Whacked

To his credit, he doesn't appear to shirk his Arena League responsibilities. The season starts February 2 at home against New York, and he says he'd like to get them to the playoffs again (they lost in the second-round last year). No one would have faulted him for begging out of this gig given the odd circumstances. "But what would that solve?" he asks. "That wouldn't get my old job back." Which is why he's pouring whatever he has left into the Desperados. For now.

There's a final irony here. When a player gets cut, the standard response is for the coach to come off cold, even austere. It's a business and all that jazz. Right. Until the roles are reversed and the queasy feeling finds their gut. And rightly so.

Still, you almost wish Coach Joe never had to feel that rumble.

"I never did forget, when I was a player playing in professional football for a very short period of time, what it was like to be cut," Avezzano says. "I always had great empathy for players who were cut and who were put through the tedious nature of the sport. Truly in the NFL, the NFL stands for Not For Long. That is true. I've always had great empathy for that. It's tough. It's always more, even though you may have great empathy, it's still different when it happens to you, because it's obviously more personal. But they don't ask you whether you like it or not; they just ask you to deal with it and move on...If there's one thing I've learned in coaching over the years, if there's anything I've learned that's valuable, it's that when change comes, get on with it. Get over it and get on with it. That's what you try to do. Of course, that doesn't make it any easier because you have a handy little philosophy. It's not easy."