mike rice, rutgers
 

i'm sure everyone has heard about all this by now. was wondering what everyone thought about it? do you agree with the firing, should it have been done sooner (when they found out about it and gave him a suspension)?

http://espn.go.com/sportsnation/post...ires-mike-rice

the above has some video footage of him grabbing, shoving players, throwing balls at them, etc.
imo, not a way to coach.

It's ridiculous that he wasn't fired sooner. I say this as someone who thought the Mike Montgomery incident was much ado about nothing. What Rice was doing is totally unacceptable.

i agree that it's ridiculous. hell, he wasn't even getting good results to put up with all that.
guess it's a good thing they did that show. his behavior was outrageous.

I didn't really think most of the shoving was too out of line, once it got to him throwing the ball at players though that was way too far and makes him look completely crazy.

i just saw part of it on youtube, with the former assistant talking-makes it look that much worse.
and they fired the assistant for speaking up, is that right?

Exactly. He's done nothing in three years at Rutgers. I would think they'd be looking for an excuse to get out of his contract.

i know, which makes me wonder all the more at their decision not to fire him when all that came out. and they first were told in june, investigated it then (supposedly) and again in the fall...unbelievable.
what does it take to get fired??

Here is what I have trouble with. The AD found out about the tapes and reported to the president. They decided not to fire him but to fine him, suspend him and make him take anger management classes. The coach complied with the punishment and then they fire him. That doesn't seem right. If you are going to give someone a chance to change and do better then give them the chance. If you are angry about that decision then maybe it is the decision makers that have to go.

Two words. Media Firestorm.

and they will.
he should have been fired to begin with. their decision was a poor one, and i'm glad they're on the heat seat because of it.

The guy got Tagged with a 75K fine and 2 week suspension IN Season. All these people within RU that are now outraged didn't think to say. "Wow that is a steep punishment, I want to know exactly the circumstances that merit such a punishment and if it is that steep does it merit immediate termination"

Should he have been fired- yes but I played for worse and saw worse the 2 years I played college ball. And most D1 coaches have thrown balls at players.

Which is more ridiculous-
Erick Murdock creates this "montage", sits on it for months/years while he tries to extort a 7 figure payout from RU- which no one(RU or Murdock) has denied, and Star Ledger hails him as a hero today
or
ESPN buys this montage, creates a brewstorm- then rolls out Bob Knight to talk final 4

i think the whole deal is odd, and another example of sports getting way too much leeway/respect if those are the right words. i think hubris might fit to describe some of the personalities involved. i don't know why everything was handled there as it was-the 'investigation' last summer, again in the fall. then finally the suspension-i think that these schools all need to sit down and really think about just what they want and expect out of their programs.
and it's not just RU that's outraged, it's everyone whose seen the story and the video. there's no way it's only happening at rutgers. it's another example of the mindset that allows coaches to act like crazed two year olds, that has ad's and university presidents not doing enough to stop it. there shouldn't be outrage now, as it should have been handled correctly in the beginning.
where else are these things happening? what other coaches are megalomaniacs getting away with their petty tyrant routines?

This smells of an institutional cover-up ala Penn State. Does the time of the tapes roughly coincide with the wooing of the Big 10? The big 10 would have looked in another direction if this Rutgers scandal was going on. Has to be why the AD hasn't been fired.

Yup a failed NBA player that has blown through his stack looking for his final score.

well, they announced the move in november....you've probably hit the nail right on the head with why they tried to sweep this under the rug. i'm looking now for when they first started looking at moving.

http://www.nj.com/rutgersfootball/in...es_for_ru.html

from reading this article...the ad for rutgers was given permission a year before the move to accept such a move if the offer was made.

3kings, i think you found out exactly why they didn't do anything last summer and fall, and then only suspended in december-after the move was made to the big ten.

which doesn't mean a thing about the coaches behavior. shoot the messenger if you wish, but the message still remains. the coach is jobless because of his own behavior.
of course, years ago, jose canseco was 'the bad guy' and attacked mercilessly...and he was right all along.


http://www.fannation.com/truth_and_r...to-the-big-ten

from 8/1

from espn:

"Murdock, an ex-NBA player and a former director of player development for the Scarlet Knights, told "Outside the Lines" that Rice's "outrageous" behavior had caused at least three players to transfer from the team, including forward Gilvydas Biruta, who transferred to Rhode Island before last season. The Newark Star-Ledger, citing an anonymous source, reported Tuesday night that two more players had decided to leave the school at the end of the academic year, though it was unclear why.


Murdock, a 44-year-old, nine-year NBA veteran, was fired by Rice and Pernetti in early July. Murdock's attorney, Raj Gadhok, who has said Murdock intends to sue Rutgers for wrongful termination as early as Friday, expressed his approval in a statement Wednesday."

so, murdock reports the behavior in june, and for his efforts, he gets fired in july. wow. not the coach, the whistleblower. did these people not read/hear about penn state? did rutgers really think this was how this should be handled. absolutely outrageous. i didn't hear about this all til yesterday, and i'm more amazed the more i find out about it.

