Rutgers basketball coach Mike Rice was suspended for three games in December and fined $50,000 for what athletic director Tim Pernetti deemed to be "inappropriate behavior and language." ESPN has obtained practice footage from 2010 through 2012 showing what Rice was actually punished (or not punished) for: throwing balls at players, shoving players, and using abusive language.
Erik Murdock, a former NBA player hired by Rice as an assistant, claims he was fired by Rice in July for speaking out against the coach's actions.
"Bullying players made him feel better," Murdock said. "If he made a kid feel miserable, he was able to sleep at night better, even though the kid is going the other way and he's not going to be as productive. ... He has real anger-management issues. He can't control his temper. ... I can't believe that anywhere else in the country it is worse than this—it's the absolute worst."
Murdock claims that several players left the team because of Rice's actions, but other players spoke out to defend their former coach.
Tyree Graham, who was injured for two seasons but attended practice every day for Rice's team, said that at times Rice "crossed the line," and once the coach hit him hard in the back with a basketball. But Graham, 24, said he understood why Rice used those tactics because people "disrespected" Rutgers in the Big East and he wanted to simulate opponents' disrespectful attitudes during practice.
"No, I'm not personally offended by it," Graham said in a telephone interview from his home in Durham, N.C. "I was brought up like that. Coming from Durham, North Carolina, you have to have that chip on your shoulder. If you don't, you're not going anywhere. I backed what Coach Rice did for the most part."
Rice remains the head coach at Rutgers, and college athletes remain unpaid.
