Yes, I said it. I do not believe that Rutgers athletic director Tim Pernetti deserves to be portrayed as a negligent party in the Mike Rice scandal. Rice is the ex basketball coach of Rutgers University who was seen on video screaming and pushing players during practice. While Rice did deserve to lose his job for putting his hands on a player, it does not mean that everyone in the athletic department needs to be brought down.
This entire scandal started with a disgruntled employee trying to make money off of his former school. The story goes like this. Eric Murdock was terminated from Rutgers after he spoke at a competing basketball program when Rutgers was holding their own. Murdock then had his lawyer send over a letter to Pernetti claiming that he had video evidence of Rice mistreating players which is the video that has gone viral. Pernetti asked to see the videos which is when he reprimanded Rice by suspending him for three games and fining him $50,000.
While the punishment may be viewed as light, we are missing the big picture. Eric Murdock knew that Rice was being abusive with his players and did not mention it until he was fired! Does anyone not see the problem right there? Why didn’t he come forward the first time he noticed something was wrong? He let this bad behavior continue and waited until he knew he could profit off of this. So a bystander of this bad behavior is making $950,000.
Back to Pernetti. It is so easy for people to not realize all the good that he has done for this university’s athletic department. He has made Rutgers Athletics important and relevant, something it has never been. His progress has helped Rutgers make a huge jump into the Big Ten division. As a former Scarlet Knight football player, he felt a special connection to the school. He has received so much support from former players including retired New York Giants center Shaun O’Hara.
That tweet was then retweeted by former Rutgers players Ray Rice, Mohammed Sanu, and the McCourty twins (Jason and Devin). Clearly, if Pernetti was not doing a good job why would any of these players show their support? All these professors that have come forward looking for Pernetti and Barchi’s head on stakes should just get back to teaching. The public should have no decision in whether or not these men have jobs, but since it has come down to that, I will be the first to say that Tim Pernetti needs to stay Athletic Director of Rutgers University.
Pernetti is not innocent in this, but not for the reasons you might think,. First of all, he hired Mike Rice. That matters because by that time, you know Rice was already a guy who had developed his coaching style, and if Pernetti didn’t know what he was getting, he is guilty of not doing his due diligence. If he did know, then there’s no excuse for his not realizing what a threat to the university that videotape in the hands of a blackmailer was. Either way, it’s gross incompetence.
Having said that, I’m not sure that in and of itself rises to the level of a terminal offense. , but the fact that he completely blew the crisis management portion of this by not firing Rice immediately seriously calls that into question. Not to mention, the panel of lawyers who said not to fire rice need to be fired as well.