By the way: Billy Donovan is a flip-flopper

For "By the way," I will talk about things that don't really have much to do with the Yankees but feel are interesting and should be mentioned here. These items may or may not be about sports, either. This item, incidentally, does indeed deal with sports.

Former Orlando Magic coach Billy Donovan (pictured) had a great exit strategy. If only he were our president.

Donovan, the coach of the two-time University of Florida basketball team, signed a $27.5 million contract to coach the NBA's Magic. However, two days later, he asked the team to let him out of his deal to return to school. ESPN is reporting that an agreement has been reached in principle between the two parties to terminate the contract (source). One of the terms especially intriguing is that Donovan has to agree to not seek an NBA job for five years.

Apparently he was never sold on the job in the first place. Now, there's an obvious question here, so I'll just ask it: why did he take the job? I don't know for sure, but hopefully details are released in the coming days and weeks, because I find this story pretty interesting (which is why I'm writing about it). If his heart is at UF, which he says it is, why even flirt with leaving?

I think that this sets a dangerous precedent (and you all know how precedent-conscious we are!). Teams will not want to keep coaches who do want to be there. This story shows that a contract is nothing more than a piece of paper with a lot of convoluted sentences. The five-year coaching "ban" means nothing if he wanted to stay at UF anyway.