ESPN's "Outside The Lines" has obtained videos from Rutgers basketball practices from 2010-2012 that show head coach Mike Rice grabbing, shoving, kicking players, and throwing basketballs at their heads. In the footage, Rice can also be heard screaming obscenities and homophobic slurs.
Rice was suspended for three games and fined $50,000 after Rutgers' athletic director Tim Pernetti reviewed 30 minutes of the tapes in December, according to ESPN.
Gilvydas Biruta, a former Rutgers player from Lithuania who transferred to Rhode Island, spoke with ESPN said the main reason he left was because of the way Rice treated him (from ESPN):
"He would throw his cap at me and he would call me many names. The adjectives were creative. They were mean words." Biruta said Rice's insults were often not about his game but about him personally. "If you're going to criticize me as a basketball player, I'm OK with that," he said, "but he would criticize me as a person."
Other players however, like Tyree Graham, told "Outside The Lines" he "backed what Coach Rice did for the most part" and that sometimes Rice "crossed the line" but he understood his tactics.
Here is some of the footage from practice, and you can read the entire ESPN story here >
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