Mike Rice and abusive coaching

Last month, Rutger's men's basketball coach Mike Rice got fired for being verbally and physically abusive.


Mike Rice

 William Perlman/The Star Ledger/US Presswire

Mike Rice

http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/9125796/practice-video-shows-rutgers-basketball-coach-mike-rice-berated-pushed-used-slurs-players

In several dozen hours of video of Rutgers men's basketball practices obtained by "Outside the Lines," coach Mike Rice is seen hurling basketballs from close range at his players' heads, legs and feet; shoving and grabbing his players; feigning punching them; kicking them; and screaming obscenities and homophobic slurs.

The video shows practices from 2010-12. About 30 minutes of the video was viewed in December by athletic director Tim Pernetti, who suspended Rice for three games that month and fined him $50,000. But the incidents in the videos obtained by "Outside the Lines" appear to go beyond Pernetti's description at the time, when he cited "inappropriate behavior and language" between Rice and his players. When he announced the suspension on Dec. 13, Pernetti offered few specifics after conducting a week-long investigation. 

In addition to Rice's physical actions seen in the practices, Rice calls Rutgers players "f----ts," "m-----f-----s," "p-----s," "sissy b-----s," and "c---s," among other epithets.

[skipped paragraphs]

"He would throw his cap at me and he would call me many names," he said of Rice. "The adjectives were creative. They were mean words."

Biruta said Rice's insults were often not about his game but about him personally. "If you're going to criticize me as a basketball player, I'm OK with that," he said, "but he would criticize me as a person."

On a 30-minute video Murdock said he showed Pernetti and other Rutgers officials in December, Rice is seen hurling a ball from point-blank range just passed Biruta's head, shoving him and repeatedly swearing at him. At another point, Rice hurls a ball that strikes Biruta's knee. He appears momentarily hurt and has to sit out a play.

"The one thing I hated," Murdock said of Rice, "he would always talk about 'Lithuanian this, Lithuanian that,' talk about where he's from, 'soft-ass Lithuanian b----,' 'soft-ass Lithuanian p----.' His nickname was basically 'Lithuanian f----t.'"

These are NOT the actions of a disciplinarian!

These are the actions of an abusive, sadistic jerk!

 

Associated Press

But there are those who think otherwise.


From Salon's T.F. Charltonn
http://www.salon.com/2013/04/05/why_do_athletes_tolerate_abusive_coaches/?source=newsletter

When ESPN released videos of former Rutgers men’s basketball coach Mike Rice abusing players during practices — kicking members of his team, firing basketballs from point blank range at them, screaming in their faces, and hurling verbal abuse at them, including misogynistic and homophobic slurs – it did not take long for Sean Hannity and Michelle Malkin to come to his defense.

Malkin dismissed Rice’s firing as “political correctness … run amok.”

Michelle Maglalang Malkin should be the LAST person to complain about political correctness.

In fact, Michelle Maglalang Malkin has been protected by political correctness more than anyone else on earth!

  http://michellemalkinisanidiot.com/

Protected by Political Correctness

More than Anyone Else on Earth

I mean, whenever someone like Rush Limbaugh makes a mildly stupid joke, liberal websites like Salon and TheNation go after him with a vengance. Their writers write MEGA-LONG articles chronicling EVERY controversial comment Limbaugh has made, and repeat every sins of America's past too.

Michelle Maglalang Malkin is MUCH, MUCH, MUCH, MUCH, MUCH more mean-spirited than Rush Limbaugh.   But because Michelle Maglalang Malkin is a "minority", the politically correct liberal writers at Salon or The Nation refuse to write aggressive criticisms of this evil, wicked, satanic, racist anti-immigration fanatic. Instead,they limit their criticism to 1 or 2  mild paragraphs! Now, THAT is political correctness run amok!


Now, back to Mike Rice's defenders

http://www.thenation.com/blog/173704/mad-men-why-fox-news-and-former-players-defend-former-rutgers-coach-mike-rice

For Fox News Host Sean Hannity, Mike Rice's firing constituted something of a national tragedy. “I kind of like old-fashioned discipline," he said. "Maybe we need a little more discipline in society and maybe we don’t have to be a bunch of wimps for the rest of our lives... My father hit me with a belt and I turned out okay!”

Look at what I just highlighted in red!  Anytime you hear someone say stuff like "My father hit me with a belt and I turned out okay!”   WATCH OUT ! That person is THE TOTAL OPPOSITE OF OK! You're dealing with someone who is out of touch with reality!

 AmericanGiants.com

Sean Hannity 

(the guy who thinks he's OK after getting hit by a belt)

And off course, there are some players who defend Mike Rice

Less simple to grasp is the second group of Coach Rice’s defenders: some of his former players. Junior Rutgers forward Wally Judge said during a telephone interview to the AP, "I have grown from the moment I stepped in these doors, not only as a player, but also as a person because of how [Coach Rice] has treated me." Another player, sophomore forward Austin Johnson said, "[Coach Rice] did a lot for us off the court, academically, socially.... I am not saying what he did wasn't wrong, because I do believe it was wrong. But it is also tough because it was a highlight reel of his worst moments."

