Not OT next season - Rutgers fires Mike Rice
The backlash following the OTL report was too much, Rutgers AD with a win/win - firing an abusive coach who has had three consecutive losing seasons. Will there be more people tha fall because of this, as Lupica suggests?
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/college/lupica-shame-rutgers-don-fire-involved-article-1.1306415
I wonder if Tubby would've preferred this job over being in Lubbuck, TX
Maybe they can get Ben Howland who was at Pitt and knows the area?
I grew up in Indiana and played ball. Every coach there thought he was the next Bobby Knight. Tirades, cursing were common place, but I never had a coach act like that. That type of behavior that this coach exhibited is borderline psychopath behavior. I am surprised the players didn't kick this dudes ass. There is absolutely no place for that behavior anywhere, and he should have been fired a long time ago. You can't rehabilitate crazy.
Coaches LOVE their players. You spend so much time around your guys that they are your family. Yes, people lose their tempers from time to time...but if you find yourself doing it OVER AND OVER AND OVER again, this isn't a temper problem. This is a YOU problem.
Bobby Knight's guys loved him. They stuck up for him and talked about how the tantrums were about one percent of who he was.
That video doesn't show a guy who has a temper problem...that shows a guy who is a crazy person.
Coaches will yell and cuss sometimes because they want to get more out of you. You're going at 90 percent and they want you to be at 100 percent. Think of Al Pacino's speech in "Any Given Sunday" about it coming down to an inch here and an inch there. The difference in who gets that inch is the difference in who wants it the most.
That's not what Rice is doing in that video. That's a guy who has no ability to cope with his environment.
College athletics, the only place you can get fired not because you abuse your subordinates, but because a video highlighting it leaks.
Pernetti is scum. Fuck him.
The athletic director absolutely deserves to be fired. He sat on this video tape for years, basically gambling that it would never become public. He's only "doing the right thing" now because the tape became public.
Anyone who only does the right thing when they are forced to because the evidence becomes public isn't the right person for the job. C'mon, how the hell can you watch that video and think that you're going to fix the problem with a short suspension and some anger management classes? Maybe if you had some super-long-term coach with a stellar record and you had a single isolated incident I could see that approach. But you have a short term coach and video evidence that he has been physically and verbally abusive over pretty much his ENTIRE coaching term.
And that doesn't even get into the fact that he fired (sorry, "didn't renew the contract of") the assistant coach who came to him and told him that coach was a psycho. As usual, retaliating against the whistleblower.
The athletic director has no integrity. Not only should he be fired, but I don't think he should ever work again as an AD. It's time for him to find a new line of work. One where he doesn't have to actually make any tough decisions, because he is obviously terrible at them.
Look I'm not defending the coach here. But remember that the video we have seen was a compilation of video from over a course of several years, I believe.
Action was taken in December, but are we sure of what info the AD had at that time? Perhaps the AD has been monitoring practices since then. Perhaps there actually was new information that came out (players feeling they could talk now, former assistant coaches, managers, etc).
Sure there wasn't any new tape between 24 hours ago and the guys firing. However, there could have been plenty of new evidence for all we know.
How about we don't jump to conclusions like "The athletic director as no integrity" when, in fact, we know about 12% of the details of this.
AD has said he had all the video tape at that time. Rutgers tapes all of their practices.
Who cares that the tape was a "compilation"? How many times do you need to see the guy whipping balls at players heads or kicking them to understand that he needs to be fired? I would get it if this happened ONCE in some moment that the guy snapped. But clearly this was happening over and over and OVER again. The coach has some serious problems.
Anyway, it isn't the coach that needs defending because his behavior was pretty much indefensible and his firing was inevitable once that behavior was taped. The person needing defending is the AD, because it is whether he keeps his job or not that should be what is being discussed now.
