Who Knew Beating Your Players Was Taboo?

Over the past few weeks, college coaches have come across a fact that is apparently new to them; they aren’t allowed to beat their players like dogs. You have to believe that coaches around the country are collectively saying that players today are a bunch of pussies. Regardless, lets look deeper into the incidences in Kansas, Texas Tech, and USF to see how I can make yet another serious issue into a joke.

(I am well aware that that joke was in poor taste and blah blah blah, but I literally wrote this blog just so I could use that line. If you took that too seriously, stop reading now because it doesn’t get better. For everyone else, I hope you enjoyed it because PETA WILL hunt me down and you will never hear from me again.)

Let’s start in chronological order and start with former Kansas coach Mark Mangino. Now, most of you expect me to talk about his giant ass, but I am going to take the high road…ok not really. As the gay Asian guy from The Hangover famously said, “It’s funny because he’s fat.”

In an interview with Joe Schad, team captain Joe Mortensen said that Mangino “told me he'd send me back to Oakland where I could be drinking out of a brown paper bag," Mortensen said. "He told me, 'You were a shit friend to someone I knew that passed away.' He called me a bum. He showed me no respect. He told me he'd send me back to the ghetto.” Cold, right? But come on; are you really shocked that a ridiculously fat, over stressed guy is a jackass? I would be scared of the guy too. How many players do you think he has eaten over the years?

After hearing that entire quote, I seriously am questioning the intelligence of the pudgy coach. So he knew that this kid lives in Oakland, AND his best friend was just shot, yet he still decided to threaten the kid without even thinking that the kid wasn’t going to murder him. Even if you despise stereotypes, you still are pretty sure everyone in Oakland is a thug and looks like a crazy ass Raider fan. It just wasn’t a smart move.

The next story was about Mike Leach, who I actually think got the raw end of the deal. Remember the speeches your grandparents used to give you that started with “back in my day…”? Yea, neither do I. Those were insufferable…but I digress. Anyways, the point I was trying to make was that if you told them this story, they would be confused about why he was fired because all of the stories we did bother listening to involved how tough people used to be. Leach basically put Eric James in big-boy time out. The only reason it got big is because James is ESPN analyst Craig James’ son. That was Leach’s biggest flaw, he did it to the one kid who actually had unlimited resources to show the world how much of a whiny prick he really is.

Finally, let’s talk about Jim Leavitt and USF and how it wasn’t reported about almost at all. Seriously, we spent WEEKS talking about both Mangino and Leach, but Leavitt barely gets noticed despite the fact that he is the only one who physically struck a player. Please tell me how it is possible we have become so numb to these occurrences so quickly. Anyways, the former USF coach was accused of slapping and choking a player during halftime of the Nov. 21 against Louisville and at least two unnamed players corroborate the story. Yet despite this, Leavitt continues to say he did nothing wrong. Not only that, but he demanded that he be reinstated! He assumed the school would act like it had battered wife syndrome and go back to him. Wow, he should be put in a psyche ward so we can study him and his looney tune ideas on how the world works.

I wish that just one coach would stand up and say, “Damn right I choked the kid. He was being a bitch and we were going to lose the game!” He would never coach a game, but I would forever love him.