GAINESVILLE, Fla. — With head coach Kevin O’Sullivan taking a leave of absence and interim Chuck Jeroloman leaving for Tennessee, Florida hired Tom Slater as associate and acting head coach Friday.

Slater, 57, most recently worked in player development with the Philadelphia Phillies. Before that, he was a senior advisor/minor league hitting coordinator for the Miami Marlins (2021 to 2024).

He also served as head coach at Auburn (2005 to 2008) and VMI (2001 to 2003), along with assistant coaching roles in the Southeastern Conference at Florida (2004) and Auburn (1995 to 2000).

“Tom Slater brings a wealth of experience, leadership and deep Gator ties to this role,” Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin said. “With more than three decades in college and professional baseball, including extensive experience in the SEC, he’s earned universal respect across the game.”

O’Sullivan took a leave of absence last week to address personal matters. Jeroloman took over and then left Thursday to join new coach Josh Elander’s staff at Tennessee.

O’Sullivan is the program’s career wins leader with a 756-371 (.671) record over 18 seasons. He has led the Gators to 17 NCAA regionals, nine College World Series appearances, six SEC championships and the 2017 national title.

Former Manchester United and England legend Wayne Rooney said he “was bored” when scoring 34 goals in a season because he wanted to “get involved” more.

The 40-year-old spent 13 years at Old Trafford after starring as a 16-year-old with Everton, playing 559 matches and scoring 253 goals for United.

His best position is something that was always debated in his playing career, in which he scored 53 goals in his 120 England caps. His appearances are a record for an outfield player.

Rooney is adamant that while he enjoyed playing everywhere, he was most effective just behind the striker in the No. 10 role.

Speaking on the Wayne Rooney Show on BBC Sport, he said: “[I enjoyed playing] anywhere really, anywhere across the midfield or forward line.

“I was at my best when just going to play and I’d pop up on the left or the right and I’d pop up behind midfielders at times.

“Just playing, being on the pitch in the attacking third, that was what I liked and enjoyed — if you wanted one position, then probably the No. 10.

“Sometimes I was not allowed, I was not meant to be doing it at times and the manager would be screaming at me to get further up the pitch and stuff. But sometimes you feel a game and, in my head, that is what I am feeling a game needs.”

Rooney’s skillset was such that he would be used as a striker, No. 10 or even deeper in the midfield depending on the needs of the team at the time.

In 2009, Rooney was deployed as the first choice No. 9 at Old Trafford and he scored 34 goals in all competitions that year, with 26 coming in the Premier League and five in the Champions League.

Two years later and Rooney was again playing as the striker for United, where he repeated the feat of 34 goals, this time scoring 27 in the Premier League and five in a mixture of the Champions League and Europa League.

Those are incredibly impressive numbers that most football players could only dream of, but for Rooney, it was not enough to keep him satisfied.

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“I had two seasons when I played as the No. 9 and I scored 34 goals in both the seasons but I was bored,” he said.

“I was coming off the pitch, I was scoring goals and I just wasn’t enjoying it.

“I liked to play football and get involved in the game, so I was scoring goals and obviously we were winning games but I wanted to get involved in the game.

“We lost players and I went up top, of course I love scoring goals and I love playing up front but I want to be playing a little bit more.”

Rooney was part of some of the most frightening attacking lineups the Premier League has seen but when asked who his favourite forward to play alongside was, the answer was simple for him.

“Tevez, I really enjoyed playing with Carlos,” Rooney said. “I enjoyed playing with all of them but with Carlos, there was a big thing in the papers when we were signing him saying we were too similar, we couldn’t play together.

“I think for both of us that made us go ‘ok, we’ll show you.’ And we were aggressive and we worked hard and tackled as well but then bounced off each other, one of us would play as the nine, the other as the 10, we would change it up. So he was definitely my favourite one to play with.”

A trio of congressmen have asked NCAA president Charlie Baker to provide more information about the association’s plans to allow college athletes to bet on professional sports.

Reps. Brett Guthrie, John Joyce and Gus Bilirakis of the Energy and Commerce Committee, which often oversees sports integrity issues, told Baker in a letter published Friday morning that they were examining the NCAA’s proposed policy change and sent a list of nine questions they want answered within two weeks.

The letter said their concerns increased this week in light of recent federal indictments over illegal sports betting and gambling rings involving NBA players and coaches as well as the NCAA’s recent investigations into college athletes betting on their own games.

The NCAA had been on track to drop its ban on pro sports gambling Saturday but delayed the change to Nov. 22. NCAA athletes are still prohibited from betting on college sports and sharing information about college sports with bettors.

“The NCAA has the most aggressive approach of any U.S. league in taking sports betting head on,” Tim Buckley, the NCAA’s senior vice president for external affairs, said in a statement. “The most significant threats to competition integrity are in states that continue to offer risky prop bets as well as the emerging grey market made up of futures and predictions trading sites that operate without oversight. For the last two years, the NCAA has been working with gaming regulators to push for adoption of stronger protections for college athletes and for stronger integrity measures and, while several states have made changes, more work remains.”

The delay came days after SEC commissioner Greg Sankey published a letter to Baker that said his league’s leaders believed the policy change was “a major step in the wrong direction.” Sankey asked the NCAA’s board to rescind the policy change.

If the rule goes into effect, it will mark a shift in a long-held policy that had become difficult to enforce with an increase in legal sports betting in the United States. The NCAA has faced an uptick in alleged betting violations by players in recent years. In September, the NCAA announced that a Fresno State men’s basketball player had manipulated his performance for gambling purposes and conspired with two other players in a prop betting scheme. The NCAA is investigating 13 additional players from six schools regarding potential gambling violations dealing with integrity issues.

On Oct. 22, when the NCAA announced the adoption of the new proposal, it stated that approving the rule change “is not an endorsement of sports betting, particularly for student-athletes.”

Friday’s letter from Guthrie, Joyce and Bilirakis asked Baker what guardrails the NCAA was putting in place to try to avoid illegal sports betting. They also asked for more information about studies the NCAA has done about the impact of betting on student-athletes and details about any “fraudulent, illegal and alleged betting practices in connection with NCAA players,” among other questions.

Bilirakis is the lead author and chief proponent of an NCAA-related bill that Baker and other leaders say is a crucial step in bringing stability to the new business model of college sports. That bill, called the SCORE Act, would help the NCAA enforce rules limiting player movement and spending on players by providing schools with a limited antitrust exemption and declaring that athletes are not employees.