Business As Usual in Jersey

For my final blog I had a little trouble finding an article that I wanted to write about. My topic is on the NCAA and, I didn't want to write on the same old articles. I happened to come across a new chapter in the Rutgers basketball controversy. “New Jerseyans unhappy with Rutgers basketball scandal payouts, poll finds” was the article that I found from a local New Jersey newspaper. It just so happens that the head coach Mike Rice received a settlement from Rutgers totaling 475,000 dollars just so he wouldn't sue the university. The same went for the athletic director Tim Pernetti who received an even more shocking amount totaling 1.2 million dollars to set down from his position. There were other officials that received money as settlements totaling around 450,000 dollars. So this means that over two million dollars were given to the men and women who did wrong.  What kind of message is this sending people? It tells me that there people are getting rewarded when they should be getting punished.

In order to truly understand why I find this so crazy I wanted to recap what went down at Rutgers.  The coach Mike Rice was verbally and physically abusing his players.  He in particular was using homophobic slurs with his players not only when they did something wrong in a game or at practice but, in everyday occurrences.  He would demonstrate defensive techniques by shoving his players in a violent manner. With much more force than they would experience with a normal foul.  It was also normal for the players to have basketballs violently thrown at their heads and legs when they would do something wrong at practice.  The word faggot was commonly used like and verbal abuse was the norm.

What’s more disturbing is that is that there is speculation that some of the higher up administrators had heard complaints about this behavior and not a lot was done to try and remedy the situation.  What I have a hard time understanding is how Rice what not brought up on criminal charges. He was hitting his players and throwing balls at them in my mind that sounds like some form of assault.  The only outcome that Rice has to worry about is how to spend his 475,000. However it is very interesting that in scandals like this there are always ripple effects that have far reaching consequences. Let me explain, there were many people that were either fired or were asked to leave. So Rice was the person that was abusing the players but there was a total of like six administrators that were also let go. This includes the athletic director and if it was a larger scandal even the president of the university like in the case of Penn State.

            While reading the article on Rice I noticed that there was a hyperlink for a related article to another Rutgers abuse article. Ironically this article was not about Rice but, about the lacrosse coach. It said that Rutgers had suspended the lacrosse coach for verbal abuse.  The article goes on to say that many people believed that it was unusual that allegations of abuse would come up with only two games left in the season. Many also doubt the accuracy of these allegations however; Rutgers didn't think twice to suspend him.  My point is that this whole issue with Rice will have far reaching consequences for many years to come.

Works Cited

Heyboar, Kelly. "New Jerseyans Unhappy with Rutgers Basketball Scandal Payouts, Poll Finds." The Star-Ledger. N.p., 25 Apr. 2013. Web. 26 Apr. 2013.

Staff, Star-Ledger. "Rutgers Suspends Men's Lacrosse Coach for 'verbal Abuse'" The Star-Ledger. N.p., 19 Apr. 2013. Web. 26 Apr. 2013.