John Wooden is famous for being one of the most successful college basketball coaches of all time. He's also remembered for some of his quotes. The quote that I kept thinking of today is this one: "The true test of a man's character is what he does when no one is watching."
Tim Pernetti is the athletic director at Rutgers. Robert Barchi is the president of the university. Pernetti is the guy who, last November, watched the now infamous video of former Rutgers basketball coach Mike Rice pushing, hitting, and kicking his players during practices over the course of the past 3 years. As if that wasn't bad enough, Rice was also throwing basketballs at players' heads, cursing them out, and using homophobic slurs to belittle them. So, what did Pernetti do after watching the video? He suspended Coach Rice for 3 games, fined him $50,000, and required that he go to anger management class. You know what else I think Pernetti did? He hoped that no one else would see the video.
Unfortunately for him, the video got out and now we've all seen Rice's despicable behavior. I watched the tape. The things Rice does and says to his players are pretty unbelievable. How Pernetti didn't fire him in November is beyond me. In fact, it's pretty shocking.
I probably shouldn't be shocked in this day and age at how quickly Pernetti flip-flopped on the issue as soon as it became public. His behavior today, and that of President Barchi, is really a classic example of poor leadership. Pernetti and Barchi made a decision in November which they believed to be an easy one. They decided to keep their coach, sweep his poor behavior under the rug, and hope that it would never come to light. Then, when they found out we were watching, they immediately caved to the public, fired Rice, and went into damage control mode.
I think we just found out quite a bit about your true character, gentlemen.
This is where the magic happens.
