Penn State Coach Chambers Suspended for Shove

Submitted by BursleyHall82 on January 4th, 2019 at 9:48 PM

Yea, as Brian sort of predicted, shoving one of your players on ESPN and never making the NCAA tournament is not a recipe for success. Patrick Chambers has been suspended for a game. LINK.

Eli

January 5th, 2019 at 9:02 AM ^

I disagree. Players should not be abused, but that’s not what this was. He was trying to fire his player up. This was not a Bobby Knight thing. My high school coach never did this, but he did grab us by the jersey in chest area and push us or pull us in, while holding our jersey. This was done as a passionate coaching moment to show desire, fire and to lock us in to the moment. I never viewed this as bad. On that note, the amount of verbal abuse I saw at the high school basketball level was bad. I witnessed horrible degrading verbal abuse by opposing coaches towards their players. This was all within the last 10 years. My coach was physical, not abusive. The world is not black and white guys. This was ok. 

Maize and Luke

January 5th, 2019 at 9:12 AM ^

My first reaction was "whoa, that wasn't cool". But I'm not sure it's suspension worthy. When I was growing up this wouldn't have made the back page. In today's snowflake society it was almost an obvious suspension. I'm raising two boys and I would not have been outraged by seeing this on TV. These kids need to be tougher in basketball and in life.

MgoKY

January 5th, 2019 at 10:42 AM ^

Yeah, ever watch Varsity Blues?  Sorry, but never an excuse to put your hands on a kid like that.  Like you sort of stated, it's a parents call to toughen there child.  If I were at a game and saw that with my child, I would have asked the coach to put his hands on me, and see what happens.  Motivational speech is one thing, physical contact is never called for...if a freaking game

tasnyder01

January 6th, 2019 at 1:27 PM ^

Its all these damn snowflakes. Back in my day, you could punch a kid, throw a chair, choke a kid. Heck, we even tacitly allowed racism. Oh, and there was none of this #MeToo Crap -- us Good Ole Boys could do whatever we wanted to female Co workers.

My, nostalgia is a heck of a drug. 

I'll get off your lawn now sir.

XtremeUMich

January 4th, 2019 at 9:56 PM ^

Pretty weak shove. I'm betting someone told him it was on camera broadcast or else he wouldn't have apologized immediately after the game. Would've just brushed it off as normal player encouragement. 

CoMisch

January 4th, 2019 at 9:57 PM ^

Yep, this was coming.  Want to appreciate someone’s fire and passion but come on, man.  A. You can’t do that.  B. We’re a basketball school now, you weren’t going to “win the game”.  

UMfan21

January 4th, 2019 at 9:58 PM ^

Kind of surprised actually.  My JV football coach did much worse...but he was also part of the county sheriff's office so he could get away with it I guess.  I just thought physical contact with players was kind of normal.

M-Dog

January 4th, 2019 at 10:19 PM ^

In a different era, this was standard practice.  You did not even think about it.

I worked with a guy that played for Bo at Miami of Ohio.  He said that Bo used to grab players by the facemask and kick them while screaming at them.  He said that Bo was the meanest SOB he ever met in his life.

My JV coach in the early '70s would not let us have any water at all during practice.  He said it would slow us down.  I spent all practice dreaming of chocolate milk.

Nobody thought there was anything unusual about any of this.  If we would have complained to our parents, they would have said: "You went out for football, what did you expect?"

  

BlueWolverine02

January 5th, 2019 at 4:15 AM ^

The water thing was just bad science.  I remember (late 80s, early 90s) them telling us just to take a few sips so we don't cramp up.

Also had a freshmen coach slam a kid up against a locker at halftime.  He wasn't mad at the kid, just had the bad luck of being the closest at hand.  Wasn't even yelling at him, yelling at all of us.  

SHub'68

January 5th, 2019 at 9:54 AM ^

Only time I ever had a coach put his hands on me was my JV BBall coach (who was a lot shorter than me) who grabbed me by the ears to yank me down to his level and yell in my face to get my head out of my ass. Not really all that terrible, and he was right about the ass part, but I think there's a larger point - we were a really bad team trying to run Indiana's Motion Offense and I was completely clueless what I was supposed to do. I never was and never have been as confused in a sport in my entire life. We didn't practice proper boxing out, shooting form, or anything unimportant like that, but we were going to run Motion. High school coaches trying to be 'The General' was a thing back then; it wasn't enough to try to duplicate the schemes, apparently, you had to emulate the demeanor and personality, too.

I imagine football coaches were trying to be Bo, Woody, and Bear.

M-Dog

January 5th, 2019 at 9:59 AM ^

That's the thing, back in the day there was no "science".  There was barely technique.

"Rub some dirt on it" wasn't a joke, that was the attitude.  There was little sophistication.

There were a few instructions, and the rest was effort and hustle and savvy.  

When Hoke used to say he "felt" football, that was actually a pretty common approach to it all.

 

Tuebor

January 4th, 2019 at 10:03 PM ^

Eh one game suspension.  Not much to make of it.  I dont think its a big deal but a neither is a one game suspension.  I dont know if if this guy is a known hot head but im sure everyone can move on amicably.

greatlakestate

January 5th, 2019 at 11:29 AM ^

I was actually just as appalled at how bad he was shredding the young man verbally.  He wasn't goofing off in the huddle, he was out of position and gave up an easy 3 because of it.  The point is, the player didn't make the mistake on purpose.  Tell him how to correct it, or if you think  it was due to inattentiveness, bench him.    I mean, JB yells at his players but you can tell he respects them. 

Yessir

January 4th, 2019 at 10:16 PM ^

Totally unacceptable and coach got off easy, imo. 

What would've happened to the player if he shoved the coach? 

Thrown off team. Kicked out of school? At least lost his scholly. 

Don't be physical with players or coaches. 

champswest

January 4th, 2019 at 10:19 PM ^

Agree with the suspension and the apology. He knows he was wrong and will try to do better going forward. I assume the player and his family are fine with how things stand. I think everyone can move forward from here.

LSAClassOf2000

January 5th, 2019 at 10:15 AM ^

Well, then I dare say that your pee wee football coach had some problems that he should have attempted to sort out before he took on the role of coach. 

Now, to be fair, I had a coach in baseball that thought shouting at the top of one's lungs was supremely motivating, especially if you mixed in the odd threat. I am here to say that it is quite the opposite and that the day I gave it right back to him was one of the most satisfying of my life apart from being benched for some time afterwards. 

ToledoWolverine

January 4th, 2019 at 11:18 PM ^

I remember, kind of, getting knocked out cold with a helmet to helmet, read: regular ass tackle, and the coach “revived” me by smacking the shit out of my head/helmet and yelling at me to get off the field so they could run a play, but no water. Because it was for, well you guys get where this is going. 

HelloHeisman91

January 5th, 2019 at 2:07 AM ^

I graduated high school in ‘96.  The best coach I ever played for would grab face masks and wasn’t afraid to push kids around much like what we just saw from the Penn St. coach.  Part of me shrugs and thinks this is not a big deal and part of me in retrospect thinks that of all of the things our coach taught us and got out of us as a team, him pushing and shoving us around didn’t influence any of it.  It was completely unnecessary and probably a type A alpha male getting frustrated and getting physical.  

Big deal? Nope.  Should we expect more from coaches? Yep.