Chicago State Baseball Coach Fired, Claimed He Starred in Football League That Didn't Exist

UPDATE: Sun-Times 'Scoop' Broken Weeks Ago at Babes Love Baseball, College Baseball Blog

This is the front page of today's Chicago Sun-Times, where the top story is the firing of Chicago State University baseball coach Husain Mahmoud. It's an embarrassing story, both to Mahmoud and the school.

Mahmoud was fired, the Sun-Times reports, after an examination of his resume found a multitude of false claims. Perhaps the most outrageous was that he played with the Indianapolis Capitals of the Continental Football League for five years, leading the league in passing in 1977 and 1978.

Slight problem: The league didn't exist in 1977 and 1978. It took me about two seconds to type "Continental Football League" into Google and find the league's Wikipedia entry, which reveals that it folded in 1969. Apparently that kind of background check would have been too much work for the folks at Chicago State.
Mahmoud also claimed that he was drafted by the Cincinnati Reds (he wasn't) and claimed that he set a college football punting record (he didn't). The Sun-Times gives his explanation:

"It's been 30-some years ago since most of this stuff,'' said Mahmoud, formerly known as Hallie Buckner. "I may not have been exactly correct on some of the leagues and different things like that because it's been so long ago.''

Totally understandable. I only have a vague recollection of the Pulitzer Prize I won in the 1970s.