Video surfaced on Tuesday of Rutgers basketball coach Mike Rice shoving players, throwing balls at them from point-blank range and denigrating them with gay slurs during practices this season.
Originally aired on the ESPN show Outside the Lines and later shared widely online, the disturbing footage triggered a deluge of outrage among fans, basketball players and even non-sports nuts on Twitter.
Here's the video:
You can count world's best basketball player, LeBron James, among the outraged. Here's a tweet James posted on Tuesday afternoon:
If my son played for Rutgers or a coach like that he would have some real explaining to do and I'm still gone whoop on him afterwards! C'mon— LeBron James (@KingJames) April 2, 2013
Many other players, including a pair of Rutgers alums now in the NFL, posted similar messages as the sports world reacted in shock to Rice's antics. Here's a post from Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry:
Man how is that Rutgers coach not fired already? If my son was on that team Id be on the first thing smoking to his soon to be vacant office— Stephen Curry (@StephenCurry30) April 2, 2013
And here's what Miami Heat guard Ray Allen had to say, via ESPN's Tom Haberstroh:
Ray Allen on watching the Mike Rice video: "It made me wanted to fight him. It made me want to fight this guy. Because that was me.”— Tom Haberstroh (@tomhaberstroh) April 2, 2013
But there's even more to this ugly story: Rutgers athletic director Tim Pernetti was given a copy of the footage you saw above back in November. Rice was then suspended for three games, fined $50,000 and required to take anger management classes -- but not fired. The suspension, in ESPN's words, was for a "violation of athletic department policy."
But the video's public revealing on Tuesday, along with the reaction it sparked, reportedly has Rutgers officials reconsidering whether or not to keep Rice as coach.
Should Rice be fired -- or are people blowing this video out of proportion? Give us your take in the comments.