Time to Rethink Role of Coaches

The Mike Rice debacle at Rutgers is unusual only because Rice got caught, writes Drew Magary at Deadspin. The sad fact is that top-level coaches are "freaks" who have gotten away with exactly this kind of behavior for way too long. "Both parenting and teaching have evolved significantly over the past 30 years, but coaching has not," writes Magary. It's time for that to change. We can start by stamping out the "idiotic" notion that coaches are parent figures—they are there to teach a sport, just as a math professor is there to teach math. Along those lines, coaches must be held to the same behavioral standards as other teachers.

The "geology professor doesn't huck a piece of quartz at you" for a wrong answer, so why should coaches get a free pass to be similarly abusive? "We have totally convinced ourselves that there's no alternative to physical intimidation, that a shove from Mike Rice or a thrown ball is merely a technique of the trade," writes Magary. "What it really reveals is the absence of any technique whatsoever—brute stupidity that we've inexplicably sanctified out of a total lack of moral imagination." No more. Click for his full column. (More Mike Rice stories.)