What the fencing community can learn from the firing of Mike Rice

On April 3, 2013, Rutgers University fired basketball head coach Mike Rice one day after ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” published a damning report on Rice’s long string of physical, verbal and emotional abuse towards his team.

The video from “Outside the Lines” is difficult to watch. Throughout practices, Rice is shown shoving players, punching them, at one point hurling a basketball at a player’s head and still another ball at a different player’s genitals. In another part of the video, he screams at a player, “You f**king fairy…you’re a f**king fa**ot.” These are only a few of the items on the laundry list of abuses Rice imposed on his players.

This kind of behavior is not commonplace among fencing coaches, but believe it or not, it’s out there. This is Damien’s newest piece in the Washington Times on what the fencing world can learn from Mike Rice’s firing.