NEW BRUNSWICK -- It's one thing when Saturday Night hit the hay makes fun of the affair enveloping the Rutgers University campus with a skit mocking Mike Rice, a light-hearted depiction of an out-of-control women's basketball coach who throws toasters at her players and drives a golf cart on the court.
It's quite another when the ESPN f achievement-finding program that started it all compares the affair to the most ill-famed semipolitical scandal of all time.
"One of the great questions, and it almost resonates from Watergate, is who knew what and when did they know it," Bob Ley, ESPN's award- lovable host, said midway through the " distant the Lines" report detailing the Rutgers controversy.
BRENNAN: Rutgers president's defense a joke
IMPACT ON TEAM: Transfers, recruits in holding pattern
Five days subsequently the Rutgers scandal became home(a) news with ESPN's "Outside the Lines" unveiling of an explosive videotape exhi situation Rice physically and verbally abusing his Scarlet Knights men's basketball players, more layers to the story were peeled back by the network's investigatory show Sunday morning.
The focus of John Barr's report touch on what Rutgers President Robert Barchi knew, and what he should have done to restore the latest in a string of scandals that has rocked college athletics.
The report dilate how the Rutgers president admits to being informed of Rice's behavior, and yet opted not to go over the videotape provided by former Rutgers basketball aide Eric Murdock in late November – mere days after Barchi sat crusade and center as the university enhanced its athletic profile by joining the astronomical Ten Conference.
PARODY: 'SNL' makes pokes fun at scandal
MORE: Rutgers' internal investigation
It begins with Barchi delivering his now-famous line – "This was a failure of do work" – and continues with Barr saying, "but the process is made of people and after a tumultuous week at Rutgers University a head coach (Rice), an assistant coach (Jimmy Mar come aparti), the athletics director (Tim Pernetti) and the university general advocate (John Wolf) are all out of their jobs. The reason: the now infamous Mike Rice practice tapes."
It details Pernetti's decision to hang up Rice for iii games without pay and fine the first study coach he hired $50,000 rather than fire him after commissioning outside counsel to investigate Murdock's assertions.
Belinda Edmondson, director of women's and grammatical gender studies at Rutgers-Newark, called for Barchi to resign.
"We have heard and get holdn all that we need to see and the time has come for President Barchi to step crush," she says in the report. "Whether President Barchi heard it on tape or the athletic director communicated this to him and they let it pass with a slap on the radiocarpal joint essentially … if I laid my hands on a student, if I called a student those names, they should kick me out the limen before I can take another breath."
EARLIER: Tim Pernetti out at Rutgers
PERNETTI'S WIFE: Resignation 'unfair'
The report balances the reproach levied on Barchi by showing a letter that lists three dozen faculty members praising Barchi's leadership as he integrates a new medical school, and notes the votes-of-confidence Barchi received from Gov. Chris Christie and Ralph Izzo, chair of the university's judicature board.
It concludes with Barr stating: "The question remains, does the fallout end hither?"
It didn't end there on "Outside the Lines" at least, as a embellish indeed peeled back more layers on the Rutgers scandal.
Don forefront Natta Jr., ESPN's investigative reporter, delves into the 52-page report produced by John Lacey of Connell Foley LLP and notes that Lacey's recommendation is that he could've terminate Rice's contract.
"It's quite confusing why Tim Pernetti said the consensus he heard was Mike Rice couldn't be fired," train Natta said. " pack that report and there is plenty of cause there that Mike Rice could've been fired for cause back in December."
Van Natta then notes what he calls "red flags" from Rice's coaching staff, detailing how Lacey's report includes licence of Rice's assistants notifying Pernetti of Rice's behavior "long before Eric Murdock" complained.
"There was plenty of banknote and Pernetti, really, I think just ignored it," Van Natta says. "I think the evidence is quite clear here that he tried to deal with it himself and really hoped this thing would go away."
That's when Van Natta offers a possible reason to Pernetti's decision.
"As we know," Van Natta said, " get in September through last fall Pernetti was actually busy trying to get Rutgers into the Big Ten and he made that happen."
Ley notes how Barchi, during Friday's press conference, told reporters, "you can look for a underwrite (but) you will not find one," and then asks his panel: "Is this a cover-up?"
"It certainly smells like it," Van Natta said, "because the thing I keep going back to is that on Nov. 20, with great split second Dr. Barchi and Tim Pernetti announced Rutgers' acceptance into the Big Ten, an incredibly lucrative run short for the university. And at that time Tim Pernetti already knows about these questions about Mike Rice's behavior. He sort of has kicked the can down the road, and solitary(prenominal) six-spot days later he sees the videotape.
"Now, think about this for a second — if he decides on the spot or the succeeding(prenominal) day to fire Mike Rice, this is an incredibly embarrassing bit of news for Rutgers just one week after winning entry into the Big Ten. But my question is whether that was part of the motive here for Tim Pernetti not to take action right away, to want second opinions, to hire an outside investigator and then to only suspend Mike Rice in mid-December."
Dr. David Ridpath, a professor of sports administration at Ohio University and former athletics administrator, then looks at the big picture of the Rutgers scandal by calling it "situational morality."
"We act irrational in certain situations with regards to college athletics where we try to warrant and moralize certain behavior," Ridpath said. "'You just had Rutgers at its finest hour, getting into the Big Ten, really the pinnacle of their athletic success, and then you have something potentially very embarrassing that can derail that publicly."
"What I would tell you from my time in athletic departments," Ridpath adds, "is nothing is more substantial than image. Nothing is more important than protecting the interests, and that appears to be what was misadventure at Rutgers at this time."
ESPN columnist Howard Bryant also questioned the timeline of it, saying: "There's no question that you're not going to let anything get in the way of that Big Ten deal. Whether it's Pernetti or Rice or Barchi, they all know what's taken place here. … You have $25 million at stake, you're not going to get in the way of that deal. And this easily could've derailed it, especially with those details."
Ley then asks, "Who bears the ultimate responsibility for this tiny, little relatively aspect – as horrible as the tapes are – metastasizing into something that has become this national spectacle?"
"I think it leads to the big cultural issues," Ridpath says. "When are we going to finally sit down and say do we have a present here that works? And frankly we don't. The model of college athletics, how it's structured now at least at the Division I level is mixture of like trying to stick a square nail into a round hole. It's time we really address the model and accept that the current model does not work. … There are ways to fix this but we need to sit down and have that serious conversation."
Materials taken from USA Today
No comments:
Post a Comment