Most of us have seen the recent video of the Rutgers men’s basketball coach bullying his players, using foul language, homophobic slurs, and excessive physical acts to get his coaching points across to his players. Is this a typical example of man coaching young men in a testosterone-driven game to get them to realize the pinnacle of their talents, or is it no different than the bigger, older kid demanding milk money from the smaller, younger kid in the cafeteria lunch line?

As a bit of background, I played for a high school basketball coach much like Mike Rice, the Rutgers coach at the center of this coach bullying controversy. As high school kids, we made fun of him behind his back and complained to each other, but it was just the way he coached and we never complained to our parents or the high school administration. We saw it as discipline, no different than our parents grounding us when we did something socially unacceptable. But times have changed, and though not everything has changed for the better, this sensitivity to individuals abusing their positions of power has definitely gone in the right direction. We cannot mistake a coach bullying his players for a disciplinarian.

A Coach Bullying Players is not a Coach

Women are now encouraged to speak out against bosses who sexually intimidate them, young men can feel confident that priests should not take advantage of them, and players should be able to trust that coaches will treat them with dignity and respect. Though our politically correct world sometimes borders on the self-righteous and judgmental, in this case, it is easy to see that the coach bullying his players is not really a coach, he is merely a despicable and mean bully.

Is there a fine line between bullying and coaching? Perhaps. But, it is a line which every reasonably sane and self-aware coach should be able to clearly recognize. Yell at a player? Sure, it is part of the motivational process. Throw around curses like a drunken sailor? Though there should be some limits on vulgarity, every sports field, bench, practice facility, and locker room is filled with words you would never say to grandma. Homophobic slurs? They have been used for years to emasculate and degrade, but since the primary goal of a coach is to motivate and inspire, emasculation and degradation are not ideal ways to reach these goals. Besides, it is a better world if we can leave out of the motivational process, words that degrade someone based on race or sexual preference.

Coaches should create an environment that is open, positive, and team-oriented. As adults, they should be able to differentiate between mild forms of teasing and the more malevolent acts of abuse we call bullying. Bullying involves exclusion and threats, and robs those being bullied of their dignity and self-confidence. If the coach bullies his players under the guise of discipline, what does it teach his players? In the competitive world of college sports, winning is viewed as paramount, but there are pathways to winning that don’t involve screaming homophobic slurs at the team or throwing basketballs at the crotches and heads of the players. A coach bullying his players is merely someone with too much power and too little regard for his players.

Is a coach bullying his players an anomaly? Hardly. From Little League through the pros, coaches feel the pressure, as the late Al Davis would say, to “Just win baby…” A coach bullying his players, especially caught on video, as happened to Mike Rice, is viewed as disgraceful and unprincipled, but most coaches who step over that line between coaching and bullying are good men or women who feel the vice grip of pressure that is sports in America. Kind of like my old basketball coach who used to throw basketball at our heads. Well, I actually think he was really mean; he just did it for fun!

Hope you took some great value out of this post today! I’d love to hear your feedback, so make sure you leave a comment with your thoughts or questions. And also, you can click on the Twitter button below to retweet this article…Thank you!

Fred Philips
Business Coach
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