As for jumping to conclusions, anyone who watched that video tape, didn't fire the coach, fired the assistant coach who brought the actions of the coach to his attention, and then has the audacity to go on ESPN yesterday and DEFEND the coach the way Pernetti did has no integrity. You are free to disagree with me on this point, but people like Tom Pernetti are the reason that assholes like Mike Rice are able to get away with the crap they get away with for as long as they do. He's an enabler. In fact, Pernetti's thinking is EXACTLY the kind of thinking that led to the entire mess that Penn State ended up in. Don't protect your players, don't protect kids, but go out of your way to protect the abusive adult in the position of power.
And if you really believe there has been new evidence since yesterday, I have a bridge to sell you. The new evidence is "Oh shit, ESPN just showed the whole world our psycho coach assaulting our players. Quick, fire him for damange control!" Believing anything else is just naive.
My point is that we don't know all the facts. Like I've said in every post, the coach deserved to be fired. It was sickening for several different reasons.
We don't know all the facts behind the ADs actions. My argument - likely a futile one on the Internet - is that crying "fire him" with not all the information is lame. Sure we can surmise he was fired at this time for damage control and that is 99% likely true. No I don't believe there was new evidence in the last 36 hours. I do believe, however, that what was an AD decision became much more involved: I'm sure regents (or the Rutgers equivalent), the President, and others got involved and basically told the AD what to do.
I'm just sick of the "FIRE HIM" from everyone from the Internet to radio shows. In Ann Arbor, people are calling for the AAPS superintendent to be fired because she goes and visits family in Baltimore on weekends. And enough loud minority members are actually bringing action - now AnnArbor.com has made it their main business to cover every non-story about the issue to incite the natives.
It's just old hat. Let the University of Rutgers decide what to do with their institution's employees. They are the ones who are invested in the decision, not us.
Let the B$G set some baseline expectations for institutional control to protect "student athletes."
Appparently he was in on the decision to keep the coach as well. I have no idea if there is ANYONE at Rutgers with any amount of sense.
Look, I'm not big into torch and pitchfork mob mentality stuff. But I'm sick of good-ol boys club "Let's just sweep all the crap under the rug and pretend it never happened" bullshit. Look at how long the abuse went on in the Catholic Church because no one was willing to step up to the plate and speak out about what was going on? I realize this doesn't nearly come up to that level, but this culture of superiors having OBIVIOUS evidence of their employees abusing kids and trying to sweep it under the rug has to end. At some point the light has to kick on in people's heads and they have to realize "This stuff can't happen". If you know someone you are employing is abusing kids your job is to PROTECT THE KIDS. And if you decide protecting the kids isn't important, then maybe your job isn't very important either.
There are precious few subjects on this or any blog site where anyone has "all the facts". Geezus, at best we're sports fans. That hasn't stopped us in the past and won't in the future from opining based upon the facts that are known at the time---and, based upon your mgopoints, I'd suggest it applies as well to you.
For me, this is the worst part. The guy who brought all this to the attention of the upper administrators loses his fucking job, while the people responsible for making a decision tried to apply a thin salve of "anger management" to an obvious sociopath.
The abuse that the Rutgers players endured is obviously not even in the same parsec as the abuse suffered by the victims at Penn State, but it's still ironic that most sensible people bemoan the absence of enough whistle-blowing in Unhappy Valley, while this poor schmuck at Rutgers who tried to do the right thing gets screwed.
People are constantly asking "why didn't anyone do anything"? yet whenever anyone DOES do anything they ALWAYS get screwed, and no one ever tries to protect them.
Basically if you are going to blow the whistle, you have to pretty much expect that you are going to lose your job and probably your career. But hey, at least you did the right thing, right?
That's why I say this AD has no integrity. Not only did he keep his abusive coach, but he made sure the whistleblower was put out to pasture. I guess he was planning on that guy just quietly going away, which ended up being his big mistake. I suspect if the whistleblower hadn't been an ex-NBA player with financial resources at his disposal he probably WOULD have just gone away.
