Pardon me, but I am not that exercised about the Rutgers
coach fired for verbally abusing and throwing basketballs at players in
practice. I am exercised about the
context in which the episode occurred, however.
If coach Mike Rice had not used
“anti-gay slurs” but used profanity or other insults, he would still be
employed. It doesn’t mean he is anti-gay; it means he used whatever juvenile
playground insult he thought (mistakenly) would motivate the players to play
better. Clearly calling them faggots did not have the intended effect. But denigrating
masculinity, politically incorrect as it may be, is a staple of coaching.
Always has been. Maybe it won’t be anymore, and I don’t defend it. It is just
another in a long list of immoral Neanderthal attributes of organized sports.
Collegiate sports has nothing to do with education or
sportsmanship. It’ s a professional undertaking whose only purpose is bringing
money into a university. Mike Rice follows in a long line of atavistic
psychotic coaches in college and pro sports. His problem is not what he did,
but what he did not do, and that is win. When an employee sought to extort
Rutgers by presenting the athletic director with a tape of Rice’s antics, the
A.D., suspended and fined the coach, who said he would clean up his act. The
university president was informed and let the A.D. handle it. (The A.D., of
course, is untouchable because he is the one who is bringing tens of millions
of dollars into the state university of New Jersey by joining the Big Ten
conference.) The system seemed to have worked, until ESPN got hold of the
disgruntled employee’s tape. The A.D., and the university president, made a
decision to fire the coach – based on bad publicity and the intervention of
Gov. Chris Christie.
Other than elections, I don’t believe public opinion
(especially on sports radio and the Internet) ought to be the basis for making
decisions. As a student in the late 1960s when governors routinely interfered
in the affairs of state universities, I will always object to craven university
presidents caving in to political yokels whose commitment to public education
goes only so far as cutting budgets and showing up at games.
I don’t think college sports has a place in American
educational or cultural life. But since it isn’t going anywhere, I have little
problem with these pissant incidents that supposedly compromise the uncompromisable.
So a standard approach for coaches is to belittle their players, so we should not get into high dungeon over this?
ReplyDeleteBut consider: How long would (or should) Rice have been coaching if he had used the N word to belittle some of his players?
WE should not get into dudgeon of any kind. Those who should are the players, at least one of whom had earlier transfered, and the A.D. and president, who took action. That some don't think the action was enough, let them have their private moments taped and put on the Internet. The most appalling thing I have heard (albeit on left wing television) is that the governor should get involved in hiring and firing decisions at a university. What next? Firing Marxist professors, or those who teach evolution?
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