It’s Time to Say Goodbye to the Mike Rice Style of Coaching

photo via abcnews.go.com

By: 89 Octane

As we all know by now, the Rutgers athletic program is in quite a scandal as video was released showing coaches crossing the line with their behavior towards the players. Caught on tape were things such as gay slurs, throwing balls at players, and even instigating fights with players. Hopefully, these incidents will mark the end to this style of coaching. In my opinion, the military style of coaching is ineffective.

Why do coaches use this philosophy? My best guess is that they believe the use of intimidation will help turn the players from boys to men and at the same time instill discipline. I am all for using sports as a tool to teach discipline. However, other traits should also be equally valued such as honor and respect. In order for these values to be passed along to players, the coach must use the same values. I hate to break it to all the old school coaches out there, but the military style of coaching is not as effective as you think it is. Sport is not war. You do not die if you lose. There will be a tomorrow. I have never in my life seen an athlete die for the cause of winning a game.

I’ll take the assumption that most people reading this have played an organized sport at some point in their lives. You have also probably had different styles of coaches, from the coach who just shows up, to the dictator I have described above. Usually, the higher the level you play at, the odds of having a dictator as a coach increase. I do want to make one thing clear: a coach who screams is not a dictator; a coach that uses intimidation and/or humiliation to coach is. I’ll give an example of what a dictator does and the hypocrisy associated with it. A coach screams and insults players in an attempt to intimidate them. The purpose of this is to help the player become a man and stick up for himself. Here is the irony -the player, under no circumstances, can stand up to the coach in any way. The player is more than welcome to be a man off the playing field, but when on the field, they must succumb to the coach’s demands. It’s a complete double standard.

My example may be extreme but I want to get the point across that coaches need to understand that people will generally respond with the same treatment you give them. If you respect your players, they will respect you back. This doesn’t mean that coaches should stop yelling or putting a player on the bench for making mistakes. This does mean that the Mike Rice style of coaching should cease to exist. Coaching is about making your players better athletes and better people. Putting them down and attempting to intimidate them as a means to accomplish those goals just doesn’t make sense. Hopefully, coaches will see the ineffectiveness of this style of coaching and focus on helping the players grow and not use intimidation techniques to get players to follow orders.