Ole Miss's Andy Kennedy Starring in Rashomon Remake

Completely contradictory accounts. Witnesses with different perspectives on what happened. Multiple variations. No, it isn't the Kurosawa classic. At the moment, it is Ole Miss head coach Andy Kennedy's life.

There was the initial report this morning from the police report on Andy Kennedy's arrest -- that he got belligerent at a cabbie after a dispute over how many people could ride in the cab. Referring to the cabbie as "bin Laden" and other racially-charged insults, and then punching him in the face.

Then came stories that a member of Kennedy's staff was extremely drunk, after being kicked out of the bar where the Ole Miss coaching staff had been to unwind, and was also taken into custody. The intoxication was denied, and the bar says there was no problem with anyone from the Ole Miss coaching staff.

Alex Moller, who identified himself as the general manager of the Lodge Bar, disputed the police report when reached by telephone today.

"The reports that they were kicked out are untrue," said Moller. "They were here, but they left on good terms. As for what happened after they left the bar, I don't know, but there was no incident here."

Now Andy Kennedy and Ole Miss are getting out their version of events, that, yes, there was a problem with the cabs but it started over a dispute on money owed to another cabbie.

And it was the cabbie that referred to one of the coaches -- who is black -- with a derogatory term: the "n" word.

According to the source, after driving "maybe a tenth of a mile" the cab driver realized there were five people in the car, and he told the coaches that he could not take five passengers. So he stopped, at which point Kennedy and his assistants jumped in another cab, one with a driver willing to take five passengers. At that point, the source said, the first cab driver pulled up beside the second cab driver and started yelling at the second driver "in a foreign language," and then the second cab driver turned to the coaches and asked if they owed the first cab driver money.

The coaches said they did not owe anybody anything because the first driver refused to transport them. Then, according to the source, assistant Torrey Ward, who is black, told the driver to stop talking to the other driver and to get them back to their hotel.

"And then the cab driver turned around and said "Shut the f-ck up, n-gger," the source said. "That's when things got heated."

According to the source, the coaches and cab driver did exchange words, "but nobody hit the driver." The source added that Kennedy and his assistants tried to get out of the cab, but that the driver locked the doors and got on his cell phone, "and we think that's when he called the cops." Eventually, the source said, the driver unlocked the doors and let the coaches out. They then got in a third cab and traveled about a half-mile before the cops pulled the cab over and approached the car.

In other reports, Kennedy was actually outside of the cab, but some of the assistants weren't.

According to [attorney Richard] Katz, the driver then said he legally could not carry four passengers in his backseat and the coaches decided to vacate that cab. A second cab, driven by Jiddou, approached and agreed to take them but wound down his window and began a conversation with the first driver in a foreign language and, according to Katz, used the racial epithet.

"That turned the situation ugly," Katz said. "After heated discussion Andy got out of cab, but as the other coaches were trying to get out he locked the doors and took off down the street. Andy was out when that happened."

The preliminary hearing is set for January 16. The University of Mississippi is standing behind Kennedy on this.

The truth is somewhere in all of this, but good luck sorting it out. Contradictory stories. Variations on the facts. Different witness accounts. Yeesh.

In a case of unintentional comedy, the Ole Miss-Louisville game on ESPN features Bobby Knight as the color analyst. Unfortunately, Dan Shulman has not asked Bob Knight if he can relate to Kennedy being accused of losing his temper and verbally and physically assaulting someone.