It may just be semantics but I think Murdoch had a contract that was not renewed, I don't think he was technically fired. The entire thing was not handled well at all. The coach should have been fired as soon as they saw the video and now they all need to be taken out. I heard something about having to pay a bonus to the coach for finishing the season. I think it is
100K.

yeah, i just saw that about the bonus.

Eric Murdock did not have his contract renewed for a third term earlier this month.

The Bridgewater high school legend and former Providence All-American, who played nine years at point guard in the NBA, represented Rutgers at community service events and youth camps in addition to mentoring players individually. Some philosophical differences led the parting.


that last line takes on new meaning now, doesn't it?

http://blogs.mycentraljersey.com/hoo...ers-part-ways/

Apparently the AD has been fired now too.

as he should have been. you'd think people would learn from previous universities' mistakes....but i guess not. why oh why is so much emphasis placed on athletics, to the point that there are mini-dictatorships running amok in these institutions?

He resigned, and according to his letter, wanted Rice canned in the first place.

yeah, i saw when i got home that he'd resigned...that he wished he'd done otherwise with the coach. i figure he'll get another job way before rice does.

This is not the big deal that it has been made out to be. ESPN made the story, without ESPN pushing the buttons this probably blows over because NO ONE cares about Rutgers basketball. Comparisons to Penn State are ridiculous. While it is obvious that the coach was over the top his conduct wasn't criminal and the fact is that college athletics and probably most other things involved with Universities are all about money. The way colleges handle most things makes your head spin from admissions, to tenure to them accepting millions of state and federal aid yet still cutting staff all the while sitting sometimes on billions of dollars of endowment money.

In effect a coach at a 2nd rate program goes over the top in practice, his assistant quits/gets fired and uses the tape to try to blackmail the school and presumably the coach and AD, the AD goes to the President who doesnt bother to view the tape and hands out a suspension which costs the coach a nice chunk of money and a few games on the bench. Fast forward a few months and all of a sudden everyone is covering up something? Huh? Didn't they punish the coach very publicly? Just because people don't think that it was severe enough everyone should be fired? This is political correctness run amok. The only one suing anyone is the blackmailer. As I said before no crimes were committed. No player is suing or charging the coach or assistant or AD. The scandal is more or less leaves Rutgers basketball in the same place it was before, nowhere. Bob Knight choked a guy and Texas Tech and ESPN had no problems hiring him afterwards. Yeah firing him at the time was probably the prudent thing to do. Yeah I can see the President of the school covering his ass by sacking him now because bad PR is the enemy of a school president. But this is hardly the big deal that its been made out to be.

:tro: Great read on this. NY Times reporting FBI investigating Murdoch for extortion attempt. Anyone defending him as a whistleblower needs to consider the letter to the school requesting 950 K to settle things prior to his release of the video.

In some people's tiny minds calling someone a fairy or fa@@ot is equivlent to stabbing or shooting them. ESPN has a lot of time to fill so every story needs to be overblown.

Just take the recent story of a ND linebacker being fooled or the four gay NFL players expected to 'come out' soon? It's a non-sports story and should be covered by E not ESPN.

And does anyone remember Wade Davis former Titan, Redskin and Seahawk? He came out and no one seemed to bat an eye.

Why?

Beacause it doesn't matter to the vast majority of sports fans who see a football player, not a gay or straight man no matter how hard ESPN and the media at large try to make it relevent.

Isn't the real story that people in the NFL would have an issue with an openly gay player and not the fans?

I don't think so. Unless they are somehow different than Boxing and Tennis Federations.

Billie Jean King/Arthur Ashe seemed to have no problems and that was 30 years ago.

Some might have a problem but they also probably disagree with interracial marriages. And 'they' are a extremely small percentage of the population IMO.

arthur ashe? he wasn't gay. he got hiv/aids from a blood transfusion.

the behavior of the coach doesn't compare to penn state, that's for sure. however, it is another example of a sports program not properly handling a problem, in this case a coach with anger issues, and a bad coaching philosophy

Arthur Ashe wasn't light in the tennis shoes. Where did you dream that up ?

on a side note...coaches have been screaming and throwing things at players forever. That **** was mild.

My swim coach stood poolside with a stack of kickboards during practice, and he was deadly with a head shot from about 20yds and in.

lots of things used to be done differently. things change.

You clearly missed the comments by Chris Culliver during Super Bowl week.

Why do you think players come out AFTER they are out of the league? Coincidence?

I threw the toaster at you because you're TOAST!

OMG..Classic:tro:

I guess. If the coach was winning he is still there. As I said before Division 1 sports are a business and money trumps all including boorish behavior.