The clip above surfaced yesterday, showing Rutgers University head basketball coach Mike Rice physically and verbally abusing his players. Rice was fired today. Ray Allen saw the shocking footage, and says he felt like fighting Rice for the way he treated those kids. Per the Palm Beach Post: “Ray Allen not only watched it prior to entering the Heat’s locker room Tuesday night, but he called over Heat teammates — such as Norris Cole, Udonis Haslem and Dwyane Wade — to watch. ‘I mean, it was just despicable,’ Allen said. ‘Not only as a parent, but I think about where I went, the places I’ve gone in my career, my parents kind of lent me to all these other people. I’ve been raised not only by Mom and Dad, but by several coaches, AAU coaches, high school coaches and then my college coach, and all of them had a hand in getting me to who I am today. And not to mention the teachers that I grew up under, learning, so we trust in the people we lend our kids off to, to help them grow. And I only hope when I let my kids go, there’s somebody watching them and growing and making sure they do that. What I’ve seen in that video was despicable. It made me want to fight, it made me want to fight this guy, watching him throw the ball at those players. Because that’s me, wanting to learn, you make mistakes, you’re not doing it on purpose, you’re trying to learn. And that’s what coaches should do, you teach. Yelling at kids and throwing balls at them, there’s no place for that.’ […] Allen said if this happened at UConn, where he is on the Board of Directors, ‘I would do everything I can to make sure that coach got fired, whether it was any sport, because there’s no place for that.'”