You are GD right Jamie. It is a damn shame that in all aspects of society whistleblowers get completely screwed. These are the people who are protecting the integrity of the institution, business, gov... Whistleblowers should be promoted, praised and protected, not treated like Bradley Manning, Aaron Schwartz and this assistant coach. It is a damn shame, but this is the sick world we live in.
mr. rice. next time try the decaf.
Why should the University President go, exactly?
According to what I read on SI.com on this, the AD ran the punishment and incident by the Pres, who signed off on the suspension. So that's why there are some calling for the university president's head too, because they knew of the situation and thought that just a suspension would be okay.
And now the president contradicts what Pernetti said:
There appears to be a significant contradiction between the Rutgers presdient and AD Tim Pernetti. A quick post: nj.com/rutgersbasketb…
— Steve Politi (@StevePoliti) April 3, 2013
Confirmation from President Barchi's office: He did not review the Rice video until yesterday. Waiting for an explanation from Pernetti.
— Steve Politi (@StevePoliti) April 3, 2013
So if this means Pernetti lied to the media, it's really not looking good for him
This is the type of "more details" I'm talking about. If Parnetti lied to the President, then I'm much more ready to say "get rid of him."
but these are more details that kind of point towards the "Athletic Director has no integrity whatsoever and should be fired" side of things. So in this case, waiting for more details just proves that the public outrage is pretty much spot on, assuming the University President is telling the truth.
But if the president signed off on a physically abusive and openly homophobic professor receiving three weeks off from teaching classes and anger management counseling which then turned into a national embarrassment when NBC aired the tapes (as they did last night) on primetime network news, would that be a different story?
Again, I don't think the president should go, but he definitely screwed up here. I think whatever board is in place at Rutgers needs to issue a letter of reprimand or instruction or something to inform the president that more oversight is needed when it comes to abuse of students on his campus, at the least.
Edit: With the new story posted, the president shouldn't have any negative consequences, at least in public (if he's being truthful) but he needs to have the AD packing by the end of business today, no question whatsoever.
I've never really understood this "governing by fear" style of coaching. I questioned it when hewhoshallnotbenamed was stalking the sidelines. I question it when I see Brian Kelly, Bo Pellini, or Tom Izzo fit like spoiled children on the bench(and often spilling out on the floor). It's called self-control fellas.
I am so glad we have the anti-Rice on our sidelines. I mean, you go up and miss a breakaway dunk that would have won the game against Savannah State...Are you going to perform better when you return to this in the huddle...
Telling you you ruined everything for everybody? And then telling the media the exact same thing? Or would you perform better returning to this guy
Telling you you've got them exactly where you want them. The second option seemed to work better for Novak, as he promptly went out and nailed the three that buried them.
that abusing him would be better?
Jordan Morgan is not responding well to being benched. Screaming at him on top of that wouldn't help.
How many players in history have "responded well" to going from being a starter playing 20-30 minutes a game to getting 5 minutes a game at most? That's a pretty tough thing to "respond well" to.
minds, that screaming can work for a while. But sooner or later you've got to modify your style. Otherwise you really hurt your OWN body. And Izzo has done that.
In the last 6 years, he's had four 5* players and ten 4* players...they should be making the damned final four every year. If he was self-actualizing those players, do you think there'd be more than a glorified mascot playing in the nba from those loaded teams?
Just five years ago, a Rutgers University basketball coach was bringing positive national attention and pride to that university and establishing what should have been the ground rules for how athletes at Rutgers and at all universities deserve to be treated.
There are a LOT of compensatory male types, when issues like this arise, who feel compelled to try to prove they have a dick by calling the players involved p*ssies. This is a tired trope; this is a thing.
But abuse is abuse, and since we have visual evidence of the ugly here, people can decide for themselves. And anyone who can seriously look at the evidence in that video and say they would want it inflicted on a son or daughter, well. . . they're not in my camp. And--fortunately--not in the camp of the Rutgers admin, either.
