They say history repeats itself. Sometimes that happens more clearly and/or more often than one might imagine. A few short years ago, a coaching tenure that began with so much hope, so much promise and a feeling that the school finally had the right guy came crashing down. On Wednesday morning, the same thing happened at the very same school.
Once again, Rutgers had the wrong guy leading the men’s basketball program. Once again, Rutgers is on the search for a new leader, one whose tenure might begin with so much hope, promise and the feeling that they finally have the right guy at the helm. And once again, they are looking for a new leader for the wrong reasons.
It was just three years ago that Fred Hill was out as head coach after he got into a verbal altercation at a baseball game, then showed up at another one after being told not to. Hill’s tenure started with all kinds of hope that they finally had the guy leading the way who would help them start getting the top New Jersey talent that they had consistently missed on, and that pretty much never happened save for a couple of small breakthroughs. The results on the court were much the same as the Scarlet Knights didn’t improve.
On Wednesday, the school fired Mike Rice after three seasons at the helm, and this time it wasn’t for performance, although on that he might have entered next season with a warmer seat. Video showing Rice’s treatment of players at times during practice got out to the public a day earlier, and while Rice was suspended and fined earlier in the year for his actions, few outside the program had any idea just how bad it was until this came out. It’s clear now that it was worse than reports surrounding Rice’s suspension led us to believe.
Much like when Hill started, Rice’s tenure began with a lot of hope. Rice had many connections in New Jersey, helped by the time he spent with the Hoop Group, which is based there. He had recruited the state well while at Robert Morris. He proved he could coach the kids he had, getting to two NCAA Tournaments and winning a regular season title in his other season there, translating into an NIT appearance. Early on, he won some big recruiting battles to get the kind of talent they haven’t had in Piscataway in a long time.
Rice has always been intense. Watching him coach has never been a family show, although he isn’t alone in that regard. I once had a press row seat right behind the Robert Morris bench when he was the head coach there and got to see (and hear) it first-hand. But there’s being intense, and there’s what Rice did at Rutgers. Throwing basketballs at your players, including at their heads, is not “intense.” Grabbing them or shoving them in the manner that Rice did is not “intense.”
Rice can be surprisingly calm in post-game interviews, especially with a small crowd. He’s generally a pleasant guy if you find him at a recruiting event. He’s the same high-energy person he is on the bench, but usually less animated. That’s actually true of a lot of coaches known for their intensity on the sideline, from Frank Martin to former UMBC head coach Randy Monroe. And while Martin’s scowl and chewing out his players have become almost legendary, and Monroe made headlines when banning his players from their locker rooms one year, neither has done – at least to the public’s knowledge – anything near the level of what Rice did in the video footage that has now gone viral.
In Rice’s three seasons at the school, Rutgers went 44-51, including 16-38 in Big East play. The suspension probably took away a lot of the leeway he had in the reality of the team’s so-so performance to that point, as he probably would have kept his job for now with some pressure building if wins and losses were the sole factors. Looking at the team’s play, it’s not clear the Scarlet Knights were en route to Big East contention next season or Big Ten contention once they get there in two years. They were 15-16 this season.
There’s a lot about the head coaching job at Rutgers that is a draw. The school is in a big-time conference and in a talent-rich state, gets good fan support and has a good homecourt advantage, and it’s a fine academic school. The area near the campus has been built up in recent years, so it’s quite nice as well. With that, one has to wonder why they haven’t been able to have success, starting with the coach.
The school has not fared well with coaches in recent years, consistently having to let a coach go after an embarrassing incident. The only one not to have such an incident was Hill’s predecessor, Gary Waters, a fine human being who was simply not the right fit at the school given that he had great Midwest connections but none in New Jersey. Before Waters, there was Kevin Bannon, who was well down the list of choices for the job in the first place and was let go in 2001 after an incident where players and a manager ran wind sprints nude a few years earlier.
Rutgers might also be looking for an athletic director, and calls for the school president to step down have come as well. But it seems to be every few years that the school is looking for a head basketball coach, one who will give them more than just hope and promise for the future, but also, to deliver on that – and do it in a high-character fashion. At this point, it would be a step in the right direction if the next coach has to be let go simply for not winning enough games.
