Former Lafayette football head coach and flat-earther Frank Tavani (Courtesy of Hana Isihara '17).
In a Galilean development, sources have told The Lafayette that former football coach Frank Tavani was fired after a heated argument with Athletic Director Steven Spheresberg over whether the Earth was flat or not.
The source said the altercation occurred when Spheresberg bought Tavani a globe in recognition of his 30 years of coaching with the college. Tavani – unconcerned with a globe being a terrible gift – was irate with Spheresberg, calling the gift a “joke” and a “fake representation of reality.”
A recent trend, flat-earthers are those that believe the Earth is a flat plane with Antarctica being the edge. There is significant evidence in support of the idea, according to professors on campus.
“Haven’t you ever wondered why the horizon is flat regardless of how high you stand off the ground?” geology professor Roxi Stones said. “There are too many unexplained questions.”
“Tavani went into this long explanation about how if airplanes fly straight, why don’t they just continue into space,” Spheresberg said. “He tried to say that if the planet was round, people in the southern hemisphere would fall off the Earth. I honestly couldn’t tell what the hell was going on.”
Spheresberg said that he tried to reason with Tavani, but he was having none of it.
The argument escalated to a point where the two could be heard in the Bourger Varsity Football House from the other side of Fisher Field, according to witnesses.
“At one point, he jumped up and down and said that ‘If the Earth was rotating, why am I in the same spot when I land?’” Spheresberg said. Stones went back to her office at this point.
Tavani threw the globe through McCutcheon’s office window and that’s when he decided to terminate the long-time coach’s contract.
“He got really angry, picked up the globe and yelled, ‘F— your sphere,’ and threw it through the window,” said McCutcheon. “I’m still picking up pieces of glass in my office.”
The Lafayette reached out to Tavani for comment, but he was unavailable.
Written by Ken Bone, Jr. ’16
Editor’s note: This article is part of The Scoffayette, our satire April Fool’s edition.