University of Pittburgh guard Travon Woodall also defended Rice, who worked at Pitt as an assistant, but in the process said he was "not the only coach to put his hands on a player, or talk the way he did." In other words, what Coach Rice said and did wasn’t a big deal because this kind of abusive behavior is a normalized part of high-level youth sports.

I don’t doubt the sincerity of these players at all. I do think their synchronicity with the Hannity and Bolling crowd speaks volumes about how bullies and the bullied can define their lives by the same logic and come to same rationalization: it’s necessary. We recognize this behavior in battered women that defend their husbands.

READ THAT AGAIN!


This is the "battered wife syndrome"!

If all you know is abuse, you don't expect better!

This was highlighted above with the phrase from the player who said he was not "not the only coach to put his hands on a player, or talk the way he did." 

This mentality is very dangerous!

It is this mentality that kept slaves from rebelling!

It is this mentality  that kept people from rebelling against dictatorships! 

It is this mentality  that makes it easy for young women to be victimized by pimps and spouse abusers!

It is this mentality  that allows lost and confused young men to take abuse from violent bullies just to feel like "one of the boys"



People like Sean Hannity thinks it is "toughness" to take crap from abusive coaches and bosses!

WRONG! 

Real Toughness means NOT TAKING ABUSE FROM ANYONE!

Obviously, that's easier said than done.

It's hard if you're reliant on a basketball scholarship to stay in college. It's especially so if you're from a lower socio-economic background. 

It's hard if you got kids to feed and your only hope is to remain at the job with an abusive boss! 

But you can only take so much abuse! 

It's not healthy to take crap from others everyday.

Life is too short to remain under the rule of abusive coaches, bosses or spouses! 

And in this day and age, we have the Internet to help us! We have blogs that allow us to tell our side of the story.

We don't have to be silenced by the abusers! We can tell our stories, write our blogs, mention it on a social network, and receive support from the decent people around the world. 


And importantly, we have to help others going through an abusive situation.

Of course, you cant fight your battles alone!

Sometimes, you need to tell the higher-ups, the authorities.

 DO NOT BE AFRAID of being called a "tattle-tell" or a "snitch"!

In fact, I "tattle-tell" and "snitch" when necessary! 

And I'm proud of that! :) 

 

Boston Marathon terrorist attack

A few weeks ago (April 15, 2013 to be exact)  there was a terrorist attack near  the finish line at the Boston Marathon.


Most of us traditionally think of April 15th as the federal tax deadline. In Massachusetts, it was the 3rd Monday of April, which means it was Patriot's Day, a day to commemorate the battles of Lexington and Concord, which started the American Revolution. 

And to celebrate Patriot's Day, they have the Boston Marathon, which is one of the tougher marathons because of all the uphill running involved.

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Whenever a terrorist attack occurs, we all naturally start to question "who was involved?"

There was talk of a Saudi suspect, a "dark-skinned male" being involved.

A New York Post showed a photo of Moroccan-American teenager as a suspect.

Meanwhile, Salon's David Sirota was openly hoping that a "white male" would be involved, just to shut the anti-immigration fanatics up!


It turns the suspects were  2 white-skinned (so much for a dark-skinned suspect) guys who were of Chechen ancestry. Chechnya is in the southern part of Russia.  In fact, Chechnya is in the Caucasus mountains, the same mountain range in which the word "Caucasian" (commonly referred to the white people of Europe)  came from.

Wikipedia

The Caucasus region

(look for Chechnya among the light pink sections)

Whereas most of  Russia traditionally practices the Eastern Orthodox form of Christianity,  Chechnya is mostly Muslim. Because of these difference, some Chechens wanted to make their own country, which led to an armed rebellion against a powerful brutal Russian force.


But the 2 suspects didn't have much experience in Chechnya, being that they moved around a lot.

They arrived to the US as minors, being of 8 and 15 years old in their first arrival.

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Because of the suspect's immigration status, the anti-immigration crowd is going bezerk!


They felt those 2 boys shouldn't have been allowed to enter the country.

But remember, they were still kids when they entered. The younger one was only 8 years old when he arrived.

As anyone with a brain knows, you can only predict so much about an 8 year old kid's future behavior.


Even with a 15-year old, you can only predict so much.

I mean, I remember former classmates who were either slackers, gangstas or wanabees at 15 years old, who now in their early 30's, are living a productive law abiding life.

I also remember one classmate, who at 15 years old, was a quiet guy with so much academic potential. Didn't bother anyone. Yet, in his early 20's, killed his music professor with a meat cleaver. That would be Jackson Ngai.

 http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2004-11-12/237295/

http://www.statesman.com/news/news/crime-law/ut-piano-professors-killer-remains-in-state-custod/nWQcH/



As for the terror suspects, most of their classmates had never predicted they would become terrorists.


So much for the idea of predicting someone's future behavior.


