Rich Rodriguez and, inexplicably, Gerry DiNardo _ who two years ago was fired by Indiana and now works as an analyst for ESPN.

The owner of Redshirted, in an e-mail to The Associated Press, would identify himself only as a technology worker from Austin, Texas, named Doug.