The Blast's coaching carousel has taken another spin. In is Tim Wittman as an assistant to recently named coach Bobby McAvan. Out is former assistant Billy Ronson.

The team announced the change yesterday, but Ronson - a fan favorite as a player from 1985 to '92 - said McAvan let him go early Sunday at Baltimore-Washington International Airport, when the team was returning from a 17-10 loss Saturday in Dallas.

Ronson spent the past four-plus seasons as an assistant coach and assistant general manager, mostly under former coach and current general manager Kevin Healey. Sean Bowers became player/coach in November, and McAvan took over less than two weeks ago.

"If Kevin Healey didn't want me as an assistant, he would have pulled me in the office and said, 'Billy, no hard feelings ... ' Sean Bowers would have done the same thing," said Ronson, 45, an England native who has spent the past 16 years in Baltimore. "But to get fired in an airport - do I deserve that?

"I don't have any bad feelings about somebody wanting to bring in their own person. It's the disrespect of how it was done."

Wittman spent 10 years with the franchise as a player. The Calvert Hall graduate piled up 305 points for the Blast and, along with McAvan, was on the 1983-84 Major Indoor Soccer League championship team.