I agree with others here who believe the AD should be fired. It's not a close call and I usually believe in giving people second and third chances. In this case, the coach's behavior was so egregiously and routinely over the line that he should have been immediately fired. For an AD to issue such a light punishment for this physically and verbally abusive behavior is proof of massive incompetence and/or a massive ethical flaw.
This case is also even more proof that the current system's balance of power unfairly deprives student-athletes of basic rights and exploits them. It's another example of the NCAA's fundamental corruption. Rice's actions are inherently immoral and even criminal and yet the NCAA has no policy preventing him from coaching again and will probably level no sanctions against the Rutgers program. On the other hand, when a player (Webber for instance) takes a gift legally from a friend, the NCAA comes down harshly against the player and program. On a moral scale, Webber's actions are nowhere nearly as unethical or serious as Rice's yet are treated far more severely.
In the Rice case, the fired whistle blower/former assistant should sue and the abused players should sue. Again, I'm usually not in favor of litigation but the coach's actions were malicious and the AD's inaction was grossly unethical.
I heard they are re-casting the governor's character on the walking dead and Rice just sent his audition tape for the part.
Eric Murdock was allegedly fired for bringing the Rutgers AD the video, the same explosive one that after watching it again after it become public, the AD decided was grounds enough to fire Mike Rice. Murdock's contract wasn't renewed because of this, and my guess is that he was the source that provided the video to ESPN, leading to the backlash. This tells me that the AD thought he could keep this all under wraps by
a. firing the messenger
b. thinking that no one would see it
He thought it would all just never come out.
The real question is, why the hell was he so desperate to go to bat for this psycho coach that doesn't even seem to really be any good? Just fire the guy and move on.
be wearing or carrying a small video camera recording everything that they see, do, or is done to them. The implications for society and human culture will be significant. The Mike Rices of the world will find it much harder to do what they do for as long as they can do now.
We'll all be living in the universal surveillance state. You won't be able to pick your nose on the Diag without somebody recording it.
It is amazing how much our sensitivities have changed in the past 35 years or so. The sort of behavior Rice exhibits as a coach, while perhaps not the norm back then, would not have been thought of as all that unusual. Today, it's a firing offense.
I keep hearing this but I disagree. I don't think it has ever been acceptable for basketball coaches to just whip basketballs at their player's heads indiscriminantly. Not sure the kicking would have been kosher either. Yeah the language would have been tolerated 35 years ago. That's about it.
Maybe you could physically abuse players 50-60 years ago, back in the day before tv news really took off.
At the same time, it is tragic that he lost his job! Doing the right thing can cost you sometimes, but integrity is someting noone can take from you . . . at least he comes out with his intact!
Rice was certainly acting beyond reason, but I can't help but laugh at some of the comments I have seen and heard today.
What kind of coach would hit his players, after all?
Things you could get away with as a coach in the 70s wouldn't fly now in today's culture. Consider that Leach got chased out of Texas Tech for putting a kid in a shed or whatever that was, there's no reason to expect that Rice shouldn't have been fired for what he did today.
I'm not defending Rice, I was commenting on some of the self-righteous hand-wringing that has gone on, not all of it here. I date back to the "water is for wusses" era, so I have some understanding of the differences between then and now.
Not to excuse hitting a player with anything, but in the example you are putting forth, isn't Bo trying to teach a specific technique or positional stance and he was using the ruler to point out players who were not positioned properly? At least he was actually trying to teach something related to the game of football, even if it with a technique that would be frowned upon today.
What the hell was MIke Rice teaching his players by firing basketballs at their heads? How to be dodgeball players?
those yardsticks. Yes, he pointed. Yes, he measured. Yes, they bought them by the case. The stories are legion.
Bo doesn't need us to rationalize or excuse his actions - he was a coach of his era. His players survived and did just fine.
This era is not that era, and Rice is no Bo.
Again, I have read and heard (heard - implies at the very least that it was not on MGoBlog) some really ridiculous things today. I was really directing my comment at those "things", not any one person or comment.