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Some reason from the Reason Magazine website

http://reason.com/archives/2013/04/30/conservative-restrictionists-get-silly-a

None of this, however, would have prevented the attack given that the Tsarnaev brothers obtained asylum around 2002 at the ages of 8 and 15 along with their parents, fleeing persecution in Russia. Reportedly, the older brother Tamerlan, a boxing champion, became radicalized only eight years later, after his mother, not seriously religious then, reminded him of his Islamic faith's strictures to wean him off alcohol and drugs. When he met his wife, Katherine Russell, at a nightclub, he was a nominally pious, somewhat confused young adult with few signs that he'd become a raving zealot.

That U.S. immigration authorities leave something to be desired when vetting dangerous foreigners has been apparent since Mohamed Atta, the 9/11 hijacker, was handed a visa after he flew a plane into the World Trade Center. But expecting the immigration system to predict that Tamerlan would become a lunatic is as reasonable as expecting psychiatrists to diagnose that Timothy McVeigh would become a terrorist when he was a toddler. The lack of omniscience in human institutions is not a curable flaw.

And more Reason

Requiring foreigners to go through rigorous background checks is perfectly legitimate. But shutting the border to economic migrants, whether computer geeks from China or apple-pickers from Mexico, in a vain effort to deter a future Tamerlan won't make Americans better off. Indeed, since the vast majority of immigrants are here because some American wants to hire them or marry them or whatever, the government can't chase them out without asserting Draconian powers overs Americans as well. Witness Alabama laws imposing a business death penalty by revoking the license of any company found hiring illegals. Or Arizona's effort to detain individuals not carrying their papers to prove their legality.

Every year, Americans are less likely to die through a terrorist attack than a lightning strike — or wrongful death by overzealous law enforcement. More immigration restrictions will make Americans less — not more — safe.

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And what about Radical Islam? Here, a real Muslim tells it like it is!

 http://www.salon.com/2013/04/22/i_am_not_the_tsarnaevs/

Before brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were even identified as the Boston bombing suspects, the media announced the usual villains: a “dark-skinned suspect,” a 21-year-old Saudi “jihadi” whose only crime was to run away from a violent explosion, and a 17-year-old Moroccan high school track star who attended the marathon carrying a bag. There was also a clarion call from conservative columnist (and sometime Fox News guest) Erik Rush to murder all Muslims.

We now know the suspected brothers were born in Kyrgyzstan, are ethnically Chechen, and lived in America for several years. They are literally Caucasian since their family originates from the northern Caucasus region. Neither of them were dark-skinned, “Saudi,” bearded or brandished a fiery red trident or horns on their head.

The profile of these two brothers highlights the conclusions of the British Intelligence Agency MI5 report that states Muslim terrorists in the West “are a diverse collection of individuals, fitting no single demographic profile, nor do they all follow a typical pathway to violent extremism.” In the words of Olivier Roy, a French scholar on Islamic societies, “the process of violent radicalization has little to do with religious practice.” In fact, most Islamic fundamentalists are “religious novices” and “there is evidence that a well-established religious identity actually protects against violent radicalization.” A MAPOS study found that Muslims’ religiosity curbs anti-American extremism and “that mosques and religiosity are associated with high levels of civic engagement and support for the American political system.”

[my note: that's just like how the most fanatical Christians you might've met tend to be the "born-agains" who just joined the Church and now want to "spread the good news"]

Undeterred, the Twitter tribunal persisted and asked why Muslims do not renounce and actively discourage violent extremism? Well, 40 percent of all extremist plots in America were thwarted as a result of Muslim American help. Also, Muslim Americans continue to aid law enforcement, are more likely to reject violence than any other U.S. religious community, and overwhelmingly renounce the extremist ideologies of al-Qaida. A Muslim American community in Virginia proactively tipped off the FBI and turned in five radicalized youths. A Senegalese Muslim vendor was the first to mention the burning car bomb in New York’s Times Square incompetently engineered by Faisal Shahzad.  Muslims in Orange County received a restraining order against a mosque attendee who advocated jihad against America. Ironically, he turned out to be a mosque crawler: Craigh Monteilh, an FBI informant, who said he was paid to infiltrate the local community and entrap potential radicals.

But you know what?


The anti-immigration fanatics are losing!


Their loudmouth freakouts have cost the Republican Party in 2012!


And many Republican politicians (at least the ones who care more about winning elections than kissing the rears of  talk show loudmouths and conspiracy morons) are joining the Democrats in crafting a new immigration policy that would be much more lenient than the current policy.


The tragedy pimping of the anti-immigration fanatics no longer work!

 

Coming soon

As some of you may know, I'm in my first semester as a graduate student at UH-Manoa's Library and Information Science (LIS) program. 


The last few weeks, I've been finishing up some projects for my classes at UH-Manoa. Because of this, I haven't had time to blog lately. But now that I'm 95% done and ahead of schedule, I'm back to the blogging business.


So here's a few topics I plan to blog about soon.


- Boston Marathon bombing
- Rutgers basketball coach getting fired
- recent deaths of Glenn Cannon, and Chris Kelly
- my reflection on my 1st semester as a grad student at UHM.