Coach stepping over the line?

[Coolhand Texas]

What do you all think here? http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/blog/the_dagger/post/Ugly-altercation-between-coach-player-leads-to-?urn=ncaab-325868

Was this coach over the line, has anybody else experienced coaching like this?

[beltic caldy]

wow....

[Coolhand Texas]

What gets me is he thinks he did nothing wrong and te school didnt take any action

[Cro Morgan]

The player took a dive (purposely throws his head back). No foul on the coach. Player should be suspended (for excessive whining).

[Banana Pancaekz]

The player took a dive (purposely throws his head back). No foul on the coach. Player should be suspended (for excessive whining).

I agree, but still the coach doesn't need to lay his hands on his players, how are you supposed to better your team when you're injuring them yourself? Just my opinion of all of it.

[Sherlock 117]

I was in basketball for 10 years under tough coaching, and rough drills like that are very commonplace.

In regular motion it doesn't look good. But in slow motion you can clearly see the coach was only trying to take the ball away from the player (likely getting him to think about protecting the ball). The coach, being a basketball player, cleared out his area with his hip. The player was not prepared to have the ball pulled in that direction, and combing that with his hip being pushed outward, his head came down and hit the coach's elbow.

The action afterward of the coach running up to the player and kicking him might look bad to people not familiar with high-level practices, but I am almost 100% sure he was only trying to get his player to get back into the drill and just reacted. Not saying it wasn't the right thing, but I agree it wasn't "intentional" in that he wasn't thinking, "Hey, I'm gonna kick this guy". Also, it was clearly not a kick and nothing that would have caused any pain, I would call it a nudge.

The coach probably wasn't choosing the right words in the interview. He should have made a point to say the result was an accident and unintentional. He clearly was not trying to inflict physical harm. Him saying that the kick was unintentional is confusing if you don't really understand his thinking. He's thinking, I was just trying to get my player back in the drill, and I just reacted by kicking instead of thinking of a better way to do that.

Finally, I really am more angry at this kid in the interview. Sure it's a shame this happened to him, but from my experience with sports I feel like the coach is being completely honest (though the words aren't coming out right). The kid is really looking for something. Why doesn't he say what he wants to have happen? He wants the coach to be suspended. And more likely, he is looking to get some money out of it.

I don't feel like there was any criminal intent here. The coach needs to be a little more careful, but these coaching tactics are commonplace.