There's a line in The Hotel New Hampshire, a novel by John Irving, about the willpower it takes just to keep passing the open windows when life is at its oppressive and depressing worst.
Don't jump out, in other words.
Walk on, in other words.
There was an open window in Denver the other night, and Dan Issel didn't pass it. He stopped and jumped out. Not literally, but certainly figuratively. And, now, there's no telling where he'll land.
Issel is the coach and president of the Denver Nuggets, with whom he has been associated almost since forever and for whom he was once upon a time a Hall of Fame hero as a player. But these Nuggets aren't very good -- again, just as the case has been most of the time for Issel as their coach -- and they had lost for a fifth consecutive time Tuesday night. It was a home game, and Issel was on the way to the Denver locker room when he did the dumbest thing a coach or player can do.
He responded to a taunting fan.
And then Issel made it worse.
"Go drink another beer, you Mexican . . . ," Issel yelled, adding an expletive at the end of the sentence.