America at Large: Since John Chaney is, at 73, an unlikely candidate for anger-management therapy, this latest episode is probably going to cost him his job. The acknowledged dean of America's collegiate basketball coaches, Chaney didn't become the head coach at Temple University until he was 50 years old, and it would be preposterous to suggest that his progress through the coaching ranks wasn't retarded by his race.

On one level he has become a universally-admired figure, having presided over a programme at the Philadelphia school which places a premium on graduation rather than on preparation for the NBA. Were he to be swept out the door today, he would be elected to the Hall of Fame tomorrow.

On the other hand, Chaney's tenure has been marked by unsportsmanlike blow-ups, heated criticism of officials and the occasional fist-fight with a fellow coach.

Famously, 20 years ago he grabbed George Washington coach Gerry Gimelstob by the throat and tried to throttle him right there on the court. A decade later, after a game against the University of Massachusetts, he went after then-UMass coach John Calipari, threatening in no uncertain terms to "kill" him - with national television cameras running all the while.

At a dinner party earlier this year Chaney found himself in dispute with a fellow guest who objected to the coach's criticism of George Bush's adventure in Iraq. He invited the man to "take it outside".

Partly because his off-court record has otherwise been exemplary - Temple's programme has been notably clean, never attracting the scrutiny of NCAA investigators - and partly because he is almost universally admired by the media, Chaney managed to survive those unseemly eruptions.

But an episode last week in Philadelphia late in Temple's 63-56 loss to cross-town rival St Joseph's may prove his undoing.

Displeased that the officiating crew seemed to be ignoring what he termed illegal screens on the part of the opposition, Chaney dispatched a player he himself described as "a goon" to exact his own form of frontier justice.

Nehemiah Ingram, the instrument of Chaney's revenge, is a 6ft 8in, 17st 12lb forward (2.3m, 113kg) largely devoid of conventional basketball skills. Going into the St Joe's game he had averaged 0.4 points and 0.0 assists, and was dispatched by his coach specifically to wreak havoc on the court.

And, by all accounts, Ingram followed his instructions to the letter. In the four minutes he played before being disqualified, he committed five personal fouls and was assessed a technical foul as well.

The last of his deliberate transgressions, a shove delivered to St Joseph's forward John Bryant as he drove for a lay-up, knocked the player to the floor and fractured his arm. Since he is a senior without professional prospects, the incident effectively ended Bryant's basketball career.

Although Chaney would express contrition the next day once X-rays confirmed the extent of Bryant's injury, he was decidedly unapologetic in the post-game interview room.

"I'm a mean, ornery, son of a bitch, you understand?" Chaney defiantly unburdened himself to the press in the immediate aftermath of the loss. "When I see something wrong, I try to right it."

By the next morning Chaney had mellowed somewhat. Apologising for the injury to Bryant, the coach announced that he was suspending himself from Temple's next game. In short order the punishment was extended by university president David Adamany, who suspended the coach for the rest of the regular season, and then again by Chaney himself, who voluntarily extended his suspension to include post-season play. Since Temple was 14-11 going into last night's game at Rhode Island, it seems unlikely the "post-season" schedule will last more than a game or two in next week's Atlantic 10 tournament in Cincinnati.

A debate rages in the sports sections of America's newspapers over whether the septuagenarian coach has finally gone over the top, and Chaney's impending fate has been repeatedly compared with that of the late, legendary Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes.

Hayes' explosions with officials, coaching colleagues and his players were the stuff of legend, and, like Chaney, he prided himself as a moulder of young men. I was in New Orleans a few days before the 1978 Sugar Bowl when Woody, following a tip that some of his players might be indulging themselves at Pat O'Brien's bar, stormed into the French Quarter saloon as if he were driving the moneychangers from the temple, scattering hurricane glasses as he chased his players out the door, literally "kicking asses and taking names".

No one, save perhaps Pat O'Brien, condemned Hayes then, but almost exactly a year to the day later he finally crossed the line. With his team trailing 17-15 in the waning moments of the Gator Bowl, quarterback Art Schlichter was intercepted by a Clemson linebacker named Charlie Bauman, effectively sealing a win for his team. When Bauman was run out of bounds near the Ohio State bench, Woody ran over and punched him.

Anyone who didn't see that happen live viewed it several times over the next few days, and Woody Hayes was summarily terminated from his position.

Similarly, there were only a few thousand witnesses to Nehemiah Ingram's deliberate foul on John Bryant, but thanks to round-the-clock sports programming, everyone in America has seen it by now - usually accompanied by footage of Chaney's "mean, ornery son-of-a-bitch" defence.

Whether Chaney will be dishonourably discharged or whether he will survive to coach another day remains unlearned, but, ironically, it was an old adversary who injected the most rational argument into the debate. Asked to comment last week, John Calipari, who now coaches at Memphis, responded with a question of his own about the man who once threatened to kill him.

"Let me just say this," supposed Calipari. "If he was 30-1, would they be suspending him